Companion Planting
Source of Recipe
Martha Payne
Companion Planting
Companion planting can brighten up your vegetable garden, improve plant growth, and help keep away some nasty bugs!
Vegetables, as we all know, are well-liked as a food source - and not only by us!
Companion planting can help keep some pests away, or attract them elsewhere. Borage, for instance, keeps tomato hornworms away from tomatoes and attracts bees for pollinating.
Basil planted around tomatoes is reputed to improve their flavor -- whether or not it does, you'll have some fresh basil to improve the flavor of your spaghetti sauce! Dill can act as a hornworm trap, as they'll go for it before almost anything else.
Mint, peppermint and catnip (also a member of the mint family) repel a number of pests, including aphids. However, they are best kept in pots around your plants, as they can be very invasive.
Geraniums and marigolds both repel a number of insects, as well as adding some color to the vegetable garden.
The onion family (including garlic) repels a number of insects, and some mammals as well. (More ingredients for that spaghetti sauce, too!)
Legumes (peas and beans) are nitrogen fixers, and good crops to plant near heavy nitrogen users. Plant some shade lovers below tall plants. Native Americans were known to plant beans (a nitrogen fixer) and corn (nitrogen user) and squash (needs some shade) together for these reasons.
There is, of course, the other side of companion planting... some plants do not do well in proximity. Plants with the same needs will compete for space and nutrients.
When planning your garden, consider companion planting. There are a number of good books on the subject and you can experiment on your own as well. Even if things don't work completely as planned, you'll have a great variety of vegetables and herbs to harvest for a dinner from your garden. And some flowers for a centerpiece!
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