I've heard putting certain vegetables/fruits/flowers together may help promote better growth.
at the moment, all my plants are mostly in containers as I prepare them to be transplanted in the ground. I was thinking doing a few 8x8ft square veggie plots, but unsure as how to organize my plants.
here is a partial list of the stuff I currently have growing:
corn
sunflower
strawberries
tomatoes
basil
blueberries
zucchini
rosemary
in addition, I'd also like to add some spinach, asparagus, arugula and maybe even carrots. any insight and suggestions would be much appreciated. FYI, I'm located in the southern CA area, where its pretty much warm and sunny most of the year. also the area where I'm planting get lots of sun all day long, with partial shading from the fence in the afternoon.
-
SoCal Joseph
- Newly Registered
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Mon Jun 22, 2009 2:23 am
- Location: Los Angeles, CA
-
rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
The basil and tomato are very good together. While you are at it throw in a few onions, marigolds, and nasturtiums. Don't take up much room, easy to do and help repel pests. Carrots are good companions of tomatoes too, if you have enough space. I have 4x8' raised beds and I have trouble with the tomatoes shading the carrots out.
The corn and squash work very well together. Plant some beans to grow up the corn stalks and you have the traditional Native American three sisters (you can type that into the search box in the upper left of most pages and find detailed instructions re how to do three sisters planting).
The strawberries, blueberries, rosemary, asparagus if you plant it are all perennials. That means where ever you put them, they are going to stay and probably spread (or at least get bigger in the case of rosemary). So they are probably easier with a bed of their own (if you have a big enough container, rosemary might stay in a container- but that's an OH gardener talking, where I have to bring the rosemary in for the winter).
Rosemary is known as a companion plant for cabbage, beans, carrots and sage. Deters cabbage moths, bean beetles, and carrot flies. Once you have a strawberry bed established, you can interplant it with lettuce and/or spinach, later. Those are cool weather crops, you can't grow them now, but late summer you can plant some for fall (or for you in SoCal, in the fall you can plant them for winter)
Sunflowers are good scattered through your garden. They will attract the aphids that would otherwise be on other plants and the sunflower is so tough the aphids don't bother them. Just do it by ones or twos so they don't shade other stuff out.
The blueberries like very acid soil, too much so for most anything else you are probably growing and they have delicate roots, you don't want to be interplanting something else and then digging it up. They probably need a patch of their own.
I just did a post earlier today about planting asparagus, you can search for it. The asparagus is a heavy feeder and has some special requirements.
Hope this helps as a starting place; I'm sure others will have some ideas to add...
The corn and squash work very well together. Plant some beans to grow up the corn stalks and you have the traditional Native American three sisters (you can type that into the search box in the upper left of most pages and find detailed instructions re how to do three sisters planting).
The strawberries, blueberries, rosemary, asparagus if you plant it are all perennials. That means where ever you put them, they are going to stay and probably spread (or at least get bigger in the case of rosemary). So they are probably easier with a bed of their own (if you have a big enough container, rosemary might stay in a container- but that's an OH gardener talking, where I have to bring the rosemary in for the winter).
Rosemary is known as a companion plant for cabbage, beans, carrots and sage. Deters cabbage moths, bean beetles, and carrot flies. Once you have a strawberry bed established, you can interplant it with lettuce and/or spinach, later. Those are cool weather crops, you can't grow them now, but late summer you can plant some for fall (or for you in SoCal, in the fall you can plant them for winter)
Sunflowers are good scattered through your garden. They will attract the aphids that would otherwise be on other plants and the sunflower is so tough the aphids don't bother them. Just do it by ones or twos so they don't shade other stuff out.
The blueberries like very acid soil, too much so for most anything else you are probably growing and they have delicate roots, you don't want to be interplanting something else and then digging it up. They probably need a patch of their own.
I just did a post earlier today about planting asparagus, you can search for it. The asparagus is a heavy feeder and has some special requirements.
Hope this helps as a starting place; I'm sure others will have some ideas to add...
-
freedhardwoods
- Senior Member
- Posts: 253
- Joined: Sun May 17, 2009 9:32 pm
- Location: Southwest IN