1stop Organic Gardening

Companion planting is one system that many organic gardeners use to help keep plants healthy and reduce pest problems by working with nature.

Growing different types of plants close together often confuses pests, so that they don’t find your great row of carrots, say, and munch all the way through the row to the end (then belch loudly, thankyou very much!).

This photo shows my cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower that have been interplanted with lettuce (mignonette grows all year round here). Here’s the same space when I first put in seeds – April 29th. Of course things grow much slower now that the weather’s turned cold, so we’ll still have to wait a while for the brassicas, but we’re picking the lettuce as we need them.

The yellow flowers belong to bok choy, which will be pulled out and thrown to the chooks in the next day or so. I also have snow peas growing next to the bok choy.

I find companion planting – along with other organic gardening methods – is a great tool that helps me to grow my food plants without chemicals.

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

Julie

Filed under: companion planting, vegetables on June 24th, 2008