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Garden Gate:  vegitable companions  |
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Annab
True Blue Farmgirl
2900 Posts
Anna
Seagrove
NC
USA
2900 Posts |
 Posted - Jan 17 2006 : 08:15:45 AM
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Not sure how you gals are feeling, but winter in the South this year has been unseasonably warm!
We'll be planting snow peas and carrots soon. Wanted to pass along a tidbit or two before things really get to rockin'.
Look up vegitable companion plants. There's a great chart and web site at gardenguides.com. The chart shows the plant, say for instance carrots. Good companion plant examples will be: bush beans, pole beans, lettuce, onions, tomato and sage. A bad companion for carrots is dill. Might be fun to try and see just how the plant benefits.
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cajungal
True Blue Farmgirl
2348 Posts
Catherine Farmgirl Sister #76
Houston Area
Texas
2348 Posts |
Posted - Jan 17 2006 : 08:27:55 AM
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Thanks for the info. Another great source is a book called, "Carrots love Tomatoes" It used to have a different title that was real plain...like Companion Planting...When the publishers changed the name to its current title the sales skyrocketed. Funny! We really do judge books by their covers!
I've tried companion planting for several years now. It seems to work....less bugs...less weeds...and healthier plants. My favorite combination is basil by the tomato plants. The aroma is divine when you brush by!
Another thing to keep separated are the different peppers....plant sweet bells away from hot peppers to keep the sweets from being pollinated with the hots.
Blessings
Catherine
One of the best compliments from one of my daughters: "Moma, you smell good...like dirt." |
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Annab
True Blue Farmgirl
2900 Posts
Anna
Seagrove
NC
USA
2900 Posts |
Posted - Jan 18 2006 : 11:55:08 AM
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Tell me about the peppers! I did that one year with hot banana peppers next to green bells and noticed some of the bells were hotter! Luckily I'm a chili head, so this little goof wasn't so bad.
I love basil. It's great chopped and mixed with diced tomato and crumbled feta. Warm this in a toaster oven on a slice of pita bread. Makes for a nice summer meal when turning the oven on is out of the question.
I showed my hubby the companion plant chart. His quip was.... "Yea, you can't plant onions near potatoes,............ cause the potatos will cry." He had me going for a second ha ha |
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jpbluesky
True Blue Farmgirl
6066 Posts
Jeannie
Florida
USA
6066 Posts |
Posted - Jan 18 2006 : 12:42:39 PM
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I am harvesting my broccoli and cauliflower (planted together in three different plots) about every day now. My peppers and tomatoes froze, as did my basil, but I harvested a lot of the tomatoes green before the freeze. I let them ripen in my window and they were delicious. Now I am looking for seeds for sugar snaps....that will be next for me in February. Living in the south, I garden all year long, sometimes losing things to freeze and sometimes not. I love the winter gardens the best because of no bugs and lovely weather to weed in! Less weeds, too! I plant tomatoes with sweet basil and with flowers that repel bugs. I plant all my peppers together, and have not noticed the hot thing, but that really makes sense! I learn so much on this site!
The one thing I try to do is rotate my plantings, so that the soil can refurbish nutrients it may have given heavily too for the last crop.
"Sell cleverness and buy wonder" |
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Annab
True Blue Farmgirl
2900 Posts
Anna
Seagrove
NC
USA
2900 Posts |
Posted - Jan 19 2006 : 08:22:16 AM
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Yea, we have enough area to rotate too. The bugs are really smart that way. We get rennigade seedlings up from the past season, so the bugs can tend to those and leave the others alone.
Aside from cheeky chickens, we may also have a more serious problem with crows. All winter they have been in the fileds. We have counted at least 10 or so. Last Summer we lost our whole Silver Queen corn crop to crows. They left two stalks behind, so I had 3 good ears. We also planted Gold Queen in another area and a row or two was messed with ,but not completely destroyed like the other!
Our broccoli did horrible this year! It was planted on time last fall, but I guess lack of adequate rainfall stunted them. The leaves all matured to full size, but the flowerettes never formed in time to get big. Collards and turnips didn't seem to be affected.
Figures we went 3-4 months in the fall with no rain, and now that it's almst time to get back into the garden, the ground is too mushy for tilling. Guess that's why we do hobby farming and sustainable agriculture for ourselves and not go big-time. Hats off to the family farmers who still grow big time.  |
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Garden Gate: vegitable companions |
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vegitable companions
