I have not done it but I can see benefits. The peas would help fix the nitrogen in the soil, watermelons are heavy feeders and could use it. If you plant the watermelons a couple weeks after the peas, I would think that you would be done with the peas about the time the watermelons are taking over the patch so you would be ahead of the game when it comes to reusing the same space.
Companion Gardening Guide
I am so confused. Had a very good crop of peas in 2008. From what I have read the nitrogen fixing thing only works if you till the remains into the garden. I didn't do that. We pulled them up. Does that mean that I lost all of the benefits?
The nitrogen fixing is done in the roots. Tilling the remains into the garden is just adding additional organic matter into the soil. It is a good thing but not the same as nitrogen fixing.
Thank you very much for clarifying that for me.
Christi
mraider3, I'm going to be planting potatoes again this year and also trying companion planting. Here's what I found about companion planting and potatoes:
They go well with brassicas, corn, marigold, pigweed. Not sure if I will be planting any pigweed.:) But I will probably try some brassicas, like maybe some boc choi or other oriental greens I can start early.
They don't like being with cucumber, pea, pumpkin, raspberry, spinach, squash, sunflower or tomato. I didn't know this about the spinach and actually planted it around the edges of one of my potato patches last year. Indeed, that patch did so poorly that I ripped it out and put something else in there. Spinach did fine, though.
Add green beans and onions to that list of things potatoes don't like -it was on one of the CP lists and I got dismal results last year with that combo (planted potatoes and green beans in 2 rows after onions -got no potatoes and 3 beans as harvest -worst EVER!!)