GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post - companion planting

MuckyHoe · 26-01-2008, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Geoff & Heather

"Dan" wrote in message
...
0tterbot wrote:

is anyone up for some information exchange about companion planting?

because i generally 1: can't be bothered 2: am both ill-informed and
disorganised, i don't companion-plant (also, wouldn't it mess with
rotation systems? that might be a different issue though) it's not
something i pursue. however, for 3 years i have put basil with the
tomatoes in good faith because EVERYONE says this is a good thing.

however, over the 3 years i've noticed that the basil doesn't come on if
it's with the tomatoes - the plants are always small (although the
tomatoes are happy). last year i thought the basils were probably too
shaded, so i gave more space this year, but the basils are still small &
flowering early. my other (seperate) basils are as big as i would expect,
though (so it's not dud seed or anything like that).

while i don't normally have any tomato diseases (so far - i am quite a
newbie gardener though) i can't be sure if this is because of the basil,
or if they'd have been healthy anyway (as, after all, tomatoes really
aren't that difficult, are they?)

so in a nutshell, i'm going to give up on this particular arrangement.

i have one tomato plant, though, that was planted quite close to spring
onions, & it's a tiny plant. i'm taking out the spring onions as we need
them, & the plant's finally getting a bit bigger now. i wonder if the
onions are bothering the tomato plant. the other, self-sown toms which
are
various places are just dandy, despite considerable neglect AND no basil
nearby (and no staking, and little watering, etc).

does anyone have any comments about good or bad companions? have any of
you investigated this seriously? is it even worth pursuing? if anyone's
found any really excellent companions, i'd be quite interested, because
i'm starting to think it's just one of those things people say because
everyone else does, but has rarely been investigated thoroughly &
scientifically. thanks!!
kylie

I start with a chart,
http://www.google.com.au/search?as_q...filetype=p df

When you group them into families you can see that there are families that
don't like each other and there are families that are OK with most other
plants.

You can get it down to 3 or 4 groups, say red, green, blue and grey, with
red and blue being the most antagonistic to each other.

Then you write your plant names on matching colored paper squares that
corespond to the size of the plant/patch you need.

Once you have that worked out you can start laying out the plants on a
plan
of your garden. Keep in mind that you will still need to account for each
plants microclimate requirements and height to account for shading etc.

Or you could just prance naked through your garden at midnight with a
large
bag of mixed seed, flinging them gaily at the full moon, then see what
pops
up and grows well.

I assure you, at leaset one of the above methods works well for me.
;-)

I go for the last method - works for me :-)

u bunch of pillarks we created you and i will destroy all of you u dont ur country is full of criminals u all need a life