eGarden © 2006 Ed Mues

From The Garden of Ed. Submitted for publication in The Towne Crier on January 25, 2006

Expanding the Garden Family.

Very few of us wishes to live alone. The desire for companionship offers much that led to social order and societies. It's not so different in the plant world.

More than five thousand years ago, ancient Chinese documents indicated that there was a special affinity between Asiatic ginseng (Panax schinseng) and mountainous deciduous trees. Also mentioned is the "Kia" tree. Roman agriculturist, Varro, in the first century B.C. noted the ability of walnut trees to give off some substance that inhibited the growth of some plants, but not others, in the vicinity of its roots. Theophrastus in the fourth century B.C. wrote about the relationship between weeds and food crops. Folklore, hearsay, ancient herbals, and more popular idioms such as organic gardening publications and farmer's almanacs, all seem to point to the fact that many plants benefit when grouped together.

Companion planting, aka. "inter-cropping" by agronomists, is a technique of combining two or more plants in close proximity for the mutual benefit of all. Inter-planting eliminates a monoculture -- a plant pest's heaven with no competition. A reason in its own right.

Consider this "beauty and the beast" scenario. It has been known for a long time that a special "relationship" exists between the highly cultivated and inbred rose, and the wild, original, and uncivilized garlic. It's as if nature created a yearning on the part of beauty for the very noble beast that might liberate her. Planted alongside garlic, the rose plant grows stronger,healthier, larger; she produces bigger, better, more fragrant blooms. The lowly savage, the garlic, produces soil inhabiting substances that protect rose's roots and that repel her greatest enemy above the soil, the aphids. What a match-up! Perhaps her thorns and strong, intoxicating aroma deflect the garlic's enemies, too.

How does one plant cheer-up another? Help it along to do some job it's not capable of doing alone?

Beneficial plant relationships come at the introduction of the homesteader of farmer. It is he or she who sows or plants clover or alfalfa. Cover crops they are called. They might also be sunflowers, cucumbers, oats, tobacco, rye, French marigolds, or many others. Cover crops might aerate the soil, reduce soil compaction, add organic matter, move valuable nutrients from the deep subsoil closer to the surface, prevent erosion, and even, as in the case of the walnut tree mentioned above, provide allelopathic substances to the soil that will inhibit weed germination. It is at the soil level and beneath that we learn about the changes in soil chemistry, microbiology, and nutrient enrichment.

No doubt you've heard of the "three sisters", native to North America via several American tribes. In the Northeast, the three sisters were about a legend of spirits that translates to "our sustainers" or "those who support us" and they provided a planting system for high yield, high quality crops with no negative environmental impacts. The three sisters were corn, beans and cucurbits. A balanced diet.

The corn offered the structure for the beans to climb on, as well as some shade. The beans (legumes) replenished the soil with nitrogen and fed the corn and the cucurbits. The large leaves of the squash or pumpkins (cucurbits) shaded the soil to cool it and conserve soil moisture and provide weed control. In addition, its spiny nature may have deterred raccoons from preying on the corn as it ripened. A companionship going on for centuries, with slight variations in different parts of the continent. In some regions sunflowers took the place of corn. Pumpkins took the place of squash.

One plant might be a very favorable companion for another, whether used ahead of planting as a cover crop, or as a constant partner during the productive season. One such example is French marigolds which are the nemesis of soil nematodes, near microscopic roundworms predacious on many garden crop plants including tomatoes, beans, broccoli, carrots, corn, and sweet potatoes.

Some companions repel the pest insects of their partners by giving off a strong odor, or that masks the scent the pests are seeking, or in some cases, that attracts them and so confuses them they cannot find their usual target plants.

Some crop plants are put in for the sole purpose of luring pests away from the more valuable ones. Here the pests are easily collected or disposed of or sprayed to be rid of.

A favorite is putting in plants that attract large numbers of beneficial predator and/or parasitic insects that do the job of insecticides without having to use any unnatural products. Nature's good guys controlling crop pests.

Consider the following: Garlic planted at the base of peach trees repels borers. Basil planted among tomatoes repels tomato hornworm. Nasturtiums planted among squash repels squash bugs. Tomatoes planted among asparagus repels asparagus beetles. Thyme and lavender repel slugs. Tansy and pennyroyal repel ants.

This is but the very tip of the companion planting iceberg. There are pages of vegetable, flower and herb companion combinations that have been documented to work. There are still many possibilities not used or verified.

What remains to be tried much more that it has to date is the regular use of herbs and vegetables as landscape plants. Beds and borders can come to life in new and exciting ways when one looks to the ornamental qualities of food plants. Look at the uses of herbs outside of the herb garden. See their colors, textures, fragrances as elements in annual and perennial border gardens, rock gardens, knot gardens and vegetable gardens.

Every year many new plant varieties become available. Some have extra showy foliage. Others boast dwarf colorful fruit. Still others exquisite cut leaf textures. Don't overlook interesting seed pods. Food and beauty fit together and can be great companions. And, they will bring in the beneficial insects as well as butterflies and hummingbirds. All you have to do is make the effort to combine in new and creative ways. As always, take care of light, moisture and fertility needs and your new, expanded gardens will take on new life for all to enjoy.

From The Garden of Ed. Submitted for publication in The Towne Crier on January 25, 2006

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