Alocasias and peanuts? Maybe: http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/2280/ (scroll to the last paragraph).
Companion Planting Wanabees
I read somewhere that melons are a good companion plant for okra but since I can't grow melons here, our season being too short, has anyone got any other suggestions? BTW it will be my first year of growing okra so I may well fail LOL.
:-)) Rosie
Rosie, couldn't you give the melons a really good head start inside, or under glass, and then put them out?
Okra is an interesting vegetable, but supposedly very hard on the hands at harvest time!
Leslie
Clemson spineless is easy. Maybe a hardier cucumber? Same family. can you swing those?
Hi Everyone, this has been an incredibly interesting thread. Thanks Rosie for the invite. I tried a separate garden last year and the only thing that did well was my okra. Rosie, they like to be planted when it is really warm. they take off quickly once the soil is warm. I love them mixed with tomatoes and onions.
I was thinking this year about planting my veges right in with my flowers. I am in the process of re-designing my front yard and that is where I have the most sun. I have heard that carrots love tomatoes and pennyroyal will repel fleas, but as for the rest of the companions, I am a complete newbie. LOL
Whoever had the idea of the morning glories with the sunflowers, thank you. those are 2 of my favorites i have to try it.
Any suggestions for daylily and iris friends would be greatly appreciated.
thanks, Ibartoo
Linda, I really love the idea of veggie mixed with flowers - a true potager garden and probably one which will keep a lot of garden nasties at bay. Can you grow rhubarb where you are? it is a really showy plant and good to eat too. Apparently rhubarb does well with columbine and keeps red spider mite at bay. Years ago I used rhubarb leaves boiled up to make an insect repellent - it works. This concoction can also prevent black spot on roses I have heard too.
Leslie I tried growing melons last year and didn't put them outside until July but we had such a miserable wet summer that they died a death - sort of put me off a bit.
Rosie, interesting ideas about rhubarb. We have some in our garden, and I've tried using the leaves, cut partially down the center, to tuck around squash plants; supposedly it's an old French "truc" to repel squash pests. I'm not sure what worked because I also planted garlic in the rows and used silver reflective mulch there, but I did have more squash than I normally can get.
This year might be drier for your melons; I'd say it's worth a try!
Rosie, I will check on the rhubarb. I know someone who grew it a couple of years ago but it didn't come back and it didn't seem to last long. If it is a good insect repellent, I will plant it in every empty spot. LOL ( do those "empty spots" really exist?)
I don't seem to have any luck with squash. It blooms and then the blossom dies. I always thought it was because of the sand I call soil, but I tried growing some in containers and that didn't work either.
Later this week I will be able to move a lot of plants outside, so hopefully this weekend I can start my vegies and herbs. I am looking forward to getting it started. I can't wait for spring!
I had a lovely large clump of Rhubarb at the far end of my garden, All I could use and gave lots of stalks to friends. It was about 10 years old, and the stalks last spring were 30" tall and 2" wide. Late last summer it apparently died. When the snow is gone I will go and look at the place where it was growing. It was a beautiful plant...
Donna
I wonder if Dave's Garden might benefit from a wiki page on companion planting do's & don'ts? It would be editable by any member. Something like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companion_plants
Whaddaya think?
This message was edited Mar 5, 2009 11:18 AM
Rhubarb is a heavy feeder. It needs lots of compost and cannot be harvested much the first couple of years. Once it is well established you can harvest as much as half the stalks. Eventually it likes to be dug up and divided if it gets too crowded. It also likes lots of water. That is a lot of leaf to support on little water during dought seasons. I love rhubarb and was taught how to raise it from my grandfather.
PuddlePirate, that looks good!
I didn't create that; I merely found it. Imagine if DGers built a companion planting chart with that info PLUS the other knowledge we possess. It'd be a very valuable resource.
I guess if Dave will not give us our own forum we might as well go to wiki. Wonder if yahoo groups has anything for us.
The problem with Yahoo groups is that then the audience is limited; here you can share info with lots of people.
Yeah, I know but how many of DG know we are here and trying to collect and share information? We are not exactly out on the veranda where folks strolling down the walk can see us and stop and say hello.
I've started tagging relevant pages.
"Companion planting": http://davesgarden.com/tools/tags/tag.php?tag=companion+planting
"Companion planting resources": http://davesgarden.com/tools/tags/tag.php?tag=companion+planting+resources
"Companion planting discoveries": http://davesgarden.com/tools/tags/tag.php?tag=companion+planting+discoveries
Please tag other pages as you find them, everybody!
Linda, I am going to be growing lots of squash this year as it was one of the few crops that did alright given the weather last year. This year I'm going to give it a bit more attention though as I just threw it in at the last minute and let it do it's own thing. I think plenty of water is the order and lots of feed.
Donna that's a HUGE rhubarb but kathy is right, you need to split them when they get over large and re site them. In this neck of the woods I was taught to lift the plant during the first frosts, put a spade through it and leave it on the surface to let the "wound" callous over, then plant the seperate pieces. It's one of those gardening jobs that needs a bit of bravery LOL.
Puddle, thanks for all the work. It's looking good. Do you know where we would need to site our CP "map" ? I haven't a clue! But have a few ideas.
Don't give up Kathy. We should try posting in other forums I think.
We really need to stick to one forum. Organic, generally? Sorry, Rosie- I mean reference ourselves and start threads everywhere, but inundate one forum so they will kick us out and on our own.
http://www.ghorganics.com/page2.html - I like this page because it often lists why certain plants should not be next to each other. It's not DG, but it's definitely interesting.
PuddlePirate, good job! All in one place. Thanks for this.
These two sites that have been listed in posts above are about as good as it can get IMHO, maybe even better than a companion planting forum where subjects are all spread out making it very time consuming and hard to find anything.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companion_plants
http://www.ghorganics.com/page2.html
Just my opinion.
Jerry
Yeah grownut, most peeps are interested in CP because they garden organically. Errrr why are you sorry ? LOL
Sorry to be thick again but what is IMHO jerry?
OK lost the plot. I have a new puppy being incontinent everywhere LOL.
That's a great site Hastur. I've come across it before.
IMHO = In My Humble Opinion
Although usually someone that uses IMHO has no reason to.... just my personal observation.
Thank you!
LOL
Hastur --IMHO it makes good practice, lol! I give my opinion so freely and so often I like the reminder up there that that's all it really is!
Now if we just had a place to talk about all these CP resources....
Hastur, you should start abbreviating "just my personal observation" to JMPO and see if it catches on, IMHO.
Heh, heh, heh...like I said, mine's more reminding me than anyone else...
grownut How about you put another thred up called CP resources or something and we'll follow and add links. Let's keep this one going for peeps interested in the subject matter and with questions or answers?
If we do, I think we should use the whole words - companion planting - so browsers can see what we're about. Then if they're interested they're more likely to check us out!
I think it is a great idea. I am potting up seedlings today so that I can start veggies and their friends on Monday. I really like the idea of companion pest control.
Rosie, have you seen this? http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/956030/
Well dang. What I did was a bit redundant then...Sorry, Pudds...(cheeky, I know...how best to shorten puddlepirate...)
Having been directed to the first thread on CP by a comment I made in a dmail, I read it all. Almost everything I read on the first thread was more about what plants to grow together for some benefit, and one of the plants was almost always an herb, although sometimes a marigold.
My interest here stems from an observation in my garden last year. I planted pole beans which were wildly successful, and then found some cannellini dry beans I wanted to try. The only spot left in my garden was next to the leeks. The beans quickly grew tall and strong, flowered profusely attracting many flying pollinators... and then poof. Turns out beans should not be planted near alliums (onions, garlic, shallots and leeks).
Recently, someone gave me a few thornless blackberries which I immediately planted on my strongest trellis... where I grow beans in summer. Well, that's not such a good idea after all, and so the berries must be moved again. Turns out there are many vegetable plants, and a few herbs, that should not be planted together. I'd hate to wade through as many posts as I just have, looking for something specific... when a handy chart would do the job quicker and easier.
I am not really convinced that any companion planting helps much in the way of repelling pests; I have done a lot of that kind of planting in the past, with somewhat less than stellar results. What I do believe is that plants with high Brix repel pests and that has become my gardening goal... high Brix. (I wrote an article on Brix for DG last fall and I will be working on 2 additional articles as I see results in my own garden; one of those will address pests once I can demonstrate the validity.)
I want to mention the biodynamic discussion early in the first thread. I have done a lot of research and have a basic understanding of biodynamics. It is a very complex methodology, and requires adopting a set of beliefs that are definitely not mainstream. Planting by the Moon Signs carries the stigma of Old Wive's Tales, but our modern science has proven the gravitational pull of the moon on water tables, so it makes logical sense to me that the moon would also affect the soil/water saturation and hence affect uptake by plants. I'm not so comfortable accepting the idea of burying a stag bladder full of herbs for a year like in the biodynamic method.
I think permaculture is a great idea, and we should be aware of maximizing our garden space and personal efforts. Like Jill's (Critterologist) suggestion about CP, I think permaculture could be handled on many forums rather than a separate forum. Neither Companion Planting nor Permaculture form a segregated part of gardening, but encompass and affect all disciplines, from Container Gardening to Vegetable Gardening to Straw Bale Gardening to each and every type of flower gardening.
I guess I am afraid we could get so specialized (narrow) in our focus that gardening won't be fun anymore.
Now if we could easily cross-reference stuff like this, Darius, I would be right there with you...Really it's a fine line that divides useful categories from useless distinctions. If there were some sort of composite forum that addressed this along with similar considerations I'd be all over that.
By the Moon/ Permaculture /Companion Planting - I hardly care. I want a place to discuss effective/beneficial plant placement. Not decorative as much as plant health.
Oh OK. Something I missed - for a change LOL
Well, I guess this thread has been silent because of too much spring activity?
I do a combination of Moon and Sign gardening as well as try to use the companion planting info that comes my way..... but I have definitely been in the throes of doing rather than posting about, LOL!
I have planted some onions and radish among my kale, all in containers..... radish with the spinach also. I'm about to do another burst of planting and whenever I work on my plans I am always referring to the lists of companions, because even in containers the compatible or incompatible chemistry of different plants seems worth paying attention to.
I see Hastur posted some interesting r esults in one of our other threads here so I am fixing to cross link that and this.
Here is where Hastur's post is:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/960252/
This message was edited Apr 9, 2009 7:59 PM
I've got nasturtiums in where I'm planning to put squash, and I should plant some radishes there as well. Then I'll put down silver plastic mulch sheets to confuse the dear little borers and squash bugs. I haven't put anything in with the spinach; usually I don't have problems with that.
Thanks for bumping, Kylaluaz!
Well, I plan to use marigolds, but so far weather here does not permit seeding them..... later this month perhaps.
I do have the idea, though, that pest repelling is only one reason for companion planting. I actually have never grown greens before other than chard, so spinach and kale are new for me, just sticking radishes in wherever. ;-)