Companion Planting - The Lazy Gardener's Guide to Organic Vegetable Gardening

By Jennifer Scarffe

Is companion planting really a 'magic formula' for abundant harvests and pest free crops? I believe it is, but there is so much more to the magic of organic vegetable gardening than simply knowing which plants enjoy each other's company.

This companion planting guide is for gardeners who are prepared to go deeper than the simplistic 'carrots love tomatoes' advice spruiked in other companion planting books. Instead you'll learn how soil enrichment, compost, mulching and organic pest control methods all work together to create a diverse, complex natural system that yields far more than traditional gardening methods.

Written in an easily accessible and conversational style, this book delivers the nitty-gritty on all aspects of organic vegetable gardening and will soon have even the most novice of gardeners enjoying a bumper harvest. Best of all, the methods outlined in this book require a minimum of digging, hoeing and other such hard work. Instead you'll be left with rich organic soils that do the bulk of the work for you, leaving you with lots of time to actually enjoy being in your garden.
 

Topics covered in this companion planting guide for beginners include:

Companion Planting and the relationship between organic soils, pests, weeds and fertility.

Pests and the uses of companion gardening to control pest numbers naturally. Interplanting, trap crops, repellent plants, attracting natural predators, organic bug sprays and human-made pest problems are all covered here.

Mulch and its absolutely vital role in companion gardening and organic soil.

Organic compost – how to make it, how to use it, and how it will work wonders for your vegetable garden and flower garden, as well as reducing your household waste and lowering your carbon footprint.

Companion plant relationships - the basic and most important plant pairings, and crucially why they work and how to use them.

More than just a list of plant pairings copied from Wikipedia, this companion planting guide will give you a solid grounding in the basics of organic vegetable gardening, compost for beginners and soil nutrition, and will give you the tools to make your garden more productive and more enjoyable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Green Earth Books
• Release date: Oct 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393772002

Book preview

Companion Planting

The Lazy Gardener's Guide to

Organic Vegetable Gardening

By Jennifer Scarffe

The Lazy Gardener Series – Volume 1

Contents

What is Companion Planting?

What is companion planting?

So does it work, or doesn't it?

Pests, Weeds and Fertility

Get Lazy, Get Messy

Putting It All Together

The Benefits of a Lazy, Messy Garden

Pests

Human-made Pest Problems

Interplanting - Disguise your Plants

Trap Crops

Break Lifecycles

Repellent Plants

Attract Predators

Natural Ways to Remove or Discourage Pests

Organic Bug Sprays

Mulch

The Importance of Mulch

What to Use

Carbon vs Nitrogen

When and How to Mulch

Problems

Compost

Soil Enrichment

The Ideal Soil Structure

Animal and Green Manures

Mulch vs Compost

Hot Composting

Cold Composting

Household Food Waste

Bokashi Bins

Worm Farms

Companion Plants for Vegetable Gardens

More Reading

Special Note from the Author

Copyright and Disclaimer

What is Companion Planting?

What is companion planting?

COMPANION PLANTING is the notion that every plant has a best friend it likes to grow with. You plant some tomatoes, grow some basil around the edges of the bed, and presto! both basil and tomato grow like wildfire.

Sounds like magic. And it is, but it doesn't really work like that.

Companion planting is an idea that grew out Europe after hundreds of years of experimental planting and seeing which plants thrive in each other's company. Most of the traditional companion planting pairings work best in Europe, where soil conditions, climate and many other factors were all taken into account when the original plant associations were made.

But things that work brilliantly in English gardens don't work the same all over the world.

The classic example is the marigolds-repel-nematodes advice. The roots of marigold flowers release a chemical that nematodes don't like and so the nematodes move elsewhere and leave your plants alone. This little gem was discovered to be extremely successful in England and so became one of the most well-known companion planting traditions. But it is only moderately helpful in North America where there is a greater variety of nematode species present in the soil. In Australia and New Zealand, it doesn't work at all as the nematodes in those countries are a different species entirely. Even in North America, the marigold trick isn't a total nematode cure because the marigolds simply chase the nematodes away from the marigolds - and towards the roots of the plants you're trying to nurture.

Companion planting represents some ancient wisdom that has served gardeners well in the past and in certain environments. Outside of those environments companion planting is much less of the miracle gardening solution it is often touted to be.

So does it work, or doesn't it?

YES, IT CAN WORK. BUT it's not as simple as Googling a few companion planting charts and seeing what to plant next to your carrots.

A garden - any garden - is a complex system. Soil type, climate, the amount of sun, shade and water that might be available, the amount of bugs in the ground and in the air, the amount of birds in the area, the amount of small children in the area who continually pick and eat your snowpeas before you can get them to the kitchen table - all these factors influence the success of your garden.

In order to get the most from your garden, you need to help it thrive as a system. A system of plants, bugs, soil and water. Let nature do what nature does best and the results from your garden really will seem like magic.

In this way, companion planting is more about understanding a system, rather than remembering planting pairs. Once you begin to understand the system, then you can see how some of the traditional companion planting advice might work in your garden, or might be utterly inappropriate. You can also begin to develop your own companion planting 'rules'. Experiment and keep notes.

Filling in a garden diary is a very relaxing way to end a good healthy day of gardening. Make sure you enjoy a nice cup of tea while you make your notes. Looking back through your garden diary over past years becomes a lot like looking through old photo albums - you'll go all misty eyed as you say, oh, remember the beets we grew that year—divine! You'll be surprised how much you don't remember from year to year. Best write it down.

Over time, you'll begin to learn what works best in your garden. You'll understand how tomatoes, chillies and aubergines really

Reviews for Companion Planting - The Lazy Gardener's Guide to Organic Vegetable Gardening

[Allison Hancock · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I took lots of good notes. My only complaint is I wish it had been longer. I'm a long term gardener and I got lots of new ideas. I'm never planting veggies in rows again!