What Is Companion Planting?

Companion planting can be described in a nutshell as growing specific plants together either for their improvement or for the improvement of the plants around them.

Companion planting is basically growing different plants together. If you are an organic gardener then companion planting will help you greatly for numerous reasons (more below). Companion planting is a form of poly culture, a system that will not only save space giving you more yield per acreage but will also look attractive as well.

One form of companion planting is inter planting. This is done by growing plants of different growth patterns that grow in the same conditions at the same time. For instance growing squash (a ground sprawling plant) with sweet corn (a tall growing plant) and runner beans (a vine plant that needs supporting) Thus growing three crops in just one space.

The above example is the “three sisters” first used by the indigenous peoples of the American continent many years ago. The added benefit to this particular example is that as the beans (a member of the legume family) fix Nitrogen from the air, there is extra Nitrogen left in the soil for the other two crops.

Other examples of inter planting include sowing radish seeds in with carrot seeds. As the radishes are quick to grow to maturity, they will be gone long before the carrots need the extra space. The radishes will however mark the rows for you making hoeing for weeds easier.

Lettuces and spinach (both shade loving crops) can be grown in the shade of taller plants like tomatoes that will reach for the sun spreading out to give the shade lovers some cover from the heat.

Growing onion sets amongst cabbage plants will save space and as the cabbages grow they will shade the onions from too much sun thus stopping them from bolting. They are still edible once they have bolted (gone to seed) but they will not grow any larger and will also not store successfully either.

The Benefits of Companion Planting

There are seven main reasons for companion planting and each one is of benefit to the organic gardener.

1. Confusing pests – In a conventional mono crop system pests can home in on a large area of their favourite food. Once found they can spread to each plant causing more damage as they go. How companion planting helps is by preventing them from detecting their food source so easily and they will need to move onto someone else’s plot to find food there.
2. Multilevel planting – As mentioned above, growing plants on different levels in the same ground is a great way to save space. Another form of this is woodland growing which is the basis of permaculture, this allows for seven layers of growth in the same area.
3. Shelter crop as a windbreak – Growing Jerusalem Artichokes in clumps for example, will give you a strong but pliable wind break for your tender plants to shelter behind. Allowing the more tender plants to grow unhindered by strong winds which can not only damage plants but also dehydrate them.
4. Protecting from pests – Usually by growing strong scented plants to hide your crop or in some cases actually repelling the insect invaders. Good examples of strong scented plants used in this way are lavender, garlic, rosemary,basil, and marigolds.
5. Attracting predatory insects – Certain insects are attracted to certain plants. You can use this to your advantage by growing these plants near to plants commonly attacked by pests that these insects prey on.
6. Sacrificial crops – As above some insects will be attracted to particular plants these can be grown to keep pests off your prize crops.
7. Attracting pollinators – Most fruit and some vegetable crops rely on insects to pollinate their flowers to produce our food. By adding other flowers and herbs that are known to attract pollinators into your garden you will increase the chances of your crops success.

How Did Companion Planting Start

In nature plants grow together in groups that work for each other, to my way of thinking this is companion planting. Since man stopped being just a hunter gatherer and started growing food crops we have been trying to improve yield etc…

That being the case, and knowing the ingenuity of mankind, I do not think it would have taken long before somebody looked at nature and thought “well that works” and then tried to emulate that on their land.

We know from archaeological sites that the Indigenous Americans first started to grow squashes, sweetcorn and beans as food crops 10,000 years ago. It’s not too much of a jump to assume that they grew them together soon afterwards. In some areas of America there is evidence of a fourth sister being grown.

The indigenous peoples of the South West States of America often added the Rocky Mountain bee plant (Skunk weed) obviously to attract pollinators for the squash and beans. So for at least 10,000 years companion planting has been used by farmers/growers to feed their people.

We know the ancient Greeks and Romans were also aware of the benefits of companion planting and so on through the history of mankind. To say this is a nonsense or at best a fad is to my mind a very ignorant standpoint. Looking at history is a great way to learn from the mistakes and successes of others.

Of course not every combination works, but that’s life. Look at nature only some groups of plants grow together others will not grow within a very long distance of them. Armed with this knowledge the organic gardener can improve their crops health and yield, who wouldn’t want to do that?