Companion Planting Myths and Tips - Ep. 246

[00:00:00] If you have been gardening for any amount of time, you have likely come across companion planting charts. Maybe you have seen advice that says plant basil with tomatoes or just general advice to plant marigolds with everything because they repel pests. But how much of this is actually true? Companion planting can mean a lot of things depending on what our goal is. We can either be going for pest repelling properties or we could be aiming to keep weeds down.

[00:00:29] We might be looking for soil health benefits or just enhancing flavors or saving space. Today on Just Grow Something, we are sorting fact from fiction. Some companion planting practices do have solid evidence behind them. Or I should say solid science. But a lot of claims are more anecdotal than evidence-based and in some cases we might be doing some well-intended pairings that may even backfire. I'm looking at you, marigolds.

[00:00:57] So, we will talk about what the research says about using specific plants to either deter or attract pests, when companion planting works and when it doesn't, which plants shouldn't be grown together and of course the why behind that. And we'll touch a little bit on using intercropping effectively in the home garden. We are going to bust some myths.

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[00:03:01] So companion planting kind of gets framed as this sort of magic bullet for pest problems, but the reality is a little bit more nuanced than that. And like I mentioned in the intro, there are a lot of different reasons why we might want to do companion planting and what that means for us in our garden.

[00:03:24] So our goals with companion planting are going to dictate what plants we actually plant together as companions. True companion planting works through a couple of different mechanisms. The first one would be pest confusion. So we talked about that a little bit last week in the pest prevention episode. We're talking about masking scents or disrupting the pest host locations.

[00:03:51] So we talked about those appropriate and inappropriate landings theory where an insect is looking for a very specific set of traits in a plant to understand or to recognize that it is the place where it's supposed to be laying its eggs. And it will land just to kind of test out whether or not that's the right plant. And then it will land again.

[00:04:14] And if it lands on a plant that isn't its host, that is considered an inappropriate landing, then that kind of resets the whole process and they start all over again. So this is confusing the pest. It also can be done in terms of scents. And by scent, we usually mean the chemical signals that it's giving off, which to us that smells like something very specific. But to pests, it might smell a little bit differently than that.

[00:04:41] But they're looking for very specific scents or chemical signals for the plants that they normally either use as a host or predate on. And if we can use companion planting to mask those scents and disrupt all of that, then that is going to be successful. That is a successful companion planting. So that's pest confusion. The second one would be trap cropping. So essentially this is sacrificing one plant to protect another one.

[00:05:10] I actually discovered a really good trap crop for kale, specifically like curly kale and other brassicas, when I planted dinosaur kale for the first time. And I had it in one particular field where I was planting a lot of my brassicas.

[00:05:27] So I had my curly kale and I had my mustards and I had broccoli and cauliflower and cabbage and bok choy and a bunch of other greens that were all kind of in that same sort of family. And I planted dinosaur kale for the first time. And the dinosaur kale was torn to shreds. And this was before I really started relying heavily on insect netting.

[00:05:54] So most of my stuff was not covered at this point. That dinosaur kale looked like Swiss cheese. The holes in those leaves from the cabbage moths and the cabbage butterflies larvae as it hatched. So all those little caterpillars, the cabbage loopers had just destroyed that dinosaur kale. But in the process of them doing that, the majority of my other brassicas were being left alone.

[00:06:19] And that was my first time really discovering the truth behind trap cropping. And it was attracting the pests away to their preferred crop and using that crop as a way to draw them away from the other things that I was trying to grow. My attempt this year at trap cropping is for my zucchini and my yellow squash.

[00:06:42] So I am going back to a traditional method of trap cropping for zucchinis and other squashes. And that is using blue hubbard squash. So blue hubbard squash is another one that is a preferential plant for everything that's in the squash family.

[00:07:01] The squash vine borers and the squash bugs absolutely prefer the blue hubbard squash plant for whatever reason over the other ones that we will grow. So the key here is to get the blue hubbard squash to be a few weeks more mature than the other plants. And so the plan is to get the blue hubbard squash planted out in one bed and leave it uncovered.

[00:07:27] I'm also going to plant marigolds at either end, which you'll find out why here in a minute. And then I'm going to plant sunflowers a little bit away from that crop. And then on the other side of that particular field is where I'm going to plant my zucchini and my yellow squashes and my other summer squashes, which will immediately be covered with insect netting. And I will have nasturtiums at either end of those beds.

[00:07:56] And then a little ways away, I'm going to have more sunflowers in. Now, the idea is that the insect pests are going to be more attracted to the blue hubbard squash. Number one, because it's going to be a little bit more mature. Number two, because it is the preferred crop. Number three, it will not be covered. And so it'll be an easier target for those pests. In addition to that, the sunflowers hopefully are going to attract birds to feed on the sunflowers,

[00:08:23] which also are going to feed on the insect pests that are in the blue hubbard squash, which will be very close by. And the idea here is that all of those pests will go over to the blue hubbard. And so when it's time to uncover the yellow squashes and the zucchini on this side, because obviously they have to be uncovered in order to be pollinated, then it'll be less likely to attract those pests to the other side. I'm not thinking that this is going to completely 100% protect my zucchini and my yellow squash,

[00:08:53] but it's hopefully going to draw away the majority of those insect pests and get them over to the blue hubbard. Now, with trap cropping, it may not necessarily be just about drawing them away. You might use it literally as a trap. You're trapping these pests by in some way eliminating them once they are in that crop. So this might be pulling that crop completely and getting rid of it and the pests along with it.

[00:09:18] This might be spraying something like an insecticidal soap or something to knock that insect pest population down so that they can't go over and predate on your other ones. There's all kinds of ways to do this, but that's the essential idea behind trap cropping. Another way that we can effect companion planting is through allelopathy. Allelopathy is basically a plant that exudes chemical signals,

[00:09:45] oftentimes either through their roots or through their plant tissue, that inhibit some other growth or that do something with those chemicals. So for example, with marigolds, we're talking about them exudating a root exudate called thiopine that has been shown to suppress root-knot nematodes, right? For sunflowers, this is going to be them keeping weeds at bay.

[00:10:14] So we'll talk about that a little bit more in depth, but that is another way that we would use companion planting as a way to help prevent things or accomplish things in the garden. And then we also can use companion plants for attracting beneficial insects. So this might be more of an idea of we're going to plant these things in order to bring in natural predators

[00:10:38] or to bring in more pollinators in order to help us combat some of the other things that are going on in our garden. You could also look at some of the interplanting that we do and use and consider that some companion planting, especially when in terms of maybe we're having some of the plants act as a living mulch. So think about the three sisters method, okay? If you're not familiar with the three sisters, essentially it is a traditional way of growing three specific crops. You're growing corn.

[00:11:08] Generally, we're not talking about sweet corn here. We're talking about dent corn or flower type corns. So this is the dried corn, which means those stalks are going to be out there for an extended period of time. But at the same time, you are planting beans, pole beans at the base of those corn plants so the beans can climb up the corn. And then you are planting pumpkins or some other type of a winter squash in and amongst the corn. And it is crawling across the ground and it is suppressing weeds.

[00:11:36] So in this instance, this is a companion planting technique that has nothing to do with keeping predatory insects out. This is all about one plant supporting the other, supporting the other, right? The corn is acting as a trellis for the beans. The beans are fixing nitrogen into the soil that the corn really needs for its growth. And then the squashes are vining in and amongst all of those plants. And they are providing ground cover, which is helping to keep the weeds at bay.

[00:12:06] So not all companion planting is specific to insect pests. It can be, but we just want to understand what mechanism we are interested in when we are deciding what to plant with each one of our crops. Okay, so that's the first thing. But a lot of companion planting charts are aimed at, you know, insect pests.

[00:12:33] And a lot of them really rely very heavily just on anecdote. And there isn't really any scientific backing to them. This is not to say that it's not true, okay? We've talked before about, you know, there's a difference between causation and correlation. And, you know, us planting, you know, our basil with our tomatoes and it seeming like the tomatoes tasted better that year doesn't necessarily mean that's actually what happened.

[00:13:00] Because there are so many other factors that could be going on in our yards. This also doesn't mean that even if it is backed by science, that it is necessarily going to work for you in your garden. Because your soil type, your climate, your amount of rainfall, all of those things are going to affect how plants perform. And, you know, what type of chemical signals or how strong the chemical signals are that they give off.

[00:13:30] It's a lot of scientific-based information is based in a laboratory setting where things are very well controlled. And as you have probably experienced as a gardener, nothing is well controlled in our gardens. Even when you find science-backed information, always think that, you know, you should be taking that with a little bit of a grain of salt and understanding that it may not work as well for you in your garden as it did in the research garden or the research plot, okay?

[00:13:57] So let's look at some popular companion plants and what the research actually says or doesn't say about them. And the very first one that we're going to talk about is marigolds because this is still probably one of the most misunderstood companion plants in the home garden. So this week I noticed my rosebush from Heirloom Roses was putting on a lot of beautiful green leafy growth.

[00:14:24] And then I wondered if there was anything specific that I needed to do with the plant in terms of spring care or, more specifically, pruning. I have mentioned I am not someone who has had very good experiences with roses in the past. And I honestly have no idea when it's a good time to perform certain tasks just to make sure that it's living its best little rose life.

[00:14:48] Thankfully, heirloomroses.com has a ton of resources to make my life easier and help me make the best decisions for when and how to care for my rose. Not just now in its first full year in its pot out front, but for years to come. They also provide emails every week that give me more tips and tricks for keeping my rose healthy, answering questions I didn't even think to ask.

[00:15:15] This just makes me even more confident to go find maybe another new rose to add out front this year. As a sponsor of the show, Heirloom Roses is offering you 20% off your purchase at heirloomroses.com by using code JUSTGROW at checkout. Make your purchase of beautiful, healthy, own root roses with confidence that you will have the resources available to you to keep it healthy and beautiful as the years go on.

[00:15:45] Heirloomroses.com using code JUSTGROW at checkout to save 20%. The link is in the show notes. I was one of those people who recommended and used to plant marigolds with literally everything in my garden. I planted them in and amongst all of my zucchinis. I put them in and amongst all of my cabbages and my brassicas. I put them in my tomatoes. I used them everywhere. And let's be very clear.

[00:16:13] We're talking specifically about French marigolds here. So this is Tageti's Petula. You can also use Mexican marigolds. They're a little bit different. The other one, not the French. The African marigolds do not work nearly as well. In terms of companion planting, you want the ones that really do give off a very strong scent, that very particular scent.

[00:16:35] The African marigolds are very pretty, but they're not really good in terms of companion planting, specifically for insect pests. They might be good at attracting pollinators and such, but not so much for insect pests. Like I mentioned, with the French marigolds, they do give off root exudates called thiopine, and those have been shown to suppress nematodes.

[00:16:59] And so if you have nematodes and you have specifically root nut nematodes in your tomatoes or other crops, then yeah, absolutely you can use marigolds. In terms of above-ground crops, or above-ground pests, I mean, marigolds do not repel all pests. As a matter of fact, they actually are attractive to certain pests.

[00:17:21] So this is where you have to decide what pest is it that you want to repel if you are interplanting them amongst your crops, or what pests are you wanting to attract if you are using it as a trap crop to draw pests away from your crop, okay? So if you have problems with aphids, white flies, melon worms and pickle worms, coddling moths,

[00:17:51] so these are the moths that plague like your apple fruits and your other palm fruits, those root nut nematodes, diamondback moths, or cabbage stem flea beetles, then yes, marigolds are good at repelling those things, okay? So this is something where if you have cabbage stem flea beetles, or you are dealing with aphids or white flies,

[00:18:16] then you can interplant marigolds in and amongst those crops that you are trying to protect from those specific pests. But if your pest problem involves squash bugs or squash vine borers or cucumber beetles, you guys know those are my top three, right? Leaf hoppers, spider mites, tarnished plant bug, beet army worm, cabbage loopers, tobacco budworms,

[00:18:44] flea beetles other than the cabbage stem flea beetles, so the striped flea beetles or the western black, all the other ones, right? Or thrips, then you need to be aware that marigolds are actually attractive to those insects. So now you know why I would be planting marigolds in with my blue hubbard squash. Because I want the squash bugs and the squash vine borers to go over into those blue hubbard squashes.

[00:19:13] I want them away from my other ones. The one thing that I failed to mention too is that the other thing that I'm putting over in those blue hubbard squash plants is some pheromone traps for the squash vine borers. So I really want everything, all those insects to go over to that crop over there. And so I'm going to use the marigolds for that.

[00:19:34] Now in terms of like my brassicas where I used to always plant marigolds in and amongst my cabbages and my broccoli and my cauliflower, that was a really bad idea because my problem is not with cabbage stem flea beetle, which is repelled by the marigolds. My problem is with cabbage loopers. And marigolds attract cabbage loopers. So that was not a really good idea for me.

[00:20:00] I should be planting the marigolds away from my cabbage and other brassica crops. So now what I do is when I plant my brassicas, I am planting alyssum and I am planting onions and I am planting lettuces and intermixing all of that together. And then I am covering it with that insect netting. And then I am planting marigolds further away from those beds so that I'm trying to draw those cabbage loopers away, right?

[00:20:29] You need to plant according to your goal. And marigolds are also attractive to the beneficials too, some of the beneficials. So like ladybugs and hoverflies and some of the parasitoids and predatory insects. So just plant according to your goal. What is it that you are trying to achieve and use marigolds in that instance? So what about like planting basil with tomatoes?

[00:20:54] There actually is no strong scientific evidence that basil does anything in terms of like repelling tomato hornworms, which is what is often touted for doing, or improving the flavor of the tomato. There is anecdotal data that suggests it might help repel thrips and that maybe the strong scent of the basil can help repel other insects. And basil does attract pollinators.

[00:21:21] This can actually be true of a lot of different strong scented herbs and flowers. So this may not be specific to basil with tomatoes. It doesn't mean, again, that these things aren't true. It just means that there isn't any actual evidence. So there is no harm in planting them together, but you just shouldn't rely on basil alone for your pest control.

[00:21:46] So in addition to planting basil in with my tomatoes, which I absolutely do, I absolutely do this. I do think they go well together and I will actually plant multiple varieties of basil. So the green like Italian basils, sweet basils that we harvest to sell in bunches of actual basil leaves. I also plant different types of basil that maybe I'm not harvesting to sell, but I'm allowing them to go to flower because they do put off such beautiful flowers.

[00:22:14] And a lot of pollinators and other insects are attracted to that. And of course that helps the tomatoes. But also I am planting things like, you know, marigolds down at the ends or in and amongst the tomatoes. And I am going to plant sunflowers down at the end of that section of the garden to attract the birds in. So the birds are trying to pick off the things like the tomato hornworms that might actually be damaging my tomatoes, but that maybe the basil isn't repelling.

[00:22:42] I am not relying on just one planting or one companion to do these jobs. I am, you know, loading my basis and making sure that every single thing that's out there has some sort of different mechanism for helping me with these insect pests. So no harm in planting them together, but don't rely on basil alone for your pest control. Another one would be borage and planting that near squash or tomatoes.

[00:23:09] Borage flowers do attract pollinators and they attract beneficial wasps. And some of those beneficial wasps are the ones that will predate on those tomato hornworms. You may have seen images of tomato hornworms with eggs laid on them. It's fascinating to see. And what that is, is these predatory wasps have come in and have laid their eggs on the hornworms. And when those eggs hatch, then they essentially eat the hornworm.

[00:23:36] And so you're kind of disrupting that hornworm reproduction cycle right there. And there have been some studies that do show fewer tomato hornworms on plants that are planted near borage. You just have to remember that borage grows very large. So you want to space it appropriately to avoid shading anything nearby. So it's fine to do them with the tomatoes because they're both fairly tall. But if you're doing it near squash, you want to do this like sort of appropriately, right?

[00:24:01] I keep mentioning sunflowers and I use sunflowers to attract birds that will predate on the insects in my garden. And thereby I am helping to reduce the pests. But I do shy away from planting anything too close to the base of those plants. Because sunflower can be a highly allopathic plant.

[00:24:28] It's phytotoxic potential has been shown on crops and weeds in not just laboratory settings, but also in greenhouse and field trials. And they've done all kinds of tests on this with different, you know, a variety of factors. Like the concentration of how many sunflowers are growing and the different species and the different genotypes.

[00:24:48] So, you know, again, sunflower are another one that kind of gives off these root exudates that are chemicals that are going to inhibit the growth of other plants in and around the base of the sunflowers. Which means that sunflowers are a good crop to plant for suppressing weeds. Especially annual weeds because it's going to prevent them from coming up. But it may not be something that you want to plant within a few feet of any crop that you actually intend to harvest.

[00:25:17] Which is kind of a shame because, you know, we talked about the three sisters method. And if you think about a sunflower, they have such real good sturdy stalks. You would hope that it would be something that you would be able to use as like a natural trellis. Like the corn in the three sisters method. But unfortunately, most crops are not going to be able to handle the chemical signals or the chemicals that are being released from those roots.

[00:25:42] And if they are something that could handle those allelopathic properties, the other way a plant could be allelopathic, meaning it is preventing the growth of things near it, is to be basically a nutrient hog. Sunflower is a very demanding plant. And it can usually out-compete anything that it is planted with. So sunflowers have very deep tap roots. I did a whole episode on sunflowers and their ability to be able to...

[00:26:12] I guess it wasn't a whole episode specific to sunflowers. But it was talking about phytoremediation. Which is the ability to be able to draw toxins and other contaminants out of the soil. Sunflowers are fantastic for that. And if they have that ability, then you know they have a very, very strong root system. So they are going to out-compete just about anything.

[00:26:33] The only thing that I have really seen them not be able to handle, at least in my area, is a heavy growth of hemlock plant. Like we have hemlock out here that is just invasive and goes crazy. And I have tried planting sunflowers to kind of out-compete the hemlock. And the hemlock just... It takes over every time. So that's something that we have dealt with. But sunflower, great for suppressing weeds, especially annual weeds.

[00:26:59] But you may not want to plant any actual harvestable crops anywhere near the base of them. Now, sometimes a plant that we plant intending for it to help can actually do the opposite. You know, I am all about experimenting with, you know, companion plants to see what works and what doesn't work in your garden, in your experience. Again, we don't always have to rely on, you know, these science research studies, etc.

[00:27:29] To show us what works in our own garden. I just don't like to spread that information to people once I see something works for me because it may not work for somebody else. If I just have anecdotal information, right? But there are, you know, certain cases where we know something doesn't work for very specific reasons. For example, dill. Dill attracts swallowtail caterpillars, which, you know, actually attracts the butterfly. And they like to lay their eggs in the dill.

[00:27:57] This also is in parsley as well. But dill specifically. And dill also attracts aphids. So you probably don't want to be planting those near your tomatoes because you're encouraging those caterpillars and you're encouraging aphids to be in your tomatoes. Mature dill can also suppress tomato growth first via that allelopathy early on.

[00:28:19] So, you know, the early plants aren't so bad, but once they start to go to flower, then the dill can cause a problem. So it's not usually a good idea to plant dill near your tomatoes. Same thing goes with sunflowers, again, anywhere near beans. So, you know, I will plant sunflowers along end rows in my garden. It's usually the one thing that I don't plant in amongst everything else.

[00:28:45] But if I'm going to plant beans, they're going to be at the opposite end of that garden area because sunflowers can actually attract stink bugs and they can harbor seed maggots. And this is not something that we want in our beans because beans are very susceptible to the damage from those. They're great for pollinators, the sunflowers are, but you just want to make sure that you're monitoring them closely near any of those vulnerable crops. Another one is fennel. Fennel also has allelopathic compounds and it can inhibit the growth of a lot of vegetables, most of them actually.

[00:29:15] So if you are growing fennel, you likely want to plant it by itself. And it's a great plant that you can put in a separate pollinator bed because it does, again, attracts those things like swallowtail butterflies. And so if you are growing fennel as your crop to eat, then you want to keep it away from the rest of your crops so that it doesn't actually inhibit the growth of the rest of your garden.

[00:29:39] Okay, so there are a few more plants that we may not want to plant together just, you know, based on allelopathy or even just direct competition. The first one is planting onions or garlic in and amongst beans. So one of the things that we get, one of the benefits that we get from planting beans or anything else in the allium or in the legume family, sorry, in the legume family,

[00:30:06] is that beans and other legumes add nitrogen to the soil through a symbiotic relationship with rhizobium bacteria. These bacteria form nodules on the bean roots. So they convert atmospheric nitrogen into a form that the plant can use through those nodules.

[00:30:28] When the plant dies or when we cut it down, we leave that root system in the ground, which means those nodules are still in the soil. And then as they decompose, they release that fixed nitrogen back out into the soil. And that, of course, helps enrich the soil for future crops.

[00:30:45] If we plant onions or garlic, any of our alliums, next to our beans or near our legumes, it's a bad idea because alliums release sulfur compounds and allicin, which is an antibacterial compound. And those compounds can actually kill off the beneficial nitrogen-fixing bacteria that are doing that job for us.

[00:31:11] Those are the bacteria that the legumes need for that nitrogen fixation. So not only is that going to affect the plant's ability, the bean plant's ability, to be able to kind of store up that nitrogen for us and give us those benefits, but it actually may interfere with the bean plant's growth itself. So we want to avoid planting onions or garlic in and around near our beans. Another one would be carrots and dill or parsnip. These are all in the APACA family.

[00:31:40] And so they can cross-attract carrot flies and also attract the same diseases. So we don't want to group them together. The same thing goes basically for other plant families. So nasturtiums, for example. Nasturtiums will repel a lot of different pests, but nasturtiums are in the brassica family. And so it would be probably a bad idea to plant nasturtiums in and amongst all of your brassicas

[00:32:05] because they're not going to be very effective at the pests that we're worried about in our brassicas, like the cabbage moths or other pests, because the phytochemicals are all the same. So this is why we generally don't want to plant things in the same family all together. Same thing goes with like potatoes and tomatoes. They're both in the nightshade family. So they are both susceptible to the same fungal and bacterial diseases, especially blight. So we want to separate them to reduce that risk.

[00:32:34] Does this mean that I'm not planting my brassicas all like near each other? No. I'm still planting them in beds that are close to each other because, again, we talk about this all the time. We're not farming on a thousand acres here, right? And, I mean, even I have more room to plant than a lot of other people do. But if you're gardening in your backyard, you only have a limited amount of space. So you're obviously going to have to be planting some of these plants close to each other, right?

[00:33:00] So it's just important to, again, use that companion planting to mix up all the species. Tomatoes and corn. These are both really heavy feeders, and they're going to compete for nutrients a lot of the time. Plus, corn can host the corn earworm, which is also known as the tomato fruit worm. So that also targets tomatoes. We don't want those pests coming in and landing on one and also being able to feed on the other.

[00:33:27] So those can be, you know, both of the plants weak, and it opens them up to different pests and diseases. So we don't want to plant those together either. In terms of companion planting with strategy, right? This is where intercropping or interplanting comes into play. We're going to talk next week about the strategies, like really dive deep into the kind of systematic version or way that we can companion plant through intercropping. It's based on timing. It's based on spacing.

[00:33:57] It's based on plant architecture, all of these different things. But some of the ones, you know, just here briefly that we can touch on that are really good examples are things like what we already talked about, the three sisters, right? Corn, beans, and squash. The beans fix the nitrogen. The corn provides support. The squash suppresses the weeds.

[00:34:15] It can also deter, like, raccoons and stuff from getting into your corn because if you're using the squashes that have, like, the spiky stems on them, that can actually help, you know, keep those buggers from crawling in there and trying to climb up the corn and pull the corn down. So lots of different benefits to each other when they're being planted together.

[00:34:36] Planting fast-growing crops with slow-growing ones, so radishes or lettuce being planted in between longer maturing crops like the broccoli or your peppers, not only is maximizing space, it's also reducing that weed pressure. So those are good companions together, but again, when we're talking about deterring pests, we're mixing up those chemical signals by planting multiple plant families together.

[00:35:01] So that is deterring the pests because they can't find their preferred host nearly as easily, especially, again, appropriate, inappropriate landings. They land on a radish and go, oop, that's not what I wanted. I want to land on the carrot. And then they might land on the carrot and then they land again and, oop, I'm back on a radish again. Like, it resets that whole cycle. So the more things that we can plant together that are not in the same plant family, the better off we are.

[00:35:26] This kind of interplanting, you know, rows of non-host crops not only visually confuses the pests, but it also, you know, can confuse them in terms of, like, the texture and the landing on them, right? So alternating rows of onions and carrots that can mask each of those crops from their respective pests, like onion maggots and the carrot, rust flies, etc. This is why when I'm planting my brassicas, again, they are being planted near each other. I might have one full bed that has all, you know, broccoli in it.

[00:35:56] That bed right next to it may also have cabbage in it. And then the one right next to that might have cauliflower in it. But they're not by themselves. They are not growing by themselves ever in those beds. So even though those all attract the same pests, I am interplanting those onions and those lettuces and the alyssum in and amongst them. So it is still confusing those pests, right?

[00:36:23] That is how you kind of get around the space issue when it comes to growing your crops. If you can interplant them and confuse those pests, that's going to help. To be most effective, we want to choose crops that have different growth rates and that also have different canopy shapes. And we don't want to overcrowd. This is probably the most difficult part of this and something we're going to kind of deep dive into next week.

[00:36:48] Intercropping works best when you have a plan and you understand the mature size of these plants and how they're going to affect each other when they are all at maturity, whether or not they've already been pulled or not and that sort of thing. So we'll go into that a little bit more next week. Companion planting absolutely works, right?

[00:37:14] Whether or not we're using it in terms of, you know, increasing our soil health or protecting our soil or keeping weeds at bay or in terms of pest management, but it works best as part of an integrated pest management strategy. I will link to the IPM episode that I did earlier in the season. But this means prioritizing plant health and soil health, right?

[00:37:40] Because again, our healthy plants and our healthy soil are going to be much better at resisting those pests and being able to bounce back once they are predated on. And on monitoring for that pest presence and keeping track of those life cycles so that we know when and how those pests are operating. And then combining all of this companion planting with using physical barriers and natural predators when appropriate.

[00:38:08] Doing your homework on which companions actually have evidence behind them is a really good place to start and is also going to sort of weed out which ones might just be garden folklore. A lot of plants do express insecticidal traits. The key is to use them for your benefit and use them on plants that are very dissimilar and that way they produce different phytochemicals.

[00:38:37] So again, that, you know, that reference to the nasturtiums. They do repel pests, but they are in the brassica family. So maybe don't use them to try to deter pests from others in that family. Put them in with something else like maybe your squash plants. And if you have, you know, or just use them as a trap crop. If you have tried a companion planting combo that works for you, there is no reason not to continue it if you know it's working. And you can go ahead and share that.

[00:39:07] You know, let me know. I would love to, you know, hear some real world examples of things that have worked for you. If you have tried a companion planting that totally flopped, and maybe you didn't realize why it flopped until later on, or even just now listening to this episode and realizing, oh, nasturtiums attract aphids, and I was trying to get rid of aphids, but I put them in and they were, oh, now I understand. And go ahead and let me know that too. I would love to hear about it.

[00:39:36] Again, if I hear a bunch of real world examples from people, I am super happy to, you know, update everybody in a future episode to let them know like, hey, this has worked for some people. Maybe it'll work for you. Just remember when you are dealing with anecdotal companion plantings, what works for one person may not work for another one. So do not rely on any of these companion planting suggestions as your sole way to keep insect pests at bay in your garden.

[00:40:04] Make sure it's part of an integrated plan and that you have more than one way to keep away those pests. Until next time, my gardening friends, keep on cultivating that dream garden, and we'll talk again soon.