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Re: Companion Planting & more

On Fri 26 Jun, Christina wrote:
> Allan mentioned the companion planting of Pumpkins and corn.  This is
> actually from a Native American system known as the "Three sisters"  which
> are corn, pumpkins or squash and beans.  These are planted together for
> most efficient use of garden space,ie the corn uses the 'top story', beans
> grow up the corn for support, and the squash (a notorious space hog)
> sprawls all over the ground. The system is not meant for disease control or
> pest avoidance.
> 
> Christina
> Eastern Ontario, zone 6
> 
Thanks for that one, Christina
In one of my garden books there is mention of the man who planted beans
at the foot of his sunflowers. OK except that the beans grew quicker
than the sunflowers. I can imagine the mess, but it might be fun to do
that again on a small scale just to see exactly what happened.
The system that obviously works is when you grow one crop in a block.
You do this with sweetcorn to help the pollination, and again with
self-blanching celery in which case the outer plants are there to give
a degree of support and blanching to the rest.
Another one which I have done is to grow sunflowers or Jerusalem
Artichoke in a strip to make a windbreak for the sake of, particularly
french beans (as we call them in UK) which hate strong wind. There is
also growing runner beans in wigwams (mine are 8 sticks and a bit
of string round the top, the quickest way to put them up and
relatively windproof) where the beans hang down in the middle.
I suppose we must include sowing a few radish with carrots, beans
parsnips etc. to mark the rows. Also the commonsense one of planting
your cabbages next to peas just before you harvest them, to use up the
nitrogen.

-- 
Allan Day  Hereford HR2 7AU allan@crwys.demon.co.uk
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