- Companion planting
or inter planting is a powerful gardening technique
that I think confuses a lot of first time gardeners.
But if you think about it,
it's really been practiced probably
since the dawn of agriculture itself.
Think about something like beans and corn.
Pole beans are needing something to climb up.
Corn provides that stock
and also sort of protects those beans.
Then you add something like squash to ground cover
and sort of shade that entire system.
And voila, you have the three sisters method of planting
that indigenous Americans came up with so many years ago.
But while some combinations are intuitive like that
or maybe something like tomatoes with flowers,
so that bees come by and help pollinate the tomatoes,
there are some really science-based companion
planting ideas that are somewhat counterintuitive.
And that's exactly what we're gonna talk
about in today's video.
As I stand here under my rose arch,
it's tempting to the eye to think, wow,
this plant's just kind of blowing around in the wind.
It's not doing anything.
But that couldn't be further from the truth.
Not only is it actively growing at all times,
but it is actively trying to protect itself
from would be predators.
Take roses, for example.
If you zoom in, you'll see there's some thorns
on my Cécile Brunner climbing rose.
That's gonna dissuade pests
from chomping down on those canes.
It's gonna dissuade little rodents from maybe
building a nest or a bird from building a nest.
And honestly, even myself, I'm gonna have to strap
on some pretty heavy duty gloves
if I want to prune that rose and be safe.
But it is not only visible mechanisms that plants
use to protect themselves from pests or predators.
Believe it or not,
some plants can actually inhibit weeds on their own.
They don't need you to come in and spray.
Cucumbers is actually a great example of that
to the point where a good combination
is taking cucumbers and putting them in
between your tomatoes in your summer tomato garden.
It's kind of funky, but they actually produce
allele chemicals which inhibit weeds and other seedlings.
And notice I say other seedlings,
which means other edible stuff that you might want
to grow might not be a fantastic idea to plant right next
to a cucumber, not only for the inhibition effect,
but also because they're gonna produce all of these leaves
that are gonna block light that will also inhibit weeds.
So you can think about these combinations
that are a little counterintuitive,
but produce an interesting result.
When looking at planting for weed control
and these interesting companion planting ideas,
looking at farmers is often a good indication,
especially if they're organic farmers
because they make their living doing this,
so they better be doing a good job.
And speaking of, you get into this crop called winter rye.
Winter rye has 16 chemicals that are known
to inhibit seed germination,
but only at that stage.
You can actually put
in a large tomato and it's gonna be completely fine.
So a lot of farmers, they'll put winter rye in the winter,
let it grow, and then chop it on down,
and it inhibits most
of the common weeds that they're going to experience.
Something like foxtail or purse lane.
So it's something that you could think
about sprinkling in your row.
Next up, trap crops
and the name is very self-explanatory in this case.
I'm actually standing above one right now,
one of my favorites, which would be Nasturtium.
They can sometimes suck up the attention
of unwanted pests that might attack your brassicas
like an aphid or something like that.
But another interesting idea is,
if you suffer from flea beetles,
which might be hitting your tomatoes in the summer,
you can plant radishes or Bok choy near them.
Flea beetles tend to like those a little bit more
and they will sort of attack those and leave the plant
you actually want to grow a little bit more intact.
So it's a little counterintuitive.
You're planting something edible that you want less
around the thing that you want more,
that the pest also wants more.
So flea beetles, Bok choy and radish is a good combination.
Another one is taking tomatoes
and putting cowpeas next to them,
if you're dealing with something like a stink bug.
If you see stink bugs all up in your tomatoes,
throw some cowpeas down.
They like cowpeas way more.
They'll go on over to the cowpeas
and then you can actually pick up and collect the stink bugs
and extinguish them so that they don't reproduce.
So another example
of a weirdly counterintuitive combo
that serves the purpose of preventing a pest.
My favorite example
of this trap crop idea is actually a positive one
and it's taking alyssum, sweet alyssum,
and planting it next to things like tomatoes.
Why?
Not because a pest is attracted to the alyssum.
It's actually because the pest
of a pest is attracted to the alyssum.
A braconid wasp really loves
to be on and around that alyssum,
but what it will do is it will find tomato hornworms nearby
and lay its eggs in the back of the tomato horn worm.
Little gruesome, a little freaky,
a little raw nature there, but it is true.
And you'll see these white little balls kind of hanging out
on the back of its tomato hornworm,
that's actually the eggs of the wasp,
which will kill the hornworm for you.
And then the larva of those eggs can destroy aphids,
which of course can also impact your tomatoes.
So not only does it beautify that combination,
it's a very pretty plant, very beautiful,
but it has this crazy benefit of automatic pest prevention.
Some crops like this beautiful Brassica right here
and even more specifically within the Brassica family,
mustards have what's called a bio fumigant property to them.
There's a compound called isothiocyanate
within this family of crops specifically,
that not only gives it that bitter taste
that we either know and love or know
and tolerate depending on your particular tastes,
but it also helps control fungal diseases
or soil borne diseases like verticillium or fusarium.
So if you plant this or companion plant this,
with a particular plant that might suffer
from it, it can help.
But this is also why you see specific types
of Brassicas thrown into like a cover crop mix
that you'll throw onto a bed
at the end of a season and just let it chop and drop.
It's because when tilled back into the soil,
it's really effective
at controlling those soil-borne diseases.
Some companion planting combos actually improve the quality
of your soil, either the nutrient density,
of it or the texture of it.
And we're looking at one
of the most famous ones right here, peas and beans, legumes.
What they'll do is they'll fix nitrogen.
Basically, they'll take atmospheric nitrogen
in the air and affix it to themselves,
and then eventually when they die,
it's broken down into the soil.
So it's not as simple as just,
hey, you planted some peas magically.
There's more nitrogen in your soil.
So let's talk about a couple combinations that really work.
So how do you use nitrogen fixers correctly in the garden?
You've got things like bush beans, cow peas,
and our personal favorite would be fava beans.
Here's how to do it.
What happens in the actual plant
is that the nitrogen is fixed
to these nodules that are around the root zone.
So while the plant's growing, yeah, you could plant beans
and I don't know, tomatoes at the same time
and there'll be some level of additional nitrogen,
but it really isn't a ton.
It's actually better to grow those plants ahead
of the crop that you're going to put in next.
So beans or fava beans, especially since they like to grow
during those colder months,
when you cut them down you don't rip the roots out.
You just can't do that because, of course,
all the nitrogen is in the nodules, which is in the roots.
You can cut 'em down to the ground, don't rip the roots out,
leave them in, and then plant into that area.
And then you'll actually get some
of that nitrogen fixation benefit.
So if you're looking
for a very clear companion planting idea,
you can take corn and fava beans,
plant fava beans,
maybe there, there and there,
on the outside edges and on the interior
and then you could take corn
after the fava have really started to grow,
maybe gotten close to the end
of their life and sew it down the middle like that.
So they get to benefit from the fixation that's taken place.
A lot of gardeners struggle to get good pollination,
maybe on their cucumbers or their squash,
and this is where thinking of the garden not just
as a place to grow your groceries, is really key.
I'll be honest, when I first started gardening
I was like, if I can't eat it,
why the hell would I grow?
It makes no sense,
but in fact it's completely the opposite.
You need to be planting flowers
of all different shapes, heights, sizes, colors,
as long as they're not invasive
or harmful in your region, in your garden,
and you can plant them in all different ways.
For example, in this bed, this is sort of a mixed bed.
It's not exactly set up for spring quite yet,
but I've got some xenias.
I have some other stuff hanging out in the midst
of some of my winter stuff
that's finishing up.
Now when I put in some summer stuff,
well, this is gonna do really well
in attracting some beneficial, some bees, some butterflies,
some moths, all that kind of stuff.
It is not just about improving pollination,
it's also improving the beautification of your garden,
which is something that quite frankly, I'm still working on.
So things like this, planting on the edge of a bed
and allowing it to spill and trail over.
This is just starting its journey,
but certainly is well on its way.
Making a state and peace in the middle and then
planting some things that might benefit from the beneficials
that are around it on the perimeter
might make a lot of sense.
Now, to be honest with you, this is an entire video,
maybe many videos of flour and vegetable combinations
that work really well.
But even something as simple guys as taking a tomato
and putting basil next to it,
you get a little bit of of a companion benefit there,
not only for you know the garden,
but also for the kitchen, of course.
And so you might be companion planting
without even knowing it.
There's much more to talk about here.
If you're really looking for some interesting pollinators,
I encourage you to check out botanical interests,
which is our seed company.
We have all sorts of different packs,
regional, specific, very targeted ones.
So take a look at that.
Until next time, good luck
in the garden and keep on growing.