(Many thanks to all of you who have so generously contributed to Lydia and Keaton’s wedding gift.  In just 4 days they are halfway there!  We are all deeply grateful and appreciate your well wishes.)  

Like most of you, I
scan the news trying to keep abreast of all the nonsense going on in this
country and determine what needs to be done next in preparing for the
worst.  It’s mostly a matter of what I
need to learn next, but every once in a while there is something new to acquire
that will make TEOTWAWKI so much more bearable. 
😉

And after the last
gardening season, I decided one thing I didn’t want to be without was
nasturtium seeds.  Really.

Prior to last
season, I had never grown a single nasturtium. 
Well, not that I recall at any rate. 
I’d seen them around and knew what they were, but they just never did
anything for me.  I like bright pink and
purple and dark red flowers.  White
flowers.  Yellow and orange, which is
what most nasturtium varieties are, don’t really get me excited.  They still don’t get me all that excited,
appearance-wise.  

But I read something
early last year that suggested I wanted to learn a little about them and give
them a try.  A gardener somewhere on the
internet claimed that nasturtiums repel cabbage butterflies—the same pretty
white butterflies that lay millions of eggs on cabbage and broccoli plants, and
which eggs hatch into little caterpillars that absolutely devour the garden.

I was so dang tired
of those butterflies.  I hate what they
do to me.  I’m a nice person.  I mind my own business.  I just want to care for my family.  And those butterflies turn me into a
murderous beast who spends each spring and summer morning screaming like a
banshee and running like a crazy woman all over the yard trying to kill pretty
little white butterflies.  

It wasn’t so bad
when I could get the girls to do the killing for me.  Twenty-five cents per butterfly kept them
happy for a few years.  Then they got
older and started selling their angora rabbits for $80-100 each.  Only a fool would chase butterflies for a
quarter.  Even when I raised it to a
dollar I got no response.

So I decided to give
nasturtiums a try.  I didn’t have much to
lose.  

I planted one
nasturtium for every two cabbage and broccoli plants.  And then I watched. 

And those darn
butterflies still flitted all around the garden.  Contrary to what “some guy on the internet”
said, the nasturtiums weren’t repelling the little buggers at all.  

But you know
what?  There weren’t any cabbage
butterfly eggs on the broccoli and cabbage. 
No matter how hard I looked, for all the cole seedlings planted next to
the nasturtiums, there wasn’t a trace of insect damage. 

So what was going on?  Back to the internet for more research. 

Come to find out,
the nasturtiums don’t actually repel cabbage butterflies.  Truth be told, they attract them.  Drawing in
more pests isn’t generally considered a working model for most gardeners, but
in this case, the butterflies are more attracted to the nasturtiums and they
lay their eggs there.  The caterpillars
eat the nasturtium leaves and leave the cabbage and broccoli alone.  And then if you want to make sure the
caterpillars don’t mature into butterflies, it’s a simple matter of removing
the nasturtium leaves to kill them. 

Unfortunately, you
can’t just throw a few nasturtiums into the ground and call it good.  Most people recommend planting one nasturtium
(and it appears that orange nasturtiums are the most effective) for every two
cabbage or broccoli plants.  That’s a lot
of flowers.  That’s a lot of space that
isn’t devoted to growing food.  Well,
actually…. 

Nasturtiums are
edible!  How’s that for a bonus!  Not only will these plants help keep cabbage
worms away from your food crops, but the flowers make a lovely addition to
salads.  In fact, there are dozens of
ways to use nasturtiums.  Most involve
including them in garden salads, but they can also be used in making vinegars
and salad dressings.  Some make a caper
substitute with them or use them in omelets. 

Remember also, as I
posted earlier this year, flowers also help “hide” the vegetables you are
growing.  When most people see flowers,
they see a flower garden.  They usually don’t
notice the vegetables.

And finally, while
nasturtiums aren’t what I’d consider a medicinal powerhouse, they do have
medicinal uses.  That’s a topic for
another post.

Links to related posts:

Stealth Gardening  

References:

https://practicalselfreliance.com/nasturtium-recipes/