Companion/Cooperative Plant Growing & Overwinter Crops

[eien_herrison]

My garden's slowly coming along, and the vegetable patch has been bordered out into a raised bed with some soil in it (the gardeners are using the soil from the garden as they've said it's very fertile, so I suspect our only issue with it was the stones. This does mean there's a load of grass in it, but also the possibility of weeds; I'm going to

Comments

[virginiadear]

It was either Eliot Coleman or Brett Farnham (er...I think) who mentioned that marigolds are in fact not a wonder plant, but whoever the author was also listed the crops to which marigolds are good companion plants.

Oh--comfrey, if you can get Russian-14 comfrey (it's not invasive; most comfrey is very invasive, but if you're okay with digging the stuff out...) is an excellent companion plant for tomatoes, especially with marigolds. Comfrey is supposed to work wonders, if not miracles, in compost, and comfrey "tea" is said to be very beneficial for your garden plants.

Off the top of my head I don't recall Coleman (my food cropping bible!) touting the "Grow Bio-Intensive" method as such, but he does point out that some crops can be planted much closer together than is standard practice ("standard practice" being conventional, traditional or recommended-on-the-seed-packet spacing) and can be planted mingled with other plants or food crops as long as there are adequate nutrients to support what you've planted and nothing is being actually choked out. Leeks or onions, for instance, will just gently "jostle" each other into position if they're planted very close together.

It's important to remember, though, that one of the reasons you want that spacing isn't just for the roots but to help prevent diseases developing on the green tops, vines, or leaves due to poor air circulation: circulating air is critical to plants' good health, and the extra room above ground prevents transmission of disease through leaf/stem contact. So, you need low-growing lettuces, for instance, between taller-growing cucumbers (on trellises) or leeks or carrots or beets.

You can preview the Jeavons book (and at least one of the two Coleman books I cited) at Amazon (dot) com. If you don't find them shown with the "Look Inside!" feature at amazon-UK, try the US amazon-dot-com.

[eien_herrison]

I've had a quick look for comfrey -- only one site I've got sells it, but they offer it as seed, sterile cuttings, and also as pellets in a 600g bag.

I'll preview those books (and see if I can preview some others) on the US Amazon site soon.

[virginiadear]

ETA: My error! That should have been Brett Markham, not "Farnham." The title of his book I was thinking of is, "Mini Farming Self-Sufficiency On A 1/4-Acre."
Despite the intent indicated in the title (mini-farming), there's a lot of very good growing information in that volume.