Make the most of your garden space by mixing flowers and herbs with your annual vegetables.
Pairing the right plants together, those that gardeners have observed grow well together, allows plants to do some of your garden work for you. This accomplishes several functions as we can see…
One classic example showing some ways plants work together is the native American corn/beans/squash combination:
Poll beans climb up the corn stalk, so the corn is the support, or trellis, for the bean. So the corn just saved you from building a pole bean trellis. The bean is a member of the legume family of plants. This plant family are what are called ‘nitrogen fixers’, which means they capture nitrogen and store it in nodules on their roots, making it available for other plants to take it in. Corn is a heavy nitrogen feeder, so in exchange for the support the corn gives the beans, the beans feed the corn. The beans just saved you from having to add something to feed your corn. The squash plants wind all around the base of the corn and beans, providing them shade cover to keep moisture in the soil longer for all of them. The squash just saved you from watering as much or putting down mulch to hold moisture in the soil. A couple nice additions to this already cool combo are:
- Sunflowers in the mix to also support beans and provide seeds for humans and birds.
- Nasturtiums attract a ‘beneficial bug’ called hoverflies. Beneficial bugs are so named because they prey on other bugs that like to eat your food, although, in a diverse ecosystem, all bugs are beneficial to maintain balance. Hoverflies like to eat bugs like aphids and thrips. Nasturtiums repel loads of critters who want to eat your crops including: cabbage loppers, worms and weevils; squash, cucumber and bean beetles and more. In addition, the leaves and flowers are edible!
Companion planting is a good way to design your garden beds. See what plants go together and plant in those combinations. Start with simple combinations and then get more complex over time. Good places to start are:
- tomatoes/lettuce/onions/marigolds/parsley
- peppers/basil/marigolds/chamomile
- peas/carrots/lettuce
- bush beans/potatoes/flax
- cucumbers/radishes/nasturtiums/dill
Another reason to use companion planting is it makes a beautiful garden, as these photos show, and remember, beauty is food too!
Container gardeners, you can do this too! The same combinations apply, either in the same container, or containers that are next to each other.
I’ll write more companion planting, so check back.
Prior Unity Garden Blog 