This idea was stolen (with thanks) from Michael Wardle of Savour Soil Permaculture
There are articles on attracting good bugs to your garden already on the website here and here, but I found this to be an idea that is elegant in its simplicity and wonderful in its effectiveness. The idea is that you have a mix of seeds for plants which attract good bugs, an inert carrier (sand) to make even dispersal of the seeds easier and a fertiliser (kelp powder) to give the plants a leg-up once the seeds are germinated. All of these components are kept as a dry mix in a glass jar, ready for broadcast dispersal in the area you want to grow them.
There is a very wide choice of flower seeds you can pick to go in your mix, and while this has been covered elsewhere in more detail some things to think about when deciding what your mix should include –
- Does a flower chosen do well in your area?
- How long do they flower for?
- What colour flower do they produce?
- How hardy are they?
- Do they have a potential to become a weed?
- Can they perform other functions? (eg nitrogen fixer, edible flowers or ground covers)
As an example, I made a mix up of Alyssum (mixed), cosmos, calendula, echinacea, gypsophila, heartsease, lupin (mixed), marigold (mixed), phlox and poached egg plant.
To make the mix, I placed the seeds I had into a small glass jar, then added about four to one ratio as much sand as the seeds, by volume on top. I only use coarse sand here but figured I should remove some of the boulders so I ran the sand through a small kitchen sieve first, giving me a sand particle size similar to most of the seeds. I then added another 0.5 part of dry seaweed powder on top. I then mixed everything by rotating the jar for a few minutes, with a bit of end-over-end mixing thrown in. I don’t think the ratios are critical, but that’s how I did it and it seemed to work for me.
As always, unless you are going to use all of the mix straight away, it should be stored in a cool, dark, dry place, labelled as good bug mix (especially if you memory is anything like mine) and some indication of a ‘sow by’ date if you have one.
A bit of research and you can develop a mix that will attract all sorts of good bugs to your place, increasing biodiversity, improving your yields and reducing your pests. Putting you seed mix into a glass jar along with some sand and kelp powder will give you a powerful tool you can start using right away. In Michael’s words it is ‘easy to make, easy to store and easy to use’!
