Companion Planting - Introduce Your Vegetables To Each Other

Have you ever noticed that the plants of the forest and the jungle grow together in a glorious hodge-podge of colors, shapes, sizes and plant types.  Yet the same plants that once grew wild now live a separated existence from each other in the cultivated rows of a farmer's field.

How can all these plants live together in nature?  The answer: Companion Planting.

Many people believe that organic gardening means that pesticides and herbicides are excluded. While it is true that these man made chemicals are left out of the growing process in order to have a true organic garden . The grower must allow the plants to work with birds, insects, organisms, and each other. By creating an eco-system within your garden you allow the plants to thrive in a more natural state much as the foliage of the forest.

Native American and First Nations tribes have been using Companion Planting since long before contact with the whites.  Many people are familiar with the Native concept of the Three Sisters.  For those who are not, the concept works like this:

Corn, beans, and squash are planted together.  Corn is planted on hills.  Beans are planted in a circular pattern all around the base of the hill.  Squashes are planted around the complete parameter of the corn and beans.

You might ask yourself how on earth would you weed around this clumped up collection of vines, stems, stalks, and leaves.  

Answer:   The plants will weed themselves.  

As strange as that may sound to the experienced grower, it is the absolute truth.

The beans expel nitrogen that they do not use by putting it back into the soil.  Corn needs the nitrogen.  The corns talks give the beans something to vine around for support.  the bean in turn shades the soil the soil helping to lock in moisture.  This companionship takes away the need for fertilizer and constant watering.

The squash vines thickly along the ground, further shading the soil and helping with moisture retention.  These vines also work to keep out grass seed and other forms of weed taking away the need for constant weeding.

Having a dynamic bio-diversity in your garden invites beneficial insects and organisms which keep down insects and organisms that eat and destroy your plants.

It is said that praying mantises eat all the garden bugs except ladybugs and aphids, and ladybugs eat the aphids. Companion Planting give these critters a place to live in your garden.