OVER THE YEARS I’ve heard many people say that if they can’t eat it, they’re not going to grow it. To be honest, in my early years of gardening I was that way also. However, we would do better to take a broader perspective. Our food crops are part of a much bigger ecosystem that all works together and we have to consider the whole of it. That’s where companion planting comes in. It can mean planting two or more crops next to each other or planting them nearby, such as in a border. When crops are mixed in the bed it is called interplanting. When plant-eating insects are scouting out their targets they are attracted to monocrop systems where there are whole fields of one thing — all their favorite food in one place, how nice for them! A sustainable garden will be developed with diverse plantings that attract beneficial insects, that will then feed on the not-so-beneficial ones, all without chemicals. These plantings will enhance the beauty of your garden and increase the flavor of your vegetables.
I’m not going to give you lists of what grows well together and what doesn’t, although I’ll be giving you some examples. There are plenty of resources where you can find that information, including How to Grow More Vegetables and Carrots Love Tomatoes. What I am going to tell you about is my experiences of seeing what happens when an ecosystem is working. You can worry yourself silly trying to get the “right” combination of crops together and avoiding the “wrong” ones. It will be much easier if you understand the habits and life cycles of both the insects and the plants.
Some plants, particularly those with small flowers, are good at attracting beneficial insects. The beneficial ones are those attracted to the nectar and pollen of the flowers, but that also feed on the larvae of the insects you want to have less of in your garden. So, leaving some things to flower and go to seed in your garden is what you should strive for. When I first grew basil I had read in the herb book that you need to harvest it before it flowers for the best culinary use. I thought I was not being a good and attentive gardener if it went to seed. Well, if you’ve ever grown basil, you know that it is hard to keep trimmed all the time and eventually, some of it will flower. One year, the basil had gotten ahead of me and I went to the garden with my clippers to get it back under control. What I found was that my basil was teaming with life. There were so many insects, including tiny wasps, buzzing around those plants it was amazing! They were after the flowers. The insects being attracted were beneficial ones. I eventually trimmed the basil, but not that day. The best time of day to witness something like that in your garden is between 10am and 2pm. Now I make sure to leave some of the basil flower every year. Often the best crops to grow together are the ones you eat together and so, for example, I plant basil with my tomatoes.
Dill goes well with squash and cucumbers. All the umbelliferous plants — dill, carrots, parsley, and celery — are good plants to have. Celery, parsley, and carrots are biennials, flowering the second year. If you leave them to overwinter in your garden, they will be up early in the spring and flowering without you even needing to think about it. If you like to use celery seed in your cooking, just watch for the seed to mature and gather it. You will have enhanced the beauty of your garden in early spring, attracted beneficial insects, and produced food for your kitchen — all while just letting nature take its course.
Not enough gardeners and farmers save seeds. The value of doing so is that the process of saving seeds sets the stage to provide food and habitat for the “good” bugs. I’ll be talking more about seeds in Chapter 9. I’ve heard of people buying ladybugs and other insects to put in their garden. You could do that, but if there is not enough food and habitat for them they won’t stick around. It is sort of a build-it-and-they-will-come deal. If you provide the right habitat, they will show up on their own. I began growing cowpeas because they were drought tolerant and we were in the midst of some drought years at the time. Cowpeas have become our staple crop for dry beans. I could usually find ladybugs on the cowpea flowers and one day when I was in the garden with the camera I decided to photograph one. The ladybug I had in mind was scurrying up and down the plant stems and I had to wait until she stopped. When she did, I snapped the picture. Upon a closer look, she had stopped to munch on an aphid. I didn’t even know about that aphid and it was being taken care of. You can find that photo in the color section of this book. In a sustainable garden the goal is to have a balance, not to eradicate any one thing.
Many years ago our son, Luke, was helping me in the garden and found a really strange looking bug. At the age of twelve he knew that you don’t just go around killing bugs — at least not until you’ve identified whether they are harming your crops or not. A university professor had been coming out each week to do some studies on our farm, so Luke saved it to show her. She identified it as a wheel bug, also known as an assassin bug, and explained that it is a beneficial insect that will suck the guts out of caterpillars. Luke set up a terrarium and kept it to study for about two weeks before he let it go back to the garden. Meanwhile, when we were working in the garden or washing lettuce for the market and came across a little caterpillar, he would feed it to his new pet. Sure enough, it sucked the guts out as he watched! Nature in action. That wheel bug wouldn’t have been there if we hadn’t provided an attractive home — a welcoming habitat. The professor coming to our farm thought it was wonderful to see so many insects here. I took it for granted and suggested that all farms had insects like that. She assured me that conventional farms did not.
A guide I’ve used often to find out which insects are good to counteract the undesirable insects, and what to plant to provide the necessary habitat, is Farmscaping to Enhance Biological Control. It is a publication from ATTRA, which is a project of the National Center for Appropriate Technology. Much helpful information is available on the ATTRA website, including many short videos and longer webinars about sustainable agriculture. Although the ATTRA information used to be free, there may now be a charge for some of the publications due to federal budget cuts.
Farmscaping is a word coined by entomologist Dr. Robert Bugg to describe a holistic approach to insect management. The field days I attended on no-till farming methods were also about farmscaping. The publication that resulted from that research at Virginia Tech is Farmscaping Techniques for Managing Insect Pests. One of the authors, Dr. Richard McDonald, is the best presenter I’ve experienced on the subject of farmscaping. Both in the field and in the conference hall you can sense his excitement for insects. You will find lots of information and photos on his website at drmcbug.com.
When we first moved to our five acres in the spring of 1984 I planted a garden and put in potatoes. I’d had a small garden where we lived before and had grown potatoes with no problems. We got busy fixing up the house and the next thing I knew the potatoes had grown up and were covered with Colorado potato beetle larvae. There were few gardens where we lived before and I was probably the only one with potatoes there. Here, plenty of people grew potatoes and much bigger patches than mine. I asked around and the acceptable approach, at least for my neighbors, was to spray the insecticide Sevin to combat the potato beetles. I even asked a friend who I thought adhered to organic practices and she also suggested Sevin. That was not an acceptable approach for me. If I wanted potatoes treated with insecticides I might as well just buy the ones in the store. I taught our children, who were turning 11, 7, and 3 (all have summer birthdays), to identify and pick off the larvae and bugs. We did that for the next few years as part of our garden chores. My problem with potato beetles lessened and then just disappeared. I had developed the ecosystem so that things were in balance. I can’t say exactly what I did that ended my problem with the potato beetles. The tansy I got started would have helped, but that was really only part of the whole.
In 2002 I was able to plant a garden at the community college where I was teaching sustainable agriculture classes. I put in potatoes and was disappointed that they were plagued by Colorado potato beetles. I had not had to think of those insects in years. I checked the ATTRA farmscaping publication and saw that the spined soldier bug targets potato beetles and the way to attract them is with the sunflower family (goldenrod and yarrow), bishop’s weed, and maintaining permanent plantings. I did not check into bishop’s weed at the time, but a quick internet search now indicates that although it is good for filling in shady areas, it can become pretty invasive. I sometimes had sunflowers in that garden, but they would have been blooming too late for the potatoes. The rest of the college garden contained annual plants, which were not much help in providing the perennial plantings that the publication indicated would be useful. I did put in some tansy along the fence surrounding the garden, but it wasn’t enough compared to what was going on all around. Herbicides were also in use. How the area surrounding the garden was managed had an effect on the garden itself. It is in building the ecosystems that we regain balance, not spraying chemicals.
Anytime you change something it upsets whatever balance was already established. Even if you are doing all the right organic things, when you put in a garden where there wasn’t one, the balance that was there needs to adjust to the new plants and system. A farmer needs to have not used chemicals and to have done soil building practices for at least three years before organic certification is awarded. It takes three years for that new balance to be reached and for things to be working as they should in the system. During the years I was selling produce I had two friends who had started farms tell me that they were doing all the good things they should be doing and they were not yet seeing results. They didn’t quite know what it was that they should be seeing, but they knew it wasn’t there. They were each probably beginning their third year of growing at the time. I told them that they hadn’t been doing it for the full three years yet, and if they kept at it they would see the change. I am fortunate that they both came back to me later and said that it had happened on their farms, just as I told them it would. They could see and feel things coming into balance. If you are used to taking the fast and easy approach, it can be hard to wait. If you have a partner who prefers reaching for the chemicals over watching what will happen, it is even harder. Even using a little herbicide or insecticide sets things back. You can’t have it both ways. Look for organic controls that you can use while your system is developing.
The first year I became a market gardener my main crop was lettuce. I had grown lettuce for my family before, but that year it was in a third of my garden. Talk about upsetting the balance! Things were going along fine until a week before my first harvest when the slugs moved in. I discovered that the slugs came out on the leaves just before dusk and were still there in the early morning while the dew was on the plants. I would go out with a spoon and cup to scrape them off. It was only a problem until the hot days of summer set in. I had to be diligent the first year. The second year I was watchful and kept after the slugs for the few weeks they were a problem, but they never were as bad as the first year. After that I don’t remember ever having a problem. We would see slugs when we washed the lettuce for market, but they didn’t do enough damage to think about. Since we had a healthy ecosystem in the garden, I imagine that the birds and toads worked slug harvest into their routine and took care of them for us.
I mentioned that when you mix different crops in the same bed it is called interplanting. In permaculture, planting certain things together like that is referred to as a guild. Sometimes I have interplanted things for convenience, such as lettuce and cabbage. I set the cabbage out at their regular spacing — about 15″ — and the lettuce transplants go in between the cabbage plants. They all grow together in the bed until the leaves begin to touch. That’s when I harvest the lettuce. With lettuce in the bed there is no space for weeds. If you find things that work well together, think of them as a guild that is always planted together. The Three Sisters — corn, beans, and squash — is an example of interplanting. Sally Jean Cunningham wrote Great Garden Companions, a good resource for information on companion planting. She mixes herbs, flowers, and vegetables in her beds. That book has been an inspiration to Brent, one of my friends you meet in my garden planning DVD. He has moved since we filmed for the video, but only to another part of Richmond, Virginia. His front and back yards are filled with gardens and he even has chickens now. Some of his beds look like they could come right out of Cunningham’s book. Once when I was there I saw white cabbage butterflies flitting about his yard, but no holes in the leaves of his brassica plants. I also saw wasps flying along those greens looking under the leaves for a snack. I’m sure they were looking for larvae or eggs. Everything was as it should be. Although I don’t remember all that he had planted with those cabbage family plants, I do remember that hairy vetch was blooming in there.
Developing borders is a great opportunity to put plants together in the garden, while establishing permanent plantings and habitat. Even annuals will do to start. Here’s where you can put the herbs and flowers that add so much to life. You can plant bulbs in your borders as well. This is all part of establishing the ecosystem. Think of it as a mini-hedge. In fact, it is good to learn about hedges. They are useful wherever you have room for them. One side of my large garden has always had a fence, so the honeysuckle, day lilies, and other things that just grow there are permanent plantings. It’s sort of wild. The other three sides are planted on the inside of the fence, but most years grass grows up to the fence on the outside. Big on my to-do list is to establish a perennial border on the outside of the fence on those three sides. On the inside, I have established hazelnuts (filberts) on the north side of the garden and blueberries on the west side. Annual vegetables are on the south side.
One summer I had some great looking marigolds growing on the outside of the garden fence. Marigolds are always good to have in and around your garden. Our son Luke had a team of calves that he was training as oxen and they had reached the limits of our pasture. For some extra grazing, he put up electric fence to use the grassy area surrounding the garden. We assumed the 4′ garden fence would suffice to keep them from the garden. I thought I would have to sacrifice the marigolds, but the steers didn’t even nibble on them. Since they stayed away from the marigolds, they stayed away from the fence. The following spring, they were let into that area again, but there were no marigolds along the fence. The steers came up to the fence and dropped their heads over, leaning on the fence and eating the collards that I had going to seed. Granted, the animals were bigger now, but that made me think that if I had highly scented perennials there, maybe those plants would keep back the steers and possibly other animals. The marigolds were great for that, but they are seasonal. There are books about plants that wildlife don’t like. Maybe a combination of those plants, along with a fence, would mean the fence doesn’t have to be so high. Luke’s oxen have moved on to other pastures, but now that we’ve considered that area outside the garden as potential extra grazing, I want to establish a border that won’t get eaten. It will be an interesting challenge.
Comfrey is good to have in your garden. A border of comfrey planted eighteen inches apart has kept wire grass from encroaching in one of my gardens. Comfrey dies back in the winter, but pops up in early spring to form a nice green fence. You could harvest comfrey for compost material or to feed small livestock. In that case, their manure goes to the compost. Comfrey won’t do, however, in the border that I don’t want grazed by the steers. They ate it down so thoroughly along one fence that it never came back.
I discovered tansy in my early years here at the farm when I was searching for a solution to the beetle problem with my potatoes. I had read that tansy was a good companion plant for potatoes, so I planted tansy seeds in my potato bed. The tansy grew well, but of course the new plants didn’t do much for the potatoes that year. Since tansy is a perennial, it wouldn’t be good to leave it in the garden bed, so I transplanted it along our porch. It has done great there. It is still close enough to the garden so the beneficial insects it attracts are nearby and, since it tends to spread out, I can dig some at any time to plant another place or give to friends, redistributing the surplus. Cunningham refers to tansy as “probably the single best attractor for beneficial insects.” The list of insects she’s found on her tansy includes the spined soldier bug, the same one the ATTRA Farmscaping publication said would go after the Colorado potato beetle.
How the paths are handled is a consideration as part of your companion planting/farmscaping plan. Tilling destroys any habitat that might be there for the beneficial insects. In Chapter 2 I mentioned that I have white clover or leaf mulch in my narrow paths and grass in my wide paths. This provides a nice habitat for beneficials. According to the ATTRA Farmscaping publication, ground beetles like to live in permanent plantings, white clover, and mulch. They may help with the Colorado potato beetle problem, in addition to problems with slugs, snails, cutworms, and cabbage-root maggots. Just imagine if chemicals are sprayed in the paths. Besides the vegetation, all the beneficial life in the paths would perish.
Don’t be too quick to clean up the edges of your property. Eradicating every weed and trimming every blade of grass is considered desirable to some, but at what cost? Weedy fencerows, as well as other shady, moist spots can be homes to spiders. Spiders eat only insects, and live ones at that. All those insects get thirsty, so make sure to provide some water for them. It can be in shallow dishes you set out, a pond in your garden, or even a small wetland. I have only touched the surface of all you could do with companion planting, but I hope I’ve given you an understanding of what is necessary to allow all the benefits of an ecosystem to develop. Diversity is what we are after in a sustainable garden. The more different things we have, the better.