12/31/2023 0 Comments English thyme companion plants![]() The Three Sisters garden concept can work in any modern garden but it will take some trial and error to find corn that can stand up to a climbing bean. All three sisters offer sustainable soil fertility and contribute to a healthy diet! (2).Because squash leaves are prickly, they deter pests such as squirrels and raccoons.The squash helps to protect all three crops with its large leaves that create shade and a living mulch, keeping the soil cool and moist while diminishing weeds.The sisters are held together once the beans grow upward through the squash vines to find the sunlight.The beans absorb nitrogen from the air into the soil to support all three crops.The corn offers the beans needed support.The Farmer’s Almanac breaks it down so we can better understand the way these crops work together: The Native American " Three Sisters Garden" is the companion planting example most people have heard of. Many growers will tell you that proper companion planting will even improve the taste of their crops! The benefits of good companion planting also include the following:Īnd that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You also gave the good bugs a place to hang out while digesting their last meal of nasty bugs. …that if you planted flowers with the vegetables, you got higher yields. My grandmother had learned from her mother, who had learned from her mother… One aspect of companion planting is planting different crops to maximize growth. Benefits Of Companion Planting For My Crops So, if your agronomist talks about intercropping, they are talking about the age-old practice of companion planting. Agronomists prefer to use “intercropping” to describe companion planting systems. ![]() Planting flowers in a vegetable garden is also companion planting. ![]() Using legumes as cover crops in a field with a heavy-feeding crop such as corn is companion planting. Botanists and agronomists study plant interactions but seldom use the phrase “companion planting”.Īgronomists use terms like trap cropping, nitrogen fixation, weed suppression, biochemical pest suppression, and others – but they are all aspects of companion planting. However, the term is applied broadly to include applications to commercial horticultural and agronomic crops.Ĭompanion planting has a long history, but the mechanisms of how plant interactions work still need to be completely understood. What Is Companion Planting?Īccording to ATTRA (Sustainable Agriculture Program), companion planting can be described as "establishing two or more plant species in close proximity for some cultural benefit… is thought of as a small-scale gardening practice"(1). In each carefully cultivated row, she had many kinds of vegetables and flowers growing side by side easily as companion plants. ![]() I have since learned that most of those bugs in her garden were indeed good, and most of them were there because of how she planted her garden, which was so different from other gardens in the area. If I didn’t, she would first tell me to find it in her "bug book" because it might be a "good bug." "Do you know the name of that bug?" she’d ask. As a kid, I would help her harvest, and now and then, when we would see a bug, I’d start to smash it but she would promptly stop me. She also had a wonderful vegetable garden. My grandmother always had cut flowers in vases around her home.
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