There is a lot to be said for common names, and "Shoo Fly" sounds likes it's worth trying. This is a reseeding annual in my garden, it grows best in part shade. I broke open a few dried seed pods from the nicandra and rubbed the seeds up and down on my skin before trotting out with the dog tonight. I was outside with her for about an hour and came home totally bite free. Usually Liz and I are the only ones out on the street and so we're the prime targets for the bugs.

I am so far very happy with this, I will try it again tomorrow and I will hope again that I won't get chewed up. Also, as a "side effect" the nicandra seeds soften your skin. I've collected their seeds three years in a row and it's the same every year, the skin on my hands really does feel softer and it lasts for a few days.

Trudi

- Karen

Waiting to hear......

Nicandra will grow in full sun or part shade, it seems to prefer part shade in my zone 7 garden. The plant's shape reminds me of a mimosa tree where you have the slender trunk and on top a large spreading canopy.

In my hellstrip gardens which are in full sun and unwatered, and have sandy dirt for soil, the nicandras will self seed and grow to around two foot wide at the top and maybe eighteen inches high.

I have at the patio an inset garden which only receives direct sun at noon, the rest of the day it is in various stages of indirect light. This garden has been fallow this year except for some weeds and the perennials I haven't yanked out yet, I am redoing it and have really procrastinated. It gets no attention and no water. I have several self sown nicandra seedlings there which are nearly four feet high and with a canopy that is just as wide. The plants bloom at the end of their stems and they keep on growing and blooming and growing and blooming, and this is how the canopy forms.

The seed pods develop and turn into little crispy balls under the canopy. When they are paper-bag brown and dry and crispy to the touch the seeds are ready to harvest. Inside the pods there is a fleshy stem which the seeds are grown from, you would crush the balls to open them, and lay them out on a plate in the sun for a few hours to help dry up the stem and the seeds of residual moisture. When I am crumbling the balls it is the inside stem that I believe contains the "whatever it is" that softens my hands.

Last night I just took a couple of dried balls off the plants and crumbled them up in my palms, and then rubbed myself up and down with the seeds and chaff. I have not tried only the leaves yet. In my garden I can't tell if the plant itself repels flys. I don't see that many except on the "morning fresh" dog bombs. I would take into consideration that SHoo Fly is a very old common name for the plant and may mean any variety of flying insect(s), and not just the ones that buzz around garbage cans or excrement. I have plenty of flowers to attract beneficial insects, there are a lot of happy bugs here so I don't know if the nicandra is keeping any of them in particular away. I don't seem to have an over-abundance or annoyance with any group of bugs this year (except for this spring's slug war....grrrr). It all seems pretty well balanced.

Trudi

Trudi

I have plenty to share. Please email me for the SASE info.

Trudi

Pam

Thanks tammy

I believe the plant has some limiting effects on flying bugs. Where I let the shoo-fly come to compete with sweet corn, the incidence of corn earworm was noticibly reduced. Coincidence, maybe. I tried growing it around flytraps to see if the plant could overcome the stinky attraction of the traps. Nope.

We just pulled about 200 Nicandra plants (young and mature) at the farm in prep for fall-winter crops. Gone to composting heaven now, so have only a few left in seed to offer anyone some.

Does this work with purchased seeds, or just fresh off the plant?