Mixing Crops In The Garden

As I have progressed through several years of gardening I like to try little experiments from year to year just to see if there might be a more efficient way of doing things.  Companion planting is something that I have attempted over the years and have learned that some combinations work out better than others when it comes to certain crops.

I have grown several variations on the three sisters planting of corn, beans and squash with various outcomes.  The first year I tried it I laid out a block pattern with patches of corn and beans alternating with spaces filled with squash.  It turns out that my timing was off with some of the plantings so things didn't grow quite the way that I had hoped.  The happiest crop was the corn which grew super tall and shaded out the squash below.  The beans were happy to grow up the corn but I found them very difficult to harvest and decided that shelling beans would be better for this kind of set up.  The squash that grew along the edges of the blocks did ok, but weren't super productive.

Last year I think I found a way of mixing these crops that was better for all of them, but the plan could still use a little tweaking.  The squash was only planted along the front edge of the bed and were given plenty of room to spread out.  They made a great ground cover to keep the weeds at bay once they were well established.  The corn was planted as early as possible and once it came up I planted the beans among them where ever there was a space from a corn seed that didn't germinate.  The corn gets a head start on the beans this way and makes a great trellis for the climbing pole beans that I like to grow.

Another crop that I have experimented with are tomatoes.  The main issue that I have had with tomatoes is that I still haven't found a trellis that I really like for them.  I have done the cheap wire cages and tying them to a stake.  They usually end up overgrowing the trellis and pulling it to the ground defeating the purpose.  This year I am trying the same kind of trellis that I used for my cucumbers last year.  I have chicken wire with two inch holes stretched between t-posts that I drove into the ground.  I have done my best to prune off the lower suckers and secure the growing vines to the fence with baling twine.  This method seems to be working the best so far and there is enough room at the base of the plants that I decided to see if they could happily share the bed with a handful of other crops.  I had planted the basil seedlings that I started this spring along the edge of the tomato bed spacing them several feet apart.  After the second pruning and trellising session with the tomato vines I found I had plenty of space between the basil plants to add in a smattering of carrot seeds.  They will probably grow very slowly in the deep shade beneath the tomatoes but I will leave them in the ground until after the tomatoes die back in the fall.

Carrots are one of those crops that are discreet enough that they can be tucked in just about anywhere there is a little space.  They can stay in the ground well into winter so I don't even have to worry about harvesting them during the busy season of summer.  All I do is sprinkle a few seeds where ever I can find a little room and I will have plenty of hidden treasures to dig up long after the summer garden is gone.  I like to use them to help break up soil in a bed and they also help to bring deeper nutrients in the soil closer to the surface for other crops to use.  They don't interfere with the above ground growth of most crops because they have fern-like leaves that don't grow very tall.  I have planted them in my broccoli beds, alongside my tomatoes and peppers and mixed in with lettuce.  The general rule with carrots seems to be that you have to plant them far enough away from the main crops that they have enough light to get established.  If they get buried under large shady leaves then they will not get very big until the shade is removed.

Lettuce is another crop that can be mixed with other crops if there is room in a bed.  I did sprinkle some lettuce seeds among the corn last year and it did well in the summer heat because of the cool shade of the corn they were growing under.  Lettuce also has a fairly short growing period so it can be used in succession planting to fill in holes in beds, or it can be planted to fill in a bed where an early crop was cleared.  There are so many varieties that the array of leafy patterns can be quite decorative in a vegetable garden.