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As a trap crop, they are an excellent choice for keeping pests away from beans, tomatoes, fruiting trees and brassicas (plants in the cabbage family).
You can learn all about trap crops and how to use them in your garden here.
How to Utilize Trap Crops To Save Your Garden From Pests
Another thing to bear in mind is that by attracting their prey, and in other ways, nasturtiums are also excellent at attracting predatory insects, which will help to keep pest populations in check.
Nasturtiums act as a brilliant companion plant for squash, cucumbers and other cucurbits because their smell repels or confuses many of the common pests by which these plants are bothered.
3. For Ground Cover
Companion planting is not an exact science, and the many ways in which plants interact with one another and with garden wildlife is not entirely understood. Nonetheless, it is clear that nasturtiums can help other plants through their interactions with various insect species.
But this is not the only way in which nasturtiums can help nearby plants.
These drought-tolerant plants can also be excellent ground cover. This can be extremely beneficial – especially in drier, warmer areas, as it will reduce moisture evaporation and help to protect the fragile soil ecosystem. Their thick coverage and quick spread can also help crowd out weeds.
As ground cover, nasturtiums can also be used to feed poor soil over time. When used as a sort of green manure, these plants can improve the soil in a given area by adding nutrients when left to decompose in place at the end of the growing season, or chopped and dropped.
4. To Cover Unsightly Walls or Fences
Nasturtiums growing alongside an ugly fence.
The quick growing nasturtium can also be handy to improve the visual appeal of your garden, as it can be used to trail down unsightly walls or fences.
This can turn an unattractive and useless part of your space into a beautiful and bountiful part of the garden.
5. For Their Yield
A basket of nasturtium flowers and leaves harvested from the garden.
Many people are surprised to learn that nasturtiums are edible.
These plants not only aid other plants in your kitchen garden, they can also be an incredibly useful edible crop in their own right.
As an edible crop, these plants can really justify their place in your kitchen garden.
The flowers, leaves and flower buds can all be used in a wide range of recipes. Some of the best examples are given below:
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