Companion Planting

Organic gardening uses cultivating practices that benefit the plants, thus avoiding artificial commercial remedies. One of those practices is companion planting.

Organic gardening uses cultivating practices that benefit the plants, thus avoiding artificial commercial remedies. One of those practices is companion planting. Native Americans were familiar with this practice. Over time, they discovered that corn, beans and squash, planted together, produced better crops for all three. The bean vines climb up the corn stalks, which give them elevated support along with an extra bit of shade. As we discovered later, beans add nitrogen to the soil. The squash vines ambled around the base of the plantings, providing ground level shade with their large leaves, conserving moisture. These big leaves on thick vines also discourage ravaging animals like raccoons. This winning combination was named the Three Sisters. If you can find some fast growing corn seed, it's not too late to start your own Three Sisters garden. Check the label on the seed packet. In 65 days, we'll be in the middle of September, in good time for a harvest.

Other boon companions in your veg bed include carrots and tomatoes. Parsley's aroma helps to repel carrot flies. Radishes and pole beans do well together. The radishes you plant now will be HOT, but some people like them that way. You can wait until late in the summer when temperatures start going back down to plant for a fall harvest. At that time, you can sow radish with spinach and more beans. If sown with lettuce, radishes will be more tender.

Garlic cloves planted in a circle around roses reduce blackspot, mildew, aphids and Japanese beetles. It can winter over if it is mulched well in the fall. Another benefit of garlic is that it can reduce red spider in tomatoes. It is not a good neighbor for peas or beans.

Planting a diverse variety in any garden will reduce problems, sometimes simply by separating like plants (as opposed to the common "monoculture" method). Pests and diseases will spread much more slowly, if at all, when the next meal is not placed so conveniently nearby. There are some plants that do not benefit each other, so that needs to be taken into account.

Two excellent books on this subject written in the 1970's by the late Louise Riotte are "Roses Love Garlic" and "Carrots Love Tomatoes". Both have been revised and updated, and I have found them to be very useful as well as fun to read. Companion planting makes a dramatic difference in the health of your plants, reducing stress for plants and people, too.