Intercropping: Minimize Your Effort While Maximizing Yields

TANGIBLE BENEFITS COME to gardeners who practice intercropping. Also known as relay planting, interplanting, or undersowing, this technique is a version of companion planting where the second crop is planted while the first is still growing. Don’t worry about whether the two crops benefit each other — just look at how the gardener benefits! Growers are drawn to intercropping because it’s a way to increase the land’s productivity while also boosting the diversity of insects and other beneficial organisms. Other efficiencies include having two crops share a single row cover or irrigation system.

There are several intercropping models. Sometimes a small, quick-growing crop is planted between slower growing crops to use the space not yet needed by the slower crop. Sometimes a tall crop and a sprawling crop are planted together. Sometimes a later, slower crop is given a chance