The term “Companion Planting” may conjure up fanciful images of an emotional or spiritual relationship between plants that like to grow next to one another but in reality, companion planting is a thoroughly practical practice. Companion planting is a technique involving the planting of multiple plant varieties in strategic groupings. In nature, plants don’t tend to grow in tidy straight rows of singular varieties, they work together in biodiverse systems, supporting one another. Deliberate companion planting more closely replicates natural systems. Companion planting has many benefits including: maximizing the space use and efficiency of your garden, recognizing and making the most of the different nutrients plants both draw from and add to soil, having backups if a particular plant doesn’t thrive in a growing season, and reducing the impact of pests in your garden. It is one of the easiest ways that gardeners can begin implementing Permaculture principles in their home gardens. Here are a few details about how to use companion planting for more successful food growing.
Efficient use of space is one of the most obvious reasons to consider companion planting. When used effectively, one can grow and produce up to four different crops in the same amount of space that would usually support one crop. One of the best examples of an effective companion plant combo is the much celebrated Three Sisters planting method developed and used by many North American first peoples for millennia. The three sister plants referred to here are Corn, Squash and Pole Beans. With this combo the three crops are all grown within the same space and support one another structurally and nutrionally. Corn grows high on a strong stalk, providing a trellis of sorts for both the beans and squash to climb. The beans act as nitrogen fixers for healthy soil while the squash’s broad leaf and dense growth help retain moisture in the soil, almost acting as a mulch to cool and minimize moisture loss. Traditionally, it is also possible to add a fourth “sister” to the combo in the form of either Sunflowers or Bee Balm. Either of these two plants provide more stalk support while also attracting pollinators to the squash and beans. Another great fourth companion plant option for this combo is the radish. If permitted to bolt, radish flowers are excellent pollinator attractants while also repelling squash beetles at the same time. As an added bonus, each radish plant produced hundreds of tasty radish seed pods that can be eaten fresh or pickled. With monoculture planting practices, one would normally only get a single crop from one garden bed, with Three Sisters companion planting you can harvest corn, squash, beans and radish pods from the same amount of space.
Another reason to consider companion planting is crop inconsistency. When you start gardening, it doesn’t take long to realize that results are not going to be the same for every variety of food that is grown year after year. It’s to be expected that some crops will thrive and be bountiful one year, while that same crop may fail or be less productive the next year. When you have several crops growing in the same space, companion plants can make up for the lack of harvest for a particular crop that fails to thrive in a particular year. With the example of the three sisters companion combo discussed earlier, you may find one year that the corn fails to make it to maturity but the garden space dedicated to corn isn’t wasted as there is still an opportunity for the squash, beans and radishes grown in the same space to provide a decent harvest.
A final significant factor to consider as a companion planting asset is pest control. It has already been mentioned that one of the reasons that radishes work well as a companion plant to squash is the fact that radish flowers deter squash beetles. There are several other commonly known examples of flowers and herbs that are effective companion plant with their abilities to either deter pest bugs or even by acting as a trap to encourage garden pests to feast on their tasty blooms instead of the food crops being grown. Marigolds are one of the most popular companion plants for many different crops as they tend to repel many common garden pests while also attracting pollinators and wasps that prey on pests. Other great companion plants for pest control include Borage, Nasturtiums and Dill.
We hope you might consider giving companion planting a try in your home garden this year. As with all permaculture practices, it more closely replicates the biodiverse relationships in the natural world. Companion planting considers the complex relationships between plant structure, nutrient needs and natural pest controls while also allowing gardeners to plant more densely. These factors really work together to increase the resiliency of your garden and this is particularly beneficial when gardening in an area of extreme conditions like Cochrane. We will continue to share some of our favourite companion plant combos on our website or check out some of these biodiverse plantings in action in the Solar Roller while it’s at public events. Cultivate Cochrane is here to help and we hope we can all learn to grow more together!