You can grow your own food. We can help.

Good bedfellows

Aug 15, 2011

Being a backyard gardener on a city lot, I've been experimenting with companion planting both out of interest and necessity. My approach has been to think about growing habit and family and to try and mix the two. Above is one example of a bed that was unplanned but working out nicely. This bed was supposed to be successions of carrots but when tomatillo volunteers started coming up I decided to let both share the bed. By the time these tomatillos get really big and viney in a month, the carrots will be finished.

Other companion beds I've got going right now include onions with basil, peppers with okra and eggplant, and broccoli with melons.

I'd love to hear what others are coplanting right now.

-Johanna

ABOUT THE AUTHOR, johannagreen

I am a back yard gardener. Our small plot produces food for our family of 3, plus friends. I'm interested in sharing what I've learned so far in 5 years of gardening and learning what...

Comments

Allotmentmanyork

Tue, 08/16/2011 - 04:37

Hi Johanna. Wonderful typo. It made me chuckle all morning. I apologise for pointing it out. Regards Glenn

Jessica Still

Wed, 08/17/2011 - 10:53

@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman";}@font-face { font-family: "Lucida Grande";}@font-face { font-family: "LucidaGrande";}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Hi Johanna, Here’s a co-planting idea from Maxine Walker’s post last Saturday that I plan to adopt for the shared front-yard-vegetable & flower garden I am helping install > flowers to nourish pollinators are very important to co-planting! Many are edible & medicinally useful - dried leaves are pretty in herb tea mixes. http://kitchengardeners.org/group/organic-natural-soil-amendments The post describes Maxine’s NEW permaculture lawn-replacement garden installation, titled Sheet Mulching in the Natural Soil Amendments Group. “ ... I will seed my raised bed gardens with Dutch white clover (nitrogen fixer) with a light straw cover this fall to be left in place PERMANENTLY throughout all spring and summer planting. This technique was pioneered by Masanobu Fukuoka in Japan in 1978 in his book One Straw Revolution and his no-till methods. Push the little clover plants aside and plant, either seeds or transplants! Permaculture is nature's way who toils not and buys nothing. : )” I replied > “Thanks to you Maxine - we will use DWC in the front & side yard vegetable beds we installed this summer. These are challenging times for all pollinators & I am becoming more & more aware of organic & urban gardening projects where the beautiful photos show no extra flowers to help sustain & nourish the pollinators. I was thinking Alyssum & I love your recommendation for making DWC a perennial mulch that also helps keep the soil from getting sun-baked & fixes nitrogen from the air to contribute to natural fertility for for companion crops. The petite size of Dutch White Clover fits well in smaller gardens too ...companion crops. The petite size of Dutch White Clover fits well in smaller gardens too ...”