Straw, pollinators and other tips for your Northeast Ohio vegetable garden

Galvanized metal raised bed plants are available in a variety of colors and sizes. Weed-free straw can be used as mulch to keep the weeds out and the warmth and water in the soil.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- With Memorial Day weekend kicking off the unofficial start of the summer planting season in Northeast Ohio, lots of folks will be setting up their summer vegetable garden.

Here are some ideas and tips:

New options for raised beds. As the demand for convenient, economical, and environmentally friendly raised bed gardening continues to grow, new options have been hitting the market. Corrugated metal raised beds are now available in an array of colors, shapes, and sizes at big box stores like Lowe's, Home Depot, and Tractor Supply Hardware, as well as online. They are comparable in price to plastic and lumber raised bed kits, are simple enough for a kid to put together with a screwdriver, should be quite durable, and look reasonably attractive. My new asparagus garden is in a corrugated metal planter that is 18 inches high, which is a great way to bring the garden closer to me and farther from critters. I filled the bottom with large sticks and branches that blew down in a spring windstorm, which makes it easier to fill the raised bed now and will decompose over time to add nutrients to the soil.

Read all of Susan Brownstein's columns online.

Weed suppression in vegetable garden beds. Several readers have asked about weed suppression in vegetable garden beds. I have been using weed-free straw to cover the bare soil between plants in my raised beds. No straw is entirely weed free, as far as I can tell, but the weeds that do emerge are shallow-rooted grasses that are easily identified and pulled. In addition to suppressing weeds, the straw helps retain warmth and moisture. Other options include shredded dead leaves or even newspaper if you receive a print edition (the ink is now made of organic material, not lead). Whichever you choose, put the mulch down now as you plant your vegetables and you will thank yourself throughout the growing season.

Marigolds are a common companion plant in vegetable gardens to attract polinators.

Companion planting to attract pollinators. Another frequent question is why a garden's zucchini and cucumber plants have a lot of flowers but never set fruit. The answer is that there is not enough cross-pollination happening, which requires the help of bees, beetles, wasps, moths, and butterflies. To attract these friends to the garden, companion planting of flowers near or even among vegetable plants is an effective—and beautiful—technique. Widely available choices include marigolds, zinnias, cosmos, and snapdragons.

This year I will be trying nasturtiums, which have edible flowers and attract aphids. While that may sound like a bad thing, gardeners use nasturtiums as "trap plants" for aphids and discard of the parts of the plant that have been attacked—better to lose a nasturtium or two than an entire melon plant. Another intriguing companion plant is borage, which is an old-timey herb that seems ready for a comeback. Because bees "see" colors that are in the ultraviolet end of the spectrum, blue flowers like those on borage are said to be particularly appealing to them.

If you are not ready to plant your summer vegetables yet, all is not lost for the season. Depending on the weather, June growth can be slow for many heat-loving vegetable plants like tomatoes and peppers in Northeast Ohio, and squash borer activity is at its peak, so plants that go in the ground over the next few weeks are likely catch up quickly.

If you have any gardening questions or tips, email me at [email protected].

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