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Growing different types of vegetables in the same garden is not a new technique. Even the Indians in America planted corn, beans and pumpkins together.
The pumpkin protected the earth from the heat with its leaves and slowed down the growth of weeds. The corn planted nearby could protect the pumpkin from overheating, and the beans were able to enrich the soil with nitrogen, which is so necessary for the first two crops. And in Our Country, joint plantings of herbs and vegetables were often used to protect against pests. But in the last hundred years, much has been forgotten, although in other countries there was a constant accumulation of experience in the use of joint plantings of vegetables.
The compatibility of vegetables in the beds allows you to make better use of the available land, and besides, it can look very beautiful from the outside. Only in this case there are many nuances. To take into account all of them, it is necessary to draw up a detailed site plan and think over all possible landing patterns in advance.
Why are combined landings needed?
In fact, in nature it is difficult to find large fields consisting entirely of one crop. Most often you can find a wide variety of plants that help and support each other. But first of all, productivity is important for a person. So, with combined plantings, you can get several times more crops of various vegetables and herbs from the same area.
What’s more, with proper planning, it becomes possible to have a consistent crop of fresh vegetables from early spring to late autumn.
Mixed plantings allow you to completely close the ground and not give free rein to weeds. In addition, they do not give such a one-sided depletion of the soil, which often occurs with mono-planting vegetables.
Finally, many plants growing in close proximity are able to improve the taste of their neighbors and the nutritional value of their fruits.
Good neighbors
There is a whole group of plants that have a beneficial effect on almost any vegetable if planted side by side. These are the so-called fragrant herbs. There are also special pairs of vegetables and herbs that are desirable to be planted side by side. For example, basil is able to improve the taste of tomatoes planted nearby, and dill has the same effect on cabbage.
Good compatible vegetables are cucumber and corn. Corn protects the cucumber from the scorching heat and at the same time serves as a support for its long lashes.
Below is a table that indicates what vegetables can be combined with to obtain a beneficial effect.
Speaking of good neighbors, one cannot fail to mention the role of legumes. They are able to process nitrogen from the air with the help of special nodule bacteria that exist on their roots. Therefore, they can supply nitrogen to nearby plants. Although the maximum nitrogen is released after the death of plants. Therefore, after legumes, you can plant any plants that are demanding on the nitrogen content in the soil, for example, pumpkin or cabbage.
For foreign gardeners, spinach is a favorite plant actively used in joint plantings. Its roots secrete special substances that help absorb nutrients from the soil. Spinach wonderfully coexists on the same bed with potatoes, beets, tomatoes, and beans. In addition, its leaves cover the soil while other plants are still small, and protect it from drying out and from the dominance of weeds.
Plant protectors
Usually this category includes plants that repel insects, but not only. Often, fragrant herbs planted next to vegetables confuse pests more, preventing them from finding an attractive plant by smell. For example, to protect cabbage beds from cabbage scoops and earthen fleas, you can plant strongly fragrant plants nearby, such as sage and thyme. For the same purposes, garlic is planted to protect roses from aphids, basil near beans to protect against bean weevil.
From the table below, you can find out which plants protect against the main pests of garden crops.
Plants that should not be planted nearby
Enmity relations are quite rarely observed between plants. Poor compatibility is most often due to their secretions of roots or leaves, which can inhibit the growth of neighbors. For example, sage does not get along well with onions, marigolds adversely affect beans. Kale will not like the neighborhood with tansy, and potatoes – with quinoa.
Naturally, plants of similar height and leaf size do not get along well if they are planted too closely. For example, various types of cabbage and pumpkin.
Options for combining vegetables
The most interesting way to grow vegetables in mixed plantings is to combine them not only horizontally, but also vertically. Not only in space, but also in time. To get good yields, the following rules should be observed:
- Vegetables that belong to the same family should not follow each other, neither in a small crop rotation (during one season), nor in a large one. This must be observed especially strictly in relation to the vegetables of the haze family (beets, chard, spinach). Because they are especially sensitive to their own root secretions.
- Combine plants with different nutritional requirements on the same bed. The main most demanding crop of vegetables is placed in the middle of the bed, while less demanding plants are placed along the edges of the bed. It is also important to place nearby plants with a shallow and deep root system so that they do not interfere with each other.
- Plants should be combined with each other according to the requirements for heat and moisture. So, the most demanding for watering are all cabbage and pumpkin. Less demanding – tomatoes, root vegetables, lettuce, spinach. All onions, beans, peas are completely undemanding to moisture.
Examples of mixed plantings of vegetables with different ripening periods make it possible to get something like a green conveyor throughout the season.
For example, on a bed one meter wide, every ten centimeters they plant:
- leaf lettuce, alternating it with a radish every 10 cm;
- watercress;
- head lettuce with kohlrabi are planted through one plant;
- spinach three rows;
- one row of early potatoes;
- spinach two rows.
In total, 9 rows of vegetables and herbs are obtained. All these cultures are perfectly combined with each other. Spinach can be harvested first about 6 weeks after sowing. Its leaves are cut off, and the roots remain in the ground and serve as fertilizer for the soil. At the same time, watercress ripens, it is also cut off, thereby freeing up another row. Then the radish is removed, and the lettuce is cut through one, allowing the others to grow in breadth.
After another two weeks, the head lettuce is removed, and the kohlrabi gets a lot of space for tying good heads of cabbage. Potatoes are removed last. As a result, about 11 kg of products can be harvested from one square meter of such mixed plantings of vegetables.
Another interesting example is the combination of vegetables both horizontally and vertically.
To do this, the bed should be located from west to east, and along its northernmost edge a trellis is installed for a high culture, in this case, curly beans. The next row will be low-growing tomatoes with an indent between rows of 20 cm, then, after 20 cm, carrots, then onions, and the last fifth row, you can plant some frightening fragrant herb, such as basil.
Carrots and onions are among the first to be sown on this bed. In this case, all vegetables are harvested almost simultaneously.
In order for you to create your own mixed planting options, below is a compatibility table for the main vegetables that are grown in vegetable gardens.
Using this table, you can try, creating various options for mixed plantings of vegetables. If you use mixed plantings of vegetables throughout the garden, then even crop rotation no longer becomes so relevant, since this planting option can also help get rid of the accumulation of diseases in the soil.
Try, create your own options for mixed landings, just do not take absolutely all the information indicated in the table on faith. It is best to test them in your own garden. Because plants, like any living creature, can behave unpredictably.