by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
The majority of people always think of flower gardens and vegetable gardens as two separate entities, but there’s no reason to think that is the way it has to be so.
If you would think about the kitchen garden of colonial days of America and those of that era and already before in Britain then you may come to a different picture and understanding altogether. Those gardens were a mix of vegetables, fruits, flowers, and herbs.
Companion planting is the official name for it, but for some gardeners, that might be too scientific and calculated for their tastes. Instead you might like to think of a vegetable-flower garden as an artistic palette, strictly for appearances and enjoyment.
Your vegetable-flower garden can be orderly or not so orderly, it depends on your personal style and is a matter of taste, pardon the pun. You do however need to take into account the growing style of the vegetables and flowers. Pumpkins, cucumbers, and squash need lots of horizontal room to grow so you want to avoid planting flowers too close. Also, do have a little look into the right books to ensure that you do not plant flowers and veg together that might not “like” each other.
Also consider that some flowers are, indeed, edible, so you might like to include some of those as well and esp.
Think about plant forms and foliage too. Peppers are upright and shrub-like. Corn is tall, vertical, and leafy but would look terrific mixed with sunflowers. Or, concentrate on color combinations such as white, purple, and pink for earlier flowering vegetables and flowers, or yellow, red, and orange for late summer crops and blooms. The gold color of marigolds and the dark green of spinach for example or red flowers of nasturtiums, which are edible, next to those bright red chili peppers. Then again, a higgledy-piggledy mix is also fine if that is what you like.
Companion Planting
Companion planting became popular in America during the organic farming movement in the 1970s even though it has been practiced by some Native American cultures for centuries, and not just by Native Americans.
Companion planting is all about beneficial plant associations. In other words planting a specific mix of flowers, herbs, or vegetables in proximity to each other in order to achieve a mutually beneficial result such as higher crop yields or pest management.
There are several types of companion planting methods including symbiotic nitrogen fixation, chemical pest suppression, trap cropping, and spacial interaction, where a vertical plant such as corn is planted next to a climbing plant such as pole beans for instance.
An example of symbiotic nitrogen fixation is planting beans, which are legumes and fix nitrogen from the air adding it to the soil, next to corn and other vegetables that require larger amounts of nitrogen to grow.
Marigolds planted among the vegetables secrete a biochemical substance from their roots that kills nematodes in the soil. Thus I am not sure whether I would want to plant marigolds where I want to use nematodes to control slugs and snails.
Nasturtiums are often planted near cabbage plants so the moths will lay their eggs in the nasturtiums, which they prefer, and not the cabbages. This type of companion planting is referred to as trap cropping.
There are lists and books on the subject of companion planting galore though I would suggest, rather than buying a book, to look on the Internet for some free lists, which, I know, are available.
You don't necessarily need the entire story as to the whys and wherefores of planting this with that; all you need is a list stating the planting of those flowers with those vegetable for this or that reason, without the historical and anecdotal references found in many of the books.
© 2011
