I've been reading about companion planting. It makes sense and I plan
to try it.

I'm more concerned about the bad companions. They say beans and onions
don't like each other, but beans and carrots do (as well as carrots and
onions). I plan on planting a row of pole beans (along a fence line for
support), with a row of carrots beneath them. If I planted onions on
the other side of the carrots (so the carrots are between the beans and
onions) would that put the beans and onions far enough apart? The beans
and onions would be a foot or two apart with carrots in between.

--------------------------- Fence
B B B B B B B B B B B B B B Beans
C C C C C C C C C C C C C C Carrots
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O Onions

Also, how close do good companion plants (like tomato and basil) need
to be to gain benefits from each other? Does the magic happen
underground (root level, stuff exuded into soil) or it is only related
to the fragrance of the plants?

Thanks!

wrote:

I've been reading about companion planting. It makes sense and I plan
to try it.

I'm more concerned about the bad companions. They say beans and onions
don't like each other, but beans and carrots do (as well as carrots and
onions). I plan on planting a row of pole beans (along a fence line for
support), with a row of carrots beneath them. If I planted onions on
the other side of the carrots (so the carrots are between the beans and
onions) would that put the beans and onions far enough apart? The beans
and onions would be a foot or two apart with carrots in between.

--------------------------- Fence
B B B B B B B B B B B B B B Beans
C C C C C C C C C C C C C C Carrots
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O Onions

Also, how close do good companion plants (like tomato and basil) need
to be to gain benefits from each other? Does the magic happen
underground (root level, stuff exuded into soil) or it is only related
to the fragrance of the plants?

Thanks!

You have to remember than companion planting is mostly a practitioner
concept-not a scientific one. People find certain combinations seem to
do better, but it could simply be that they share a need and both
benefitted from that need being met that season (similar light, heat,
soil ph, watering pattern, bugs present, worms, lack of common pest)

There are some science-based items like using nitrogen fixing legumes
to replenish nitrogen then planting greens there afterwards to
benefit. Sadly there isn't enough info on the actual uptake and
release of different elements from each plant family--then we could
understand how they help eachother.

So there are no hard fast rules as to how many inches things need to
be away from eachother.

Consider root spread, leaf spread and runoff--assuming one of those is
the transmission method for whatever is good/bad. Some companions have
to do with bleed over of taste--which could simply be from the odor of
the plant. Marigolds' scent is attributed with its ability to keep
pests away. As is it's root system which encourages good nematodes.
Onions and garlic also have strong scent-based benefits. I've used
all three as edgings to other plants.

Until the scientific community thinks it is of important to understnad
the hows and whys the fruits and vegetables, which have sustained our
race on the planet for 100,000 years, grow we'll have to make due
without proof or exactness.

DiGiTAL ViNYL (no email)
Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY, 1 mile off L.I.Sound
4th year gardener
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/royalf...=/2055&.src=ph

Just don't plant onions next to potatos.




It will make your eyes water!



Brian

--

I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.

Fvert wrote in news:fvert-9091A2.22054013032006
@news.east.earthlink.net:

Just don't plant onions next to potatos.



*trim*

Brian


My Gramma said when she planted sweet and regular potatoes next to each
other she got some that were orange in places and white in others. It
was real strange...

Puckdropper
--
www.uncreativelabs.net

Old computers are getting to be a lost art. Here at Uncreative Labs, we
still enjoy using the old computers. Sometimes we want to see how far a
particular system can go, other times we use a stock system to remind
ourselves of what we once had.

To email me directly, send a message to puckdropper (at) fastmail.fm

"Puckdropper" wrote in message
reenews.net...

My Gramma said when she planted sweet and regular potatoes next to each
other she got some that were orange in places and white in others. It
was real strange...


Potatoes are remarkably promiscuous. What comes up now -- I haven't
deliberately *planted* a potato in a long time -- is a hybrid of russet,
yukon gold, and german butterball. It's a yellow-fleshed potato with a rough
brown exterior, although exactly how yellow or how rough the skin is depends
on where you're digging them up.

--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky
http://www.bicyclemeditations.org/
Sponsor me for the Big Climb! See: www.active.com/donate/cpetersky06
See the books I've set free at:
http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky

"DigitalVinyl" wrote in message
...
wrote:
You have to remember than companion planting is mostly a practitioner
concept-not a scientific one.

Scientific proofs are overrated. Give me a time-tested practitioner concept,
any day.

In an age of corporate 'science' that changes with every new
mass-media-released 'study', people need to rely somewhat more upon their
own observations and common sense.

Luc

Amen to that, Luc.

"Lucid" wrote:

"DigitalVinyl" wrote in message
.. .
wrote:
You have to remember than companion planting is mostly a practitioner
concept-not a scientific one.

Scientific proofs are overrated. Give me a time-tested practitioner concept,
any day.

There are a gazillion "time-tested" ideas that no one should believe.
Black cats, walking under ladders, the number 13, women are
subservient to men, and *MANY* many others that have survived
hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. Doesn't make them any more
real than Santy Claus, Easter Bunny, Thor the Thundergod, or many
others. Urban legends passed around the internet prove how gullible
people are--they will believe anything as long as someone says it or
writes it.

In an age of corporate 'science' that changes with every new
mass-media-released 'study', people need to rely somewhat more upon their
own observations and common sense.

True, but the average person believes he's really really gonna win
Lotto because "someone has to". Or that gambling casinos and betting
are a way to make fast money. Or that there is no harm in alcohol. We
"see" whatever we can make fit our own conclusions. The rest doesn't
get noticed.

I learned 20 years ago whenever someone said "tell me the truth" they
are asking to be lied to, nod along with what they say, or sit in
silent "agreement" with them and "listen". People have no appetite for
digging up the truth or facts in a situation. It's all too messy to
figure out.


Luc


DiGiTAL ViNYL (no email)
Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY, 1 mile off L.I.Sound
4th year gardener
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/royalf...=/2055&.src=ph

I plant carrots in with radishes. It helps both crops.


From Mel & Donnie in Bluebird Valley





http://community.webtv.net/MelKelly/TheKids

"DigitalVinyl" wrote:
I learned 20 years ago whenever someone said "tell me the truth"
they are asking to be lied to, nod along with what they say, or sit in
silent "agreement" with them and "listen". People have no appetite
for digging up the truth or facts in a situation. It's all too messy to
figure out.

Serrano peppers are benefited by cherry tomatoes and vice versa.
I've got a couple planted less than two inches from each other and
both are producing great, better than all the others I've tried. Of
course I don't know what a good vine of cherry tomatoes produces
because I've only had one such vine so far. g I ended up with 30
tomatoes off the first run and it's still blooming some flowers.

Anyone here that might relay their production run from cherry tomato
vines? Thanks.

Jim Carlock
Post replies to the group.

G'day Jim & all;

"Jim Carlock" wrote in message
. ..
....
course I don't know what a good vine of cherry tomatoes produces
because I've only had one such vine so far. g I ended up with 30
tomatoes off the first run and it's still blooming some flowers.

Anyone here that might relay their production run from cherry
tomato
vines? Thanks.
Back in the early '70's we lived just outside Sacramento. One fine
spring morning I bought a package of tomato seedlings from a local
nursery for the garden. The fellow counting them out tossed in one,
small mangled cherry tomato plant with the ones I'd purchased. Our
garden was in the corner of two fences. The mangled plant was
tossed onto the compost heap, that was at the apex of the corners
furthest back.

Well, that mangled little cherry tomato flourished. It ended up
with flowers up the wazoo! So, because it had so many flowers
(looked to be 60-80 or so), we decided to keep a count of how many
we picked. The rules we only those tomatoes that made it into
the house for washing and eating were to be counted. Those that
were eaten out of hand in the garden didn't count (for me alone,
that was a considerable amount). And with two precocious little
girls that delighted in "grazing" in the garden, many fell victim to
that onslaught. As the summer progressed, the plant grew up the
walls, and topped it by 6-feet or so. Then, during a late summer
storm, the top collapsed into our neighbors yard--and continued to
flourish. They delightedly ate many, and none of those were
counted. By late October the flowers stopped. The final count?
1,158!


L8r all,
DustyB


Jim Carlock
Post replies to the group.

my sole experience is with garlic planted right at the base of pole
beans. Both did, indeed, do poorly. I had the same beans planted in
poorer soil a yard away, and garlic planted in the same soil a yard
away that did well (beans) or better (garlic). No explanation other
than they are enemies, and it was very obvious: bulbs were 50% smaller,
and the bean plants were 4 ft instead of 7. This year I have 2.5 ft
between the onion row and the pole beans, and the garlic is somewhere
else. Koniwng the extent of bean roots, I think that will be enough.
Most plants are allelopathic, so it might be that the bulbs affect the
vines.

Good companionship might mean a number of things: one plant has shallow
roots, the other has a taproot (so they don't compete for nutrients).
One plant is a light feeder and another is a heavy feeder for a
particular nutrient. One plant repels the bugs of another plant. One
plant beneficially shades the other. One plant produces nitrogen for
the other. And finally, their rhizosphere (the roots) might produce
chemicals beneficial to the other one. I doubt that there are plants
that can really help beans, except for those that might repel beetles,
though beans will help a number of other plants.

What I would really like to know is if cabbage/broccoli and tomatoes
are friends or foes. Different websites list them as either. The
cabbage could use the shade in midsummer.

"simy1" wrote:
What I would really like to know is if cabbage/broccoli and
tomatoes are friends or foes. Different websites list them as
either. The cabbage could use the shade in midsummer.

snip
Intercropping
....
Remember also the dislikes, and do not plant beans with onion,
garlic or gladiolus, beets with pole beans, the cabbage family with
strawberries, tomatoes or pole beans, or potatoes with pumpkin,
squash, cucumber, suflower, tomato or raspberry.
/snip

snip
Cabbage
....
The cabbage family includes not only cabbage but cauliflower, kale,
kohlrabi, broccoli, collards and Brussels sprouts - even rutabaga
and turnip. While each plant of this group has been developed in a
special way, they are all pretty much subject to the same likes and
dislikes, insects and diseases. Hyssop, thyme, wormwood and
southernwood are helpful in repelling the white cabbage butterfly.
....
All members of the family are greatly helped by aromatic plants,
or those which have many blossoms, such as celery, dill, camomile,
sage, peppermint, rosemary, onions and potatoes.
....
Cabbages dislike strawberries, tomatoes and pole beans. All
members of the family are heavy feeders and should have plenty
of compost or well-decomposed cow manure worked into the
ground previous to planting. Mulching will help if soil has a ten-
dency to dry out in hot weather, and water should be given if
necessary.
/snip

"Peas, beans, cabbages and turnips" love soil containing lime (calcium).

The book also goes on to describe beans as of several different varieties,
and explicitly differentiates "bush beans" from "pole beans". Bush beans
and cucumbers mutually benefit each other. Bush beans and strawberrys
mutually benefit each other. Beans in general benefit corn, although pole
beans seem to be favored for planting next to corn. Radishes and pole
beans mutually benefit each other. All beans dislike onions. And celery
benefits bush beans.

The book that that is taken from is titled:

Secrets of Companion Planting For Successful Gardening
by Louise Riotte
Published 1975 by Garden Way Publishing

Hope that helps.

Jim Carlock
Post replies to the group.

Excellent - thanks. But that book is, for example, suggesting to mix
potatoes with cabbages and onions. the former prefer unlimed soil, and
the latter like it well limed. I am probably going to put the potatoes
in their own patch, I see nothing that goes really well with them.

(Mel M Kelly) wrote:

I plant carrots in with radishes. It helps both crops.

That's got a good timing and physical effect. Radishes finish in 30
days and are out of the ground before the crrots would need the space.
I do the same. One companionn guide suggested the radish "loosened"
the dirt for the carrots. I'm not sure of the loosening, but radishes
are great spot fillers until the nearby plants become full grown.

From Mel & Donnie in Bluebird Valley





http://community.webtv.net/MelKelly/TheKids

DiGiTAL ViNYL (no email)
Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY, 1 mile off L.I.Sound
4th year gardener
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/royalf...=/2055&.src=ph