Complimentary Planting: How not to sabotage your garden

So yesterday we discussed planning and the importance thereof. If you didn't read that one go do that first. I'll wait.


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Ok? Good, welcome back. If you're working with a small space (and smaller budget) it's important to look into how your plants play together when sharing close quarters. Don't plant a field of alternating tomato and potato plants without reading up on how they grow when put in the same plot (poorly and prone to disease in this case). It'll also help you figure out crop rotation for following seasons. If you plant the same thing year after year it'll keep pulling the same thing out of the soil. So the tomatoes you planted for the third year in a row will be much less robust than the ones you planted year one in the same spot. Looking up complimentary plants will help you keep your soil productive.

Here is a helpful infographic:

(curtesy of http://visual.ly/ultimate-guide-companion-planting) 

Anything that has a little checkmark? Can be planted either together or one right after the other. An 'x' is a no go my darlings. 

Now that's out of the way I want to discuss a very famous and specific type of companion planting: Three Sisters. The three sisters refer to corn, beans, and squash. This is an (by all accounts) ancient style of growing these crops throughout what is now the Northern US and Southern Canada. According to history books and oral records the three sisters were grown together, eaten together, and celebrated together. I've got a degree in history, and I'm a story teller, doing something in a way that lets me connect to how it was done in ages long past? Makes my tiny black heart go pitter patter. So I'm trying this next year. 

Apparently what you do according to the Old Farmer's almanac (link in the bibliography) is make a circular mound about a foot high and four feet across. You then plant corn in the mound about two feet apart, in a circle, for a total of 6 stalks of corn. About a week or two later (once it's established and growing) you  plant four bean plants, evenly spaced, around each stalk. A week or two after that, once the beans are established and growing, you plant a total of 6 squash, evenly placed, around the whole thing. 

Why does this work? Why don't they choke themselves out? Well you see my dears apparently the corn provides a bean pole, the beans fix nitrogen into the soil to fertilize the heavy feeding corn, and the squash's leaves keep weeds down and provides a sort of living mulch that produces food. Which is all a very fancy pants way of saying 'it works, I'm going to try it.' 

So yeah. Research your plants, plant things that play nice together, and you won't be left in a dead or disease ridden garden fighting the beetles to the one living tomato.