Reasons For Companion Planting

Organic Gardening

With growing concern at the levels of pesticides on vegetables, and the increasing use of hybrids and chemicals to rapidly accelerate the growth of some vegetables, more attention has been given to organic gardening.

Organic gardening is growing without the use of chemicals of any kind. If you can keep the pests that decimate your crops away using a non-chemical organic solution that is a good thing. If you can help your garden grow naturally, without the use of chemical fertilizers it means you can achieve the organic garden results you want.

One more negative of using pesticides is that the same spray that kills destructive insects also kills the beneficial insects that help keep the destructive ones under control. There are insects that pollinate your vegetable plants, without pollination, the fruit doesn’t grow. Bees and wasps may frighten you, but without them, your garden is doomed from the outset.

Alleviate Crowded Gardens

With the use of companion planting, regardless of which method you choose you can opt to grow more than one crop in the same location. In using the Square Foot Gardening method of companion planting alone you can grow an estimated eight times more vegetables than the traditional row method.

A well built raised garden can make weeds in your garden almost non-existent. Weeds grow everywhere, and the sole purpose of a weed is to grow, propagate and starve the nutrients from the soil your desired plants need.

Low Maintenance

With ground cover veggies keeping weeds under control, other companion plants keeping insects off the products of your labor and other plants serving as supports for your vine vegetables a lot of the work that goes into the typical garden is substantially reduced. Less time working in the garden and producing the same or more impressive results is a worthy goal. More importantly, it is attainable given the right amount of planning and attention to detail.

Increased Yield of Harvest

The right combination of soil management, proper planning and strategy can decrease the number of vegetable lost to pests and disease. A small garden yielding a modest amount of veggies can begin yielding increased harvests. Producing enough heirloom fruit and vegetables can multiply exponentially when you harvest a small percentage of them exclusively for the seeds they generate. This is something you can’t do with the seeds of the hybrids you purchase from the grocer.

Nutrient Management

The concept of allowing a plot of land to grow ‘fallow’ for a season comes from ancient times. It is when a field that has been used to grow the same type of vegetable for several seasons consecutively, that field is allowed to ‘rest’ during one season. While the technical details may have eluded the ancient people, they knew that crops were better when they practiced this technique.

The reason this worked is because of the nutrients found in the soil. These nutrients are used up by the vegetables each year. Tomato plants for example require a substantial amount of nitrogen in the soil. The problem is that the plants use up the present nitrogen at a rapid rate. Once these levels drop due to use, subsequent tomato plants grow slower and produce less fruit.

The fact is that some plants take nitrogen from the soil, while others help in creating nitrogen in the soil. Pairing two of these together in the same field can increase the harvest and keep the nutrient levels balanced in your favor. By the same token, there are some plants whose use of nutrients in the soil can be detrimental to other plants.

If your garden failed to produce last year, it may be a simple matter of what you are planting and not a lack of skill in gardening. A little knowledge goes a long way towards making you a successful gardener we will discuss the interactions of vegetable plants with other vegetable plants, with herbs and with flowering plants to help you plan your garden, so don’t start planting yet.