Herbs are for more than just making your food extra wonderful or supporting your health and vitality through tea blend infusions. Planted in strategic places in your vegetable garden, herbs repel certain kinds of insects without the use of harmful chemicals.

Try planting these herbs and flowers in your garden as preventative measures. If you get a really bad infestation, go to chemicals, but these plants can help prevent problems.

Here are a few bugs, and expert recommendations on herbs to plant for prevention.

Ants: Pennyroyal, spearmint, southernwood, tansy

Aphids: Garlic, chives and other onions, coriander, anise, nasturtium and petunia around fruit trees

Borer: garlic, onion, tansy

Cabbage moth: mint, hyssop, rosemary, southernwood, thyme, sage, celery, catnip, nasturtium

Colorado potato beetle: green beans, horseradish, dead nettle, flax, catnip, coriander, tansy, nasturtium

Cucumber beetle: tansy, radish

Cutworm: tansy

Flea beetle: wormwood, mint, catnip, interplant crops with tomato

Japanese beetle: garlic, larkspur, tansy, rue, white geranium

Leafhopper: petunia, geranium

Mexican bean beetle: marigold, potato, rosemary, savory, petunia

Mites: garlic, onion, chives

Nematodes: marigold, salvia, dahlia, calendula, asparagus

Rose chafer: geranium, petunia, onion

Slug: rosemary, wormwood

Squash bug: tansy, nasturtium, catnip

Tomato hornworm: borage, marigold, opal basil

Whitefly: nasturtium, marigold

Petunias, marigolds and geraniums can be planted in a border around the garden or trees. If you want the benefit of catnip without digging it out of your garden for years to come, put in a large clay pot and place nearby. For other pest prevention plants, thoughtful inter-planting of vegetables can help with the process.

Using herbs and flowers in this way can keep your garden “green” and prevent tears when you find your prized tomato plant cut off at the root by some nasty slug!

This article was brought to you by the friendly Tea, Herb and Spice folks at the 10000Seeds website. Show your appreciation for this newfound knowledge by browsing the unique collections of dried herbs and spices available to enhance and expand your cooking adventures. We especially recommend the Sweet Herb and Spice Adventure for an enticing change of pace!

Article By Evelyn Fielding