I promised this week we’d go into the actual techniques of interplanting. One of the main methods I use in my own garden, in helping my clients in their gardens, and what I teach in my Plan Like a Pro course is “high, low, fast, slow.” This little mantra is a great way to combine the plants in your garden to make the most use of all of your space without impeding on the growth of any of the plants.
When done successfully, not only are you taking advantage of mixing the species up to help with pest pressure, but you’re also providing better diversity in the garden in terms of your soil and getting more out of the same garden space. When done incorrectly, though, we can choke out our plants, cause disease issues, invite pests in because we have weak plants and, ultimately reduce our yield.
Today on Just Grow Something, I’m taking you through how to judiciously combine plant families in your garden beds so you can make the most of the space you have while also benefitting your plants and the soil they’re in. I will give you specific examples of how this is working out in my gardens right now so maybe you can be inspired to do the same in your own garden. Let’s dig in!
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We talked last week about companion planting and some of
00:00:04
the myths around what it means and what specific plants maybe
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aren't good to plant together. I promised this week that we
00:00:11
would go into the actual techniques of how to do this in
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our own gardens in terms of inter planting.
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One of the main methods that I use in my own garden and in
00:00:21
helping my clients in their gardens and what I teach in my
00:00:25
plan like a pro course is high, low, Fast, Slow.
00:00:29
This little mantra is a really great way to combine the plants
00:00:33
in your garden to make the most use of all of your space without
00:00:37
impeding on the growth of any of the plants involved.
00:00:41
Now, when done successfully, not only are you taking advantage of
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mixing the species up to help with pest pressure, you are also
00:00:48
providing better diversity in the garden in terms of your soil
00:00:52
and getting more out of the same garden space.
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When done incorrectly though, we can choke out our plants, cause
00:00:59
some disease issues, invite pests in because we have weak
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plants, and ultimately this is going to reduce our yield.
00:01:05
So today on Just Grow Something, I'm taking you through how to
00:01:09
judiciously combine plant families in your garden beds so
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that you can make the most of the space that you have while
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also benefiting your plants and the soil they're in.
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I will also give you specific examples of how this is working
00:01:23
out in my own gardens right now, plus a few experiments that I'm
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doing so maybe you can be inspired to do the same in your
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own garden. Let's dig in.
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Hey, I'm Karen and what started as a small backyard garden 20
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years ago turned into a lifelong passion for growing food.
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Now as a market farmer and horticulturist, I want to help
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you do the same. On this podcast, I am your
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friend in the garden teaching evidence based techniques to
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help you grow your favorites and build confidence in your own
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garden space. So grab your card and journal
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and a cup of coffee and get ready to just grow something.
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So a few notes about the merch shop over at
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justgrowsomething.com before we move on.
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I am getting ready to launch the new spring and summer items in
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the next week or so. I've got a couple of new designs
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existing designs. There are some designs that have
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been in there for a while and there will be a little, a little
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bit of overlap for a couple of weeks.
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for the foreseeable future. So I invite you to check it out
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Like I said, there will be some overlap for a couple of weeks to
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hoodies and long sleeved into T-shirts and tanks and some
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other fun things in addition to adding some new designs.
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So I wanted to make sure that everybody had an opportunity to
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go in there before your favorites go away or ones that
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maybe you've been waiting on. That's going to happen here in
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the next couple of weeks. So just growsomething.com and
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then just click the shop button or you can type in slash shop.
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And huge shout out to those of you who have already made
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purchases in the merch shop. I don't make a ton of money off
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of it, but it's a really great way to support the show.
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And it's kind of a fun way for me to have a little bit of a
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creative outlet in like gardening themed things.
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So I'm hoping that you like the new designs.
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You'll have to reach out and let me know.
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All right, So what exactly is interplanting and why does it
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matter in our garden? Let's start with the basics.
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Interplanting or intercropping, we're going to use those terms
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interchangeably is the practice of growing two or more crops in
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the same space at the same time. And we're doing that in a way
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that they don't compete with each other, but they complement
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each other instead. So this is a little bit
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different from what we we talk about in terms of succession
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planting, even though we can use all of these techniques all at
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the same time. Succession planting is more
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about the timing of the plants. So planting 1 crop right after
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another in the same space. Inter planting is more like
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roommates that actually get along right.
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Sometimes they're together for just a short amount of time and
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sometimes they are together for the entire season.
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Now when they're only together for a short period of time, in
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traditional like farming terminology, we talk about it
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that being relay planting. So inter planting would be
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making sure that all the plants are growing together for the
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entire season. Relay planting would be planting
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1 crop by itself and then as that starts to mature then
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planting another crop in it and then that early crop comes out
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while the later crop goes to maturity.
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That is considered relay planting.
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We are going to use those terms. I'm just all of all of that is
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falling under interplanting as far as I'm concerned.
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So if I say interplanting, understand that it could also
00:05:13
mean relay planting in some way, shape or form.
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You may also hear me say intercropping, intercropping and
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interplanting are the exact same technique.
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It's just that intercropping is again the sort of big AG version
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of what we're doing here. Interplanting is just it being
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scaled down for use in gardeners terms.
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I will use those terms interchangeably as well.
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So intercropping, interplanting, exact same thing.
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Interplanting and relay planting.
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I am just letting relay planting fall under the umbrella of
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interplanting just for, you know, convenience sake in terms
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of this conversation. OK, So if you hear those terms
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elsewhere, understand that these are all things that we are
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talking about interchangeably. When it is done well, inter
00:06:00
planting is going to increase your harvest using the exact
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same amount of space that you already have.
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This is a beautiful way to really increase the harvest from
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your garden without having to add more bed space.
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Whether that means building new raised beds or breaking up the
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ground. This isn't necessarily something
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that you will do in smaller containers.
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You can in terms of sort of planting companions together,
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but that is when you really have to pay attention to the plant
00:06:34
spacing. We'll talk about that in a
00:06:36
little bit about how to manage that, but just understand that
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the smaller the container, the less likely it is that you are
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going to reap the benefits of this.
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You might just want to add new containers at that instance.
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One of the other benefits of interplanting done well is that
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it helps prevent weeds by either crowding them out completely or
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by just shading the soil so that nothing can grow there.
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It also reduces that pest pressure through the crop
00:07:05
diversity. We talked about that in the
00:07:06
companion planting episode last week.
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Intermixing all of the species together or different species of
00:07:12
plants together is going to break up that mono crop or that
00:07:17
monoculture and it makes it less likely that pests are going to
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really hone in on that one particular thing that they're
00:07:23
looking for because they can't find it as easily if they have
00:07:28
more than, you know, one species that they might land on, right?
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Interplanting is also going to improve our soil health.
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So if we have multiple species that is supporting multiple
00:07:41
types of beneficial microbes in the soil, the different root
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diversity of all of these different types of crop are also
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going to help to improve the soil texture.
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So you have plants with very, very fine roots going through
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the soil, but then you also have ones with larger tap roots that
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are breaking up compacted soil. You've got the fine roots that
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are sort of filling in those air gaps, a little bit larger roots
00:08:04
that are breaking it up. So it really does help with the
00:08:07
soil texture to have a variety of root types in the same space.
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Now, I keep saying when done correctly, so we'll talk about
00:08:18
the high, low, fast, low, fast, slow strategy here in a minute.
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But one of the things that we need to take into consideration
00:08:24
when we're doing this is our individual plant spacing.
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This is where it tends to get very, very confusing for people.
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And it was very confusing for me.
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And I have worked on this technique for years and years
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and years and finally sort of figured out the recipe for a
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super productive garden in the same space by combining these
00:08:44
these plants. When we think about it in terms
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of plant spacing, we're still going to follow the proper
00:08:52
spacing techniques and the proper spacing recommendations
00:08:56
from the seed packet, but we are going to follow it based on that
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particular plant and we might be filling in that plant spacing
00:09:05
with something completely different.
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This is why it is very important to do this in in different plant
00:09:14
families, using different plant families, because in a lot of
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instances these these plants at the same stage of growth are
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going to be using different nutrients.
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They might have a different demand level for that particular
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nutrient. And so they're not going to be
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necessarily sharing the same resources.
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And if they are sharing the same resources, they're doing it for
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a limited amount of time. So, for example, if you have a
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crop that says it's recommended that it is planted 6 inches
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apart in the row and in rows that are 18 inches apart, You
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can do this in a number of ways. You can follow that
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recommendation by planting them 6 inches apart and then doing
00:10:00
another row 18 inches from that and planting those plants 6
00:10:04
inches apart in that row and then pairing a crop with those
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plants that will fit in between the rows.
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Or you can plant these more in a grid.
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So the square foot gardening method is infamous for this.
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This is kind of the basis behind square foot gardening where
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you're breaking your garden up into 12 inch squares and how
00:10:29
many of a particular plant can fit into that 12 inch square.
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What I'm going to recommend is something that's very similar to
00:10:35
that. I don't necessarily utilize
00:10:38
square foot gardening, but what I do do is just kind of take the
00:10:42
average of the amount of space that is recommended for that
00:10:46
plant and then I just divide it into two.
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So how does this work if that same plant, you're saying it
00:10:54
needs to be 6 inches apart in the row and those rows need to
00:10:57
be 18 inches apart, that 18 inches plus the six inches.
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Right now we have 24 inches. Essentially that plant, if you
00:11:08
divide that by two, needs 12 inches on all sides of itself in
00:11:15
order to be able to do the growth that it needs up top or
00:11:20
underneath or to spread its roots out and utilize the
00:11:24
nutrients appropriately. So if you don't want to do rows,
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you don't have to. If you, especially if you're
00:11:31
doing these in raised planters, you can say I'm going to take
00:11:35
that crap crop and I'm going to take that crap.
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I'm going to take that crop and I am going to space them out 12
00:11:42
inches apart. Now what you can do is either
00:11:47
you can again fill in spaces in between with something different
00:11:51
that is going to utilize opposite nutrients or have a
00:11:54
different growth pattern or you can sort of do this like in a
00:11:59
checkerboard pattern, for instance.
00:12:01
So if you want to grow say one that I referenced a lot, which
00:12:05
is lettuces in with your brassicas, right?
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You know your brassicas are going to take up a lot more
00:12:10
space eventually then your lettuce will.
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But your lettuce grows a lot more quickly than the brassicas.
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So these are perfect to pair together, right?
00:12:20
So if that brassica, say, needs 18 inches all the way around it
00:12:27
in order to get to its full size and in order to utilize the
00:12:31
nutrients properly in the soil, then you can go ahead and space
00:12:36
them. OK, they're 18 inches apart.
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But instead of having it be just the brassicas, you might say
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I've got 1 brassica here. Let's use broccoli as an
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example. I've got one broccoli here and
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then 18 inches over. I am going to place two lettuce
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plants because maybe the lettuce only needs 6 inches apart,
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right? So that can take up this space
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on the side of where the broccoli is.
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So on either side of the broccoli you might have lettuces
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and then the next section over will be another broccoli and
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then the next would be lettuces. So what happens is as those
00:13:17
broccoli, which grow more slowly than the lettuce are coming to
00:13:21
maturity, they slowly take up that space.
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In the meantime, the lettuces are filling out the area, which
00:13:30
is helping to prevent those weeds from coming in and taking
00:13:32
over. It's shading the the soil.
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You're getting more of a harvest out of it because that space is
00:13:39
not blank, just waiting for the broccoli to fill it.
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By the time the broccoli needs that space, you will have
00:13:46
harvested that lettuce. It's already out of the way, and
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now the broccoli can take up the rest of the room that it needs
00:13:52
to to to grow. OK.
00:13:54
That is just one example of how you could do this.
00:13:58
So just keep in mind with the plant spacing, yes, you do want
00:14:02
to follow the recommended guidelines in terms of what they
00:14:06
need in space to grow, but it is okay to fill in that space
00:14:12
either temporarily or permanently with a different
00:14:17
plant. And that takes more advantage of
00:14:20
the amount of soil that you have to grow in.
00:14:22
And it also helps to prevent the weeds and it also helps to
00:14:25
prevent the pests. So just combine whatever the
00:14:30
recommendation is in terms of its spacing and either decide if
00:14:33
you're going to plant in between rows or if you're going to add
00:14:39
up the space they need, divide by two, and then you know how
00:14:42
much space each one of those plants needs around them and do
00:14:45
it that way. This is why especially like in
00:14:47
plan, like a pro, I will tell people, take a spreadsheet, not
00:14:52
a spreadsheet. Well, you can do it on a
00:14:53
spreadsheet, but take a piece of graph paper and lay out your
00:14:56
garden and do it in terms of each square is, you know, 1
00:15:01
foot, or if you have, you know, an extraordinarily large garden,
00:15:05
it could be two feet or whatever.
00:15:06
And this will give you the opportunity to be able to write
00:15:09
in what plants will fit in what space.
00:15:11
If you are a visual person, this really, really does help lay
00:15:15
things out in terms of, oh, now you can see what can fit where.
00:15:21
If you're somebody who works sort of in formulas like I do,
00:15:24
it may not be necessary to write these things out.
00:15:26
You can just write a list and say, I'm going to pair broccoli
00:15:30
and lettuce together. And when you do the math and you
00:15:34
add up the space of each of those needs, you might also find
00:15:38
that you have space to add something else, which is what I
00:15:40
do. I put green onions in there as
00:15:41
well. So there's all kinds of
00:15:43
different ways that you can figure this out.
00:15:46
What we need to concern ourselves with is the technique
00:15:49
and how we can get to the point where we know what's going to go
00:15:55
or what's going to stay in the garden for an extended period of
00:15:57
time. What is going to come out to
00:15:59
make room for that thing? Or can they be side by side the
00:16:04
entire time? Because 1 is really tall and the
00:16:07
other is really low. And that is where the high, low,
00:16:10
fast, slow strategy comes in. So this is actually just sort of
00:16:15
my favorite way to keep in mind how you can pair these plants
00:16:20
families up in your garden. If you have worked through the
00:16:24
garden planning workbook that I sell in my shop, you will
00:16:27
recognize this technique. If you have taken the plan like
00:16:29
a pro course, you will recognize this technique.
00:16:32
So high, low, fast, low. So what we're going to do is we
00:16:35
are going to take our tall plants, our tall growing plants.
00:16:40
These are our high plants and we are going to pair them with low
00:16:45
growing ones. Those are the shorter plants.
00:16:47
OK, So planting a tall crop with a shorter one underneath lets us
00:16:51
take advantage of the vertical spacing and also light layering.
00:16:56
Because one of the reasons there are recommendations for how far
00:17:00
apart or how closely together plants can be planted is that we
00:17:04
also have to take into consideration how much light
00:17:06
they need. So if you have plants that like
00:17:11
to hold hands, like Peppers, Peppers like to be closed, you
00:17:15
know, planted closely enough together to where they, you
00:17:17
know, their leaves are touching each other, but that's close
00:17:20
enough. If you plant them two more
00:17:22
closely together, then you might be not giving them enough light.
00:17:26
But if they're close enough to where they can hold hands, the
00:17:30
leaves from one plant can help shade the fruit of the other.
00:17:35
And that way we're preventing sunscol.
00:17:36
So that's just, that's just one example of, you know, why plant
00:17:39
spacing can be important. So if we're using a tall crop
00:17:44
and we are planting a lower growing one underneath, it can
00:17:48
either be a, you know, just a short plant or it can be one
00:17:53
that is binding. So some examples of this are
00:17:56
like tomatoes and basil. So basil grows well in part
00:18:01
shade. So if you're growing
00:18:04
indeterminate tomatoes that are going to continue getting taller
00:18:08
all season long and they're trellising out, they are going
00:18:11
to shade that bed pretty heavily.
00:18:13
So you need to grow something in there that can stand having that
00:18:17
shade. So basil is a perfect example of
00:18:19
this. These are two things that will
00:18:21
grow well together for the entire season.
00:18:25
A different twist to this would be tomatoes and lettuces.
00:18:29
So lettuce is a short growing plant, low growing plant.
00:18:33
It is not going to stay in the garden the entire season.
00:18:37
So as the tomatoes or as you as you're growing your lettuces,
00:18:41
they can take up the entire space where your tomatoes will
00:18:45
go later in the season. Then, as the lettuces are
00:18:49
maturing, you can plant those tomatoes in and amongst the
00:18:52
lettuces. They're not going to bother the
00:18:55
lettuce at all. As the tomatoes get taller, you
00:18:58
can harvest the lettuces that are closest to the tomato plants
00:19:01
so they get the chance to be able to grow.
00:19:03
What will happen, Especially if you are in an area where the
00:19:07
late spring starts to get very warm very quickly, and sometimes
00:19:10
your lettuce will either get bitter or will start to bolt
00:19:13
because it gets too hot, The lettuces are going to start to
00:19:16
get shaded by the tomatoes, which means that you might get a
00:19:20
little bit more of an extended harvest out of your lettuces
00:19:24
because they're getting that shade and they're not getting
00:19:27
cooked in the sun, so they're not getting bitter and they're
00:19:29
not bolting as quickly. Then once you pull the lettuces
00:19:34
out, you can, if you want to, plant something else underneath
00:19:37
there, like the basil that will still grow well in that part
00:19:41
shade. Or you can just leave it empty,
00:19:42
make sure that you've mulched it really well, and then plant
00:19:45
lettuces again later in the late summer, again taking advantage
00:19:49
of the height of the tomatoes to help to shade them while they
00:19:53
continue to grow through the late summer into the fall.
00:19:56
So those are just two examples of, you know, a high and a low
00:20:00
that aren't necessarily vining crops.
00:20:02
We're not looking at covering the entire ground.
00:20:05
We're looking at something that can tolerate the shade that is
00:20:08
being given by that taller plant without impeding the growth of
00:20:12
either plant. If you want to look at vining
00:20:15
crops, then the three sisters method is a classic version of
00:20:18
that, right? So we have corn.
00:20:21
We're planting the corn 1st and we're allowing it to start
00:20:25
growing straight up. That is our high or our tall
00:20:28
plant, right? The next thing we're going to do
00:20:31
is we can plant beans. Now the beans aren't
00:20:33
necessarily, you know, I mean, yes, they're a high plant.
00:20:37
They're a tall plant. They're going to use the corn as
00:20:40
a stock to grow up. So we're talking about pole
00:20:43
beans specifically here. So they're good companions like
00:20:47
we talked about last week because the corn is a heavy
00:20:49
nitrogen feeder and those beans are going to fix the nitrogen
00:20:51
and then the corn is providing the stability for the bean to be
00:20:54
able to to climb up. But the inter planting here that
00:20:58
is going to benefit the soil in terms of keeping the weeds out
00:21:02
is the squash. So if you plant a vining squash
00:21:06
at the base of those corn plants and the bean plants, now that
00:21:11
corn or that squash is going to crawl across the ground and it's
00:21:15
going to act as a living mulch, so it's going to keep the weeds
00:21:18
at Bay. That would interrupt the growth
00:21:21
cycle of the corn and the beans. So when all three of these are
00:21:26
working very, very well together and they are all benefiting each
00:21:29
other. Something else that you could do
00:21:31
would be high, Low would be cucumbers on a trellis with
00:21:36
lettuce or some other leafy green underneath.
00:21:39
So you've got a trellis and you're planting the cucumbers at
00:21:42
the base. Well, cucumbers generally need
00:21:44
to be planted later in the season a little bit when the
00:21:46
soil has warmed up. So lettuces are a great thing to
00:21:50
plant in that space in the meantime.
00:21:53
So the lettuces like the cool or temperatures, they're going to
00:21:56
shade out that soil and they're going to crowd out any weeds
00:21:59
that might want to start to develop there.
00:22:02
As you harvest the first round of lettuces, then you can plant
00:22:06
the cucumbers against the trellis where the lettuces came
00:22:09
out, but the remaining lettuces can stay in that soil to
00:22:14
continue to choke out the weeds while the cucumber starts to
00:22:17
climb. The cucumbers take a while to
00:22:19
climb and to leaf out, so the lettuce is going to mature in
00:22:23
the meantime, and it's not going to be choked out by the
00:22:25
cucumbers. And by the time the cucumbers
00:22:27
start to mature and start vining everywhere where they're going
00:22:30
to cover the soil themselves, the lettuce is already out.
00:22:32
OK, what is important here is the light management, but also
00:22:38
our nutrient management. So your tall crops are
00:22:41
eventually going to create shade, so you have to plan what
00:22:45
goes beneath them accordingly. It either needs to be a crop
00:22:49
that prefers some protection from the sun or one that is
00:22:54
going to be finished by the time that shade becomes an issue.
00:22:59
The other thing when we're talking about nutrient issues is
00:23:03
we want to make sure that they are not really, really heavy
00:23:06
feeders at the same time. So if we're planting lettuces,
00:23:12
lettuces initially are going to want a good amount of nitrogen
00:23:15
for their leaf development. If we're planting tomatoes into
00:23:20
the lettuces, yes, the tomatoes are also going to want nitrogen
00:23:24
at the beginning for that leafy growth and to get those stems
00:23:27
nice and strong. But by the time we're putting
00:23:30
the soil is warm enough to put those tomatoes in to where the
00:23:33
lettuces are, the demand that the lettuce has on the nitrogen
00:23:36
capacity of the soil has lessened by that point.
00:23:40
So there is more nitrogen available for those tomatoes.
00:23:44
We just want to be cognizant that if we do have heavy feeders
00:23:47
together, it's not necessarily a done deal that you can't do it.
00:23:51
You just have to make sure that you have the soil fertility to
00:23:53
be able to handle that. So if you need to feed your soil
00:23:58
a bit more when you have these plants growing together, then
00:24:01
that's just what you do. Almost any of these combinations
00:24:05
can be done very well so long as you know that you have the
00:24:08
nutrients available. OK, so that's high, low.
00:24:12
What about fast, slow? Well, we sort of talked about
00:24:15
that a little bit with the lettuces and the tomatoes, but
00:24:18
this is just another way to pair, you know, your crops
00:24:20
together. We have a fast maturing one with
00:24:23
a slower 1 so that the fast maturing crop gets to thrive
00:24:27
while the slower one is taking its time getting to size.
00:24:30
And by the time the slower 1 takes over the entire space, the
00:24:33
fast maturing one has gotten out of the space.
00:24:36
Radishes and carrots are a classic example of this.
00:24:39
Radishes germinate and mature much more quickly than radishes
00:24:44
do or than carrots do. Sorry.
00:24:46
So it's, and we all know carrots or Divas, they take forever to
00:24:50
germinate. They need specific temperatures
00:24:52
and specific soil moisture and all those types of things.
00:24:55
And you know, it can be sometimes as long as three weeks
00:24:58
for them to just even start to pop up out of the soil and they
00:25:01
they grow much more slowly. So if you mix radishes, you
00:25:05
know, you do a row of carrots on either side, you do a row of
00:25:08
radishes down the middle, you can do your normal spacing with
00:25:13
the carrots in between, right? So if let's say off the top of
00:25:16
my head, it might be like 18 inches between rows of carrots.
00:25:21
If you do 2 rows with the 18 inches like you're supposed to
00:25:24
in between them, there is nothing wrong with taking a row
00:25:27
of radishes right down the center between those two rows of
00:25:30
carrots. Those radishes are going to pop
00:25:32
up within a matter of a couple of days.
00:25:35
This is going to remind you of exactly where your rows of
00:25:38
carrots are #1 while they are taking forever to pop their
00:25:41
little heads up out of the ground.
00:25:43
But radishes mature so quickly, in as early as three weeks,
00:25:47
right? Three to four weeks, those
00:25:49
radishes are going to be up and out.
00:25:51
And the carrots will finally be up in a solid stand where you
00:25:54
can see them and you know what to do with them.
00:25:56
And the carrots will start to take over.
00:25:59
The the benefit of the radishes also is that it is helping to
00:26:02
keep that soil loosely cultivated, which is what
00:26:06
carrots need to reach their full potential.
00:26:08
So it, it, the radishes are kind of keeping that soil from
00:26:11
becoming sort of not really impacted, but kind of crusty on
00:26:15
the top. Because when you're pulling the
00:26:16
radishes out, you are disturbing that soil that's in between the
00:26:20
carrots. And that is preventing them, you
00:26:22
know, from that top from kind of getting dry and crusty, which is
00:26:25
also going to help with the carrot growth.
00:26:28
We talked about lettuce and tomatoes, right?
00:26:30
Lettuce loves the cooler early season.
00:26:31
It matures before the tomatoes start to fall out.
00:26:34
Things like spinach with broccoli.
00:26:37
If you like the baby leaf spinach, you can grow the leaf
00:26:41
spinach in between rows of your broccoli or in and around the
00:26:45
base of the broccoli. The broccoli, you know, takes a
00:26:49
while for it to kind of get situated and start to leaf out.
00:26:52
The spinach grows very quickly in the spring.
00:26:54
So if you want to harvest a bunch of baby spinach, you can
00:26:56
do that multiple times off of a little spinach crop in and
00:27:00
amongst your broccoli while you're waiting for the broccoli
00:27:02
to take over. You don't even necessarily need
00:27:06
to remove that spinach. When the broccoli does take
00:27:09
over, if it gets shaded enough to where it's not going to grow
00:27:13
anymore, then it's at that point it's just acting like a ground
00:27:15
cover and as it dies back, it's going to feed the soil.
00:27:20
So you don't necessarily have to pull that crop out, you can just
00:27:23
let it be. But in the meantime, you can be
00:27:25
harvesting that spinach while you're waiting on the broccoli
00:27:27
to grow. So this technique keeps the
00:27:30
weeds at Bay because your fast growing crop is going to cover
00:27:35
that bare soil early on, and it's also reducing wasted space
00:27:39
while you wait for your slow growers to mature.
00:27:42
I've talked a couple of times this season about how I'm
00:27:45
focusing on beautifying my gardens rather than just
00:27:48
strictly relying on production value this year.
00:27:51
Now production value makes sense for me because I'm a market
00:27:54
farmer and my companion planting and my intercropping all serve
00:27:58
some sort of a purpose in that regard.
00:28:00
But I'm looking a little bit more at adding plants for
00:28:03
aesthetics this season. That is where Heirloom Roses
00:28:06
comes in. Not only do they have over 700
00:28:09
varieties of fabulous own root roses to choose from, they also
00:28:13
have a myriad of other perennials to add pops of color
00:28:17
all over my garden. I am using their very robust
00:28:21
search function to narrow down the selection of plants based on
00:28:24
what is perennial in my zone 6 garden and what will do well in
00:28:28
containers. The kitchen garden is my main
00:28:31
focus this year, and that entire garden is raised planters
00:28:34
because the soil underneath is really just cheap dirt that's
00:28:37
been dumped on top of gravel and I'm not sure anything will
00:28:40
actually grow there. So I want to use containers
00:28:42
between my beds to Add all this beauty that I'm looking for.
00:28:46
Heirloomroses.com has made it very easy to just find not just
00:28:51
container friendly perennials for my zone, but also those in
00:28:55
specific color ranges and various bloom times so I can be
00:28:59
sure that I have color all season long.
00:29:01
I have just clicked the little heart right next to each one
00:29:04
that I like and it adds it to my wish list and then I can see all
00:29:08
of my favorites in one spot so I can narrow down my choices.
00:29:12
Which has been kind of difficult because they are all so
00:29:14
beautiful and each of the perennials comes in a one gallon
00:29:18
pot. But they'll hold those plants
00:29:20
until the optimum time for me to plant, which is after May 14th.
00:29:24
So they are keeping me from planting too early and possibly
00:29:28
damaging my new plants. They do truly care about our
00:29:32
success with their plants. To save 20% on your purchase,
00:29:36
head to heirloomroses.com and use code Just GROW at checkout
00:29:40
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00:29:45
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00:29:49
Just Grow. The link is in the show notes.
00:29:53
So what about pest and weed management with interplanting?
00:29:59
We talked about this last week with the companion planting.
00:30:01
A diverse planting is a strong planting.
00:30:04
When you inter plant, you disrupt pest behavior by
00:30:08
breaking up the monoculture. Okay, so yes, this is a form of
00:30:13
companion planting. We might want to be using plants
00:30:17
strategically because of maybe how the pests will react to
00:30:21
them. So, for example, onions or
00:30:23
garlic in with your carrots because the strong scent of the
00:30:26
aliens can help to confuse you know, the carrots, the carrot
00:30:29
rust flies. This might be in terms of
00:30:32
chemical exudates, right? So marigolds in with tomatoes
00:30:36
because they're not just adding color, but they're also
00:30:38
repelling the nematodes. But we can also do this in terms
00:30:42
of just different species being together.
00:30:44
OK. We know that basil pairs well
00:30:46
with tomatoes just, you know, in terms of flavor.
00:30:50
But there, you know, there is something that suggests that the
00:30:53
volatile oils from the basil may also help reduce some pest
00:30:56
pressure. But it certainly introduces a
00:30:59
different species into the tomato crop, again, disrupting
00:31:04
that monoculture. So in terms of interplanting and
00:31:08
confusing insect pests, the more plant species the merrier,
00:31:12
right? The better off we are if we are,
00:31:15
if we are mixing things that aren't in the same family.
00:31:18
So even though texturally speaking, Peppers are different
00:31:24
from tomatoes, they are both nightshades, they are in the
00:31:28
same family. They're going to attract the
00:31:30
same pests often times. They also are going to attract
00:31:33
the same diseases often times. This is even more so when we
00:31:36
talk about like tomatoes and potatoes.
00:31:40
These are not things that we want to mix together.
00:31:42
We don't want to mix kale in with our cauliflower because
00:31:48
they are both brassicas and they attract the same pests.
00:31:51
We do want to mix things that are not in the same family.
00:31:54
And the more diversity also means more habitat for predatory
00:31:59
insects and for pollinators. So you're also encouraging
00:32:02
beneficials when you are mixing these plant species together.
00:32:06
We also, you know, want to look at that weed suppression crops
00:32:09
that cover the ground like squashes or low growing things
00:32:12
like lettuces. These act as living mulch.
00:32:15
They shade the soil, they reduce the weed seed germination.
00:32:18
Inter planting makes it easier because you don't leave long
00:32:22
stretches of like bare ground for the weeds to move in.
00:32:26
If you look out in nature, it is going to be very rare for you to
00:32:31
find bare soil. This is why I talk so much about
00:32:35
mulch. But the same concept applies to
00:32:37
inter planting. The only time that you really
00:32:40
see bare soil out in nature is for only a handful of reasons.
00:32:45
The first one might be allelopathy of some sort.
00:32:47
So if you take for example walnut trees, you're often times
00:32:50
going to see bare soil around the base of the walnut trees
00:32:53
because they do have some allelopathic properties in the
00:32:56
living tissue. So your roots and your your
00:32:59
leaves and stuff that prevent other plants from trying to grow
00:33:02
there. But in most instances, it has to
00:33:05
do with either a very, very dense canopy that only supports
00:33:09
certain plants, and therefore those plants are more sparse.
00:33:13
But there are still plants there, right?
00:33:15
It's not completely bare soil. You go into the forest and there
00:33:18
is a ton of heavy canopy cover that really, really shades you.
00:33:22
There are still plants growing in that canopy cover, right?
00:33:25
Most of the time, if we see bare soil, it is because there has
00:33:28
been some sort of natural disaster.
00:33:30
So either a fire or a flood or a mudslide of some sort took all
00:33:35
of those plants out. But very, very quickly after a
00:33:39
natural disaster happens, the advantageous plants start to
00:33:44
move in. So these are the ones that can
00:33:46
spread very, very easily. They germinate very quickly and
00:33:49
they grow very quickly. They get established very fast.
00:33:52
This is Mother Nature's way of, of covering that bare soil so
00:33:57
that you don't lose any more bare soil.
00:34:00
These are plants that can, the seeds can fly in very easily on
00:34:04
the on the breeze. They land, they germinate very
00:34:07
quickly and they are holding that soil in place.
00:34:10
While the main plants that generally would grow there, the
00:34:14
longer lasting plants, the ones that really need to get their
00:34:16
roots in can take their time to get in there.
00:34:19
So eventually what happens is those sort of advantageous
00:34:22
plants will eventually be choked out by the ones that really do
00:34:26
need to be there, the native species that are deep rooted and
00:34:30
that will generally rebuild the soil.
00:34:33
Those early settling plants function as not just a way to
00:34:37
hold the soil in place, but as they die off, they are feeding
00:34:41
that soil, which means they are feeding the other plants that
00:34:43
are moving in. And this is how, you know,
00:34:46
Mother Nature starts to rebuild the soil after some sort of a
00:34:50
natural disaster. If we think about ourselves in
00:34:53
terms of what we're doing in our gardens, we are the natural
00:34:57
disaster, y'all. OK, We are telling up the
00:35:00
ground, we are turning the soil over.
00:35:02
We are stripping it of all of the native stuff that was there
00:35:04
initially and starting to grow what we want to grow there.
00:35:10
OK. We are the natural disaster.
00:35:13
We don't want to leave bare soil, so we want to cover that
00:35:19
soil with the things that we want to grow there.
00:35:23
Now we're acting as Mother Nature.
00:35:25
We are putting the things in place that are going to protect
00:35:28
that soil and keep it from moving or blowing away and the
00:35:31
things that are going to set deep roots and things that are
00:35:35
going to feed that soil, right. So we're doing this in
00:35:38
artificial means. We are either planting enough
00:35:40
plants to where that soil is being covered or in most
00:35:44
instances this is a common in combination with using mulch.
00:35:48
So just because I'm doing this inter planting does not mean
00:35:51
that I am not still covering my beds with straw or some other
00:35:56
form of organic mulch. We don't want bare soil.
00:36:00
If we leave bare soil, then those advantageous plants are
00:36:05
going to blow in on the wind. Those are our weeds, and those
00:36:09
are the things that we don't necessarily want there.
00:36:11
So we're going to spend more time pulling those.
00:36:13
I would rather spend my time harvesting spinach or lettuces
00:36:17
or leafy greens or root vegetables from under the canopy
00:36:21
of my taller plants than removing weeds.
00:36:25
OK, so we're still talking about using mulch, but interplanting
00:36:28
is going to help us to cover that ground so that we have a
00:36:32
living mulch that shades the soil and reduces that weed seed
00:36:35
germination. So here is the key to all of
00:36:40
this. This is not random planting.
00:36:42
Strategic spacing is what makes interplanting work without
00:36:47
compromising that airflow or increasing the disease risk.
00:36:50
So if the plants are too close, they're going to compete for
00:36:53
resources. If it's too open, then we're
00:36:56
missing out on that space efficiency.
00:36:58
So how do we balance it? Even though we have those
00:37:02
recommendations like we talked about already of spacing on our
00:37:05
seed packets or in our guides, we essentially just want to
00:37:09
remember that we are planting for the mature size of our
00:37:14
slowest growing crop. So whatever is going to be in
00:37:19
place for the longest part of the season is what we are
00:37:23
planting for in terms of space. OK, using the spacing on your
00:37:27
seed packets or in your workbook is fine, but use it as a guide,
00:37:31
not a rule. We want to adjust slightly based
00:37:33
on our conditions and the plant type.
00:37:37
We also want to make sure that we are orienting and this, I'm
00:37:40
talking to my northern hemisphere gardeners here right
00:37:42
now. If your Southern hemisphere, you
00:37:44
know, some of this is opposite. We want to Orient our taller
00:37:48
crops to the north side of our garden beds if you're in the
00:37:52
northern hemisphere because we would, that's how we prevent too
00:37:55
much shading of smaller crops. Now, sometimes this can be
00:37:59
difficult if we are gardening in a very small space and or we are
00:38:04
using raised planters and we're trying to do multiple planters
00:38:09
with the same sort of crop pairings and we require a
00:38:13
trellis. If there's a trellis on, you
00:38:15
know, the north side of one of these beds, but there's another
00:38:18
one, another bed that's on the north side of that, then we are
00:38:21
sort of in danger of maybe shading things a little bit too
00:38:23
much. So we just have to be strategic
00:38:25
in how we Orient our crops to make sure that we are not
00:38:28
shading those smaller crops too much, right?
00:38:31
Some of them will benefit from it, and that's how we can be
00:38:34
strategic in this. But sometimes, you know, it can
00:38:36
be too much and they just won't grow properly.
00:38:38
So one of the best things that you can do is to remove those
00:38:43
crops as soon as they're done. This is sort of making room by
00:38:47
planning ahead for, you know, what is coming up.
00:38:51
So for example, you know, if we're planting, you know,
00:38:53
radishes and and carrots together, we're harvesting the
00:38:57
radishes and that is clearing that space right as the carrots
00:39:00
are beginning to come to size. We're picking the spinach or the
00:39:05
early lettuce and we're doing that before the broccoli needs
00:39:09
that room. We're pulling up peas from, you
00:39:12
know, when they're done being harvested in the early summer
00:39:14
and we're placing them with something else, with beans or
00:39:16
cucumbers or something that can utilize that trellis.
00:39:19
So we're thinking ahead as we're doing this.
00:39:23
All of these transitions require planning.
00:39:25
So when you are mapping out your beds, think in terms of yes, we
00:39:30
want to do these inter plantings and we want to pay attention to
00:39:33
our successions as well. So space it out in terms of what
00:39:39
your crop that is going to be in place for the longest needs in
00:39:44
terms of space and then fill in around it.
00:39:49
So every time that we are interplanting thoughtfully, we
00:39:54
are not just growing more, we're not getting that, you know, just
00:39:58
just yield maximization. We are helping the soil to stay
00:40:02
healthy. In terms of root diversity,
00:40:04
different plants have different root depths and different
00:40:07
patterns, right? So tap roots like carrots will
00:40:10
break up that soil compaction. If you have fibrous roots from
00:40:14
the lettuce or brassicas, these stabilize the surface of the
00:40:19
soil and they encourage microbial activity.
00:40:22
By mixing up the different root structures, you are improving
00:40:25
the nutrient access for all of the plants.
00:40:28
We are reducing erosion, and we're just building healthier
00:40:31
microbial networks. So healthier soil, healthier
00:40:35
plants, healthier plants, the better they are able to resist
00:40:39
insect pressure. So interplanting helps to
00:40:43
stabilize the microclimate around your crops.
00:40:48
This is reducing evaporation. It is reducing the wild
00:40:51
temperature swings. You are creating your own little
00:40:54
microclimate in in your garden. So this means again, healthier
00:40:58
plants and more consistent yields.
00:41:00
So more efficient use of space doesn't mean crowding as many
00:41:03
plants in that you possibly can. It means timing and it means
00:41:08
layering. Let me give you some examples of
00:41:12
the pairings that I am doing in my garden this year, like right
00:41:16
now, OK. Of course, I've always got
00:41:19
carrots and radishes together. So I've got individual rows of
00:41:24
carrots in my raised planters. I have radishes in between
00:41:28
those. As I'm thinning those radishes
00:41:30
out, the carrots are getting more space, but I also have
00:41:34
chives planted on either end of those raised planters and those
00:41:38
are permanently in place. Those are perennials that come
00:41:40
back every year and that is something that I'm experimenting
00:41:43
with a little bit in terms of my companion plantings is planting
00:41:47
perennials that act as my companions to help with insect
00:41:51
pressure and then just planting the beds according accordingly,
00:41:54
right? So this year it's carrots and
00:41:55
radishes and there's tribes on the ends.
00:41:57
One of my favorite sort of pairings that I'm doing this
00:42:00
year is I have 5 beds that all have trellises that are created
00:42:06
out of cattle panel. If you know what cattle panel
00:42:09
is, they're like, you know, 5 foot tall fence panels that are
00:42:14
meant to keep cattle in, but they're held up with T posts.
00:42:17
And so I have these, you know, these long rows of those cattle
00:42:21
panels and there is bed space that's wide in between each of
00:42:25
them. So I have planted sugar snap
00:42:27
peas all along those fence panels and I have done that on
00:42:32
the I have to get my bearings here on on the West side of
00:42:37
those panels, right. This is in a field where those
00:42:40
panels are running north to South.
00:42:42
And so of course the sun is coming up on one side and it's
00:42:45
going on the other. And so it's a full sun area.
00:42:48
So the peas are being planted on the West side of those
00:42:52
trellises. And then I have lettuces that
00:42:55
are planted in the beds that are adjacent to those panels.
00:42:59
So the lettuce, I'm sorry, the peas are, are just now sort of
00:43:04
slowly starting to grow up those, those panels, the
00:43:07
lettuces are all filling in in between.
00:43:10
But as the season continues, I'm going to be transplanting my
00:43:14
tomatoes in and they are going to go on the other side of the
00:43:18
trellises. So they are going to be on the
00:43:20
east side of the trellises. So what's going to happen is the
00:43:25
peas are going to grow and they are going to provide the
00:43:29
lettuces and those baby tomato plants eventually with some
00:43:33
afternoon shade as the sun comes up and it moves from the east to
00:43:37
the West, the afternoon sun is going to shine down on those
00:43:41
trellises. And at the hottest part of the
00:43:44
season, the early at the spring anyway, the peas are going to
00:43:48
shade those lettuces. Gives me a little bit more time
00:43:51
to get those lettuces out of there.
00:43:53
The tomatoes in their early, you know, stages can benefit from
00:43:57
that afternoon shade too, because it can tend to be
00:44:00
really, really hot in that field.
00:44:02
But once the peas are done, I'm going to cut those pea plants
00:44:05
down and I'm going to leave the roots in the soil.
00:44:08
So we've talked about what legumes can do to our soil.
00:44:11
They harvest that. We have nodules, right?
00:44:13
There's there's beneficial bacteria that create nodules on
00:44:17
the roots of legumes that enable the plant to capture atmospheric
00:44:22
nitrogen, utilize it, trap it in those nodules.
00:44:25
We chop those plants down, we leave those roots with the
00:44:29
nodules in the soil and as it breaks down, it re releases that
00:44:32
nitrogen back into the soil. And what do tomatoes like?
00:44:36
They like nitrogen. So they're going to let use that
00:44:39
nitrogen as they are maturing and before they start, you know,
00:44:42
giving their fruit or producing their fruit.
00:44:44
So and in the meantime, I can finish harvesting all those
00:44:47
lettuces and then the tomatoes get to take full advantage of
00:44:52
the trellises. As we get into the late summer.
00:44:55
I can plant lettuces again in that same space because once
00:45:00
again, now the tomatoes are fully mature and they are going
00:45:03
to provide the shade in the afternoon for those lettuces in
00:45:06
order to be able to get through the hottest part of the late
00:45:08
summer, to survive, to get to fall.
00:45:11
OK, so peas with lettuces into tomatoes back into lettuce
00:45:16
again, all in one space. I love it.
00:45:19
And I'm going to take some pictures of this and kind of
00:45:21
post about it as as it goes on. So I will do some some reels and
00:45:26
some YouTube shorts. You guys can see that stuff.
00:45:29
The next one is my classic. OK, I got my cabbages right.
00:45:33
I have lettuces planted with the cabbages.
00:45:36
I have onions in terms of green onions down the center of all of
00:45:43
that, and then I have sweet alyssum growing as a living
00:45:46
mulch underneath. So this is doing all kinds of
00:45:48
things in terms of confusing insect pests and bringing in
00:45:52
beneficials and just giving us a real wide diversity of plants in
00:45:56
the same bed. I have done beats.
00:45:59
So we started the beats first in their rows as the beats were
00:46:03
coming up and these are again, and these are in raised
00:46:05
planters, the beats came up. And then in between the rows of
00:46:10
the beats, I have planted kale or I have planted kohl, Robbie.
00:46:15
So we've got that sort of, you know, the beats are underneath.
00:46:20
So at that point we're kind of considering them the low growing
00:46:23
ones. They're they're lower down.
00:46:24
And then we have the kale that's growing above or the kohlrabi
00:46:27
that is growing above. So neither one of them is
00:46:30
impeding on the other. The beats are going to end up
00:46:32
coming out first, the ones that are compared with the kale,
00:46:36
right? The the beets will come out
00:46:38
first. The kale will get to stay in
00:46:40
place because I harvest kale sort of long term.
00:46:43
So I'm harvesting the larger leaves, larger outer leaves,
00:46:47
letting the center continue to grow.
00:46:49
So it's there for an extended period of time, you know, months
00:46:52
in the season, just continuing to harvest and it's getting
00:46:54
taller and taller and eventually it just looks like a little palm
00:46:56
tree. There's nothing at the bottom.
00:46:57
There's all the leaves at the top, but continuing to harvest
00:47:00
off of that. As I am harvesting off of that.
00:47:03
And as soon as the soil warms up, I am planting cucumbers on
00:47:06
the north side of those beds. So there will be a trellis there
00:47:09
and the cucumbers will start to grow up that trellis, but they
00:47:12
will also vine out across the soil.
00:47:16
So they are going to be kind of in and amongst that kale by the
00:47:20
time the kale is is tall enough, you know, the, the, the
00:47:25
cucumbers can sort of intertwine underneath.
00:47:27
Now, this is going to take a little bit of management on my
00:47:29
part to make sure that the cucumbers don't grow to the
00:47:33
point where they're choking out the kale.
00:47:35
So this is a little bit experimental, but I can also,
00:47:38
you know, fully harvest the kale if I want to and remove it
00:47:40
completely if it doesn't seem like that pairing is working.
00:47:44
I'm doing the same thing with the ones that have the kohlrabi
00:47:46
planted in between. But the kohlrabi is likely going
00:47:50
to mature either before or at the same time as the beets.
00:47:54
So it's very possible that those will be completely removed as
00:47:59
the cucumbers begin to grow. So these are two different
00:48:01
pairings that are a little bit newer for me, and it's just a
00:48:04
matter of sort of managing the space as the cucumbers grow.
00:48:09
Another one that I'm doing is I have beds or rows of Pak choy,
00:48:14
which I harvest some of it as baby bok choy, but I do the
00:48:18
really big heads of bok choy and in between those I have rows of
00:48:23
baby spinach that is coming up. So the spinach is growing right
00:48:26
now. A Pak choy takes a little bit
00:48:28
longer to come to maturity, so I can have a ton of harvest of
00:48:31
spinach off of that while I'm waiting for the Pak choy to come
00:48:33
up. And then I've got that planted
00:48:35
with borders of pansies and euphorbia with zucchini.
00:48:39
I'm doing nasturtiums in and amongst the zucchini.
00:48:42
I am doing basil and Rosemary and marigolds in and amongst my
00:48:46
tomatoes. In another area I've got some
00:48:49
beds where I did dill all around the edges and as the dill came
00:48:53
up I have now planted Bush beans in the center.
00:48:56
As the Bush beans mature later on, I will transition that to
00:48:59
kohlrabi for the fall. So this is a good example of
00:49:02
inter planting that is also a succession planting because I've
00:49:06
already got my fall succession planned out.
00:49:08
In some of the beds I have salad turnips that are growing right
00:49:11
now and in between those rows I will be transplanting eggplants
00:49:17
and marigolds. So eventually the salad turnips
00:49:20
will come out and the eggplant, the marigolds will take over the
00:49:23
entire space. But in the meantime, I have
00:49:25
something taking up the space in between those rows.
00:49:28
Now, what am I experimenting with?
00:49:30
We talked a little bit last week about sunflowers and the fact
00:49:34
that they are allelopathic to a certain extent to a lot of other
00:49:39
plants, and I am experimenting with exactly how closely I can
00:49:44
plant things next to the base of sunflowers before they are
00:49:47
affected by this. So I have two sections where I
00:49:50
am doing sunflowers and I am going to experiment at the base
00:49:54
of 1 planting green onions. And green onions, you know,
00:49:59
mature fairly quickly. So I will know fairly quickly
00:50:02
whether or not the sunflowers are kind of giving them a
00:50:05
problem. The sunflower or the green
00:50:07
onions go in first. Obviously they're a cool weather
00:50:09
plant and as soon as the soil as temperature is warm enough, I
00:50:12
will be planting the sunflowers from seed.
00:50:15
So the green onions should have plenty of time to get
00:50:17
established before the sunflowers really start to come
00:50:20
up. And then I'll be able to pull
00:50:22
the green onions out before the sunflowers get to maturity.
00:50:25
So I think that sort of relay planting style is actually going
00:50:30
to work. The one that I'm really
00:50:31
questioning is sunflowers with carrots.
00:50:34
Just how close can I get? And it's a little bit, I'm
00:50:38
planting the carrots a little bit later than what I normally
00:50:42
plant carrots. And so the experiment here is to
00:50:45
be planting the carrots. And then as the carrots come up,
00:50:49
once the soil temperature starts to warm a bit, I can put the
00:50:52
sunflowers directly in there. And again, I'm going to plant
00:50:54
those sunflowers on the West side of the carrots so that they
00:50:58
get shaded in the afternoon from that late afternoon really hot
00:51:03
sun. So can I plant them far enough
00:51:07
away that they aren't negatively impacted by the sunflowers, but
00:51:11
close enough to where they take advantage of the shade?
00:51:13
That is the experiment. I will let you know how well
00:51:16
that works. Another one that I'm doing is
00:51:19
using mint as weed suppression under lettuce and collards that
00:51:26
goes into a crop of cucumbers. I know most people are like, Oh
00:51:30
my gosh, don't plant mint because it takes over it.
00:51:32
That's kind of the point with this.
00:51:34
So this is in a set of my planter box direct planters, and
00:51:39
I planted mint in those beds last year and they've all come
00:51:42
back up beautifully. And I chose chocolate mint,
00:51:46
which is a fairly low growing sort of sprawling type of
00:51:50
peppermint. And each of those beds right now
00:51:53
either has head lettuces. So I didn't do loose leaf
00:51:56
lettuces, knowing that the mint would probably choke that out.
00:52:01
I did head lettuces, which tend to have a more upright growth
00:52:03
habit, so I can direct the mint around the lettuces.
00:52:08
I also did collards. So again, larger growing plant
00:52:11
that is going to stay in place for an extended period of time
00:52:14
because I harvest off the lot the the larger leaves off the
00:52:17
outside and allow the center to continue to grow.
00:52:20
So they're going to get a bit taller.
00:52:22
So they should be able to, you know, lift themselves up and
00:52:25
away from the mint without being choked out.
00:52:26
So eventually the lettuces are going to come out completely and
00:52:31
I will be planting cucumbers now in this space.
00:52:34
I'm going to transplant the cucumbers rather than direct
00:52:37
sowing them so that they're they don't have to compete as heavily
00:52:40
with that mint. And the hope is that the mint
00:52:44
not only acts as a living mulch at the base of the plants, but
00:52:47
also you have that really strong scent of the mint that maybe
00:52:50
will help with the cucumber beetles that I get plagued with.
00:52:54
So we'll see how that goes. I will also be doing the same
00:52:56
thing in with the collards. The collards are only planted
00:52:59
along the South side of the bed. So the cucumbers will be planted
00:53:02
in on the north side of that and grow up a trellis, which also,
00:53:06
you know, will help. Well, I guess it won't really
00:53:10
help with shading because it's going to be on the north side.
00:53:12
So it's not going to shade those collars, which is fine.
00:53:14
The collards like the heat it up, it should be no problem.
00:53:16
So it's just a matter of whether or not the cucumbers choke out
00:53:20
the mint or if the mint, you know, interferes with the
00:53:24
cucumbers in some way. So again, this is completely
00:53:26
experimental. I have all kinds of beds that
00:53:27
I'm doing these experiments with this year, right?
00:53:29
And then we already talked about my trap crop experiment with the
00:53:32
blue Hubbard squash to sort of draw the squash bugs and the
00:53:36
squash vine bores away from my other summer squashes and
00:53:40
zucchinis. So I've got the blue Hubbard
00:53:41
squash, which is also being paired with marigolds that also
00:53:44
attract squash bugs, plus some pheromone traps that also
00:53:49
attract the squash vine borer. So we're hoping to use that sort
00:53:52
of combination to help draw the the insect pest away from the
00:53:56
zucchini. I'm also doing a relay planting,
00:54:00
which is one that I've done before of my garlic and my
00:54:03
onions that were planted in the fall.
00:54:06
And as the soil warms up and it's time for the Peppers to go
00:54:10
in, Peppers will be inter planted amongst the garlic and
00:54:13
the onions. And by the time it's time to put
00:54:16
to harvest the garlic and the onions in June, we'll be right
00:54:19
about the time that the Peppers really start to take off and
00:54:21
start to increase in size. And so the hope is, you know,
00:54:25
again, which I've done this before, the garlic and the
00:54:27
onions will help to repel some the insect pests that might want
00:54:30
to try to plague those Peppers while they're in their infancy.
00:54:34
And by the time the garlic and onions come out, the Peppers are
00:54:36
ready to go to maturity. Okay.
00:54:38
Some things that I don't companion plant with or I don't
00:54:41
interplant with things like okra.
00:54:44
Okra grows tall. I tend to grow them in a fairly
00:54:48
thick stand. So as long as I have some mulch
00:54:51
underneath there, there's not really any type of a need for me
00:54:54
to have any type of a intercropping with okra because
00:54:58
it really does shade the entire bed out with its height and how
00:55:03
and how sort of densely I plant them.
00:55:05
So I've never seen any kind of real need to have anything mixed
00:55:10
in with the okra. Plus I don't really have any
00:55:11
pests for okra in my area. Now, I don't plant huge, you
00:55:15
know, a whole acre of it by itself either.
00:55:18
So it is, you know, a bed that is mixed in with my other crops
00:55:22
out there. So it's not really a monoculture
00:55:24
in terms of it's the only thing that's being planted.
00:55:26
There are other plant species out there, they're just not in
00:55:29
the same bed. So if I think of something or if
00:55:32
you have, you know, interplanted something with okra before, let
00:55:36
me know. It might be something that I
00:55:37
would like to try. The other thing that I don't
00:55:39
really interplant anything with is potatoes, either sweet
00:55:43
potatoes or Irish potatoes. They are all mulched with straw,
00:55:47
but because I plant them in mounds or I plant them just
00:55:50
directly into straw. In the terms of the the regular
00:55:53
Irish potatoes, there's not really anything that I plant
00:55:57
with it because especially with sweet potatoes, they tend to
00:56:00
take up the entire space fairly quickly and they need that room
00:56:03
to vine. So I'm just giving them the
00:56:05
space to do that and they do that fairly quickly.
00:56:07
So they will, they will kind of cover that soil without any help
00:56:11
from me. The same thing with the
00:56:13
potatoes. They really will grow nice and
00:56:15
tall and start to shade out anything that's on either side
00:56:18
of those beds. And I use straw underneath there
00:56:21
because I've never really found anything that I thought would
00:56:23
make a really good inter planting with Irish potatoes.
00:56:26
So there are some things that I don't inter plant, but they are
00:56:29
few and far between. Yeah, I know this was a little
00:56:34
bit of a longer episode, but I really wanted you to have the
00:56:37
information so that you can really implement this because,
00:56:42
you know, if you haven't seen it done with your own 2 apples, it
00:56:47
is sometimes hard to grasp this concept.
00:56:49
I end up getting a lot of blank stares from people when I talk
00:56:51
at the farmers market stand. I'm like, what do you mean
00:56:54
planted with this? And, and mostly it's because of
00:56:57
the spacing issue. So think about, you know, again,
00:57:00
keeping that mantra, that mantra, mantra, mantra, keeping
00:57:04
that mantra in your brain high, low, fast, low.
00:57:06
So pair your tall plants with your short ones and your fast
00:57:09
growing plants with your slow ones.
00:57:11
And that gives you more from every square foot that you are
00:57:13
gardening in. Inter planting all of these
00:57:17
different families together is going to help reduce your pests
00:57:19
and it's going to help reduce the weeds naturally.
00:57:21
So you're going to have to have, you know, worry less about
00:57:24
having issues with those things. Thoughtful spacing is what we
00:57:29
want to think about to ensure that airflow and that also helps
00:57:32
with disease prevention. So planning ahead is going to
00:57:36
help you transition between your crops and keep in mind what the
00:57:40
space is needed for your largest crop at maturity if you're
00:57:47
keeping your beds full all season long.
00:57:49
All of this together supports the soil health, it supports
00:57:52
biodiversity and gives us a better yield.
00:57:55
So start small, maybe 1 bed where you, you know, try a
00:58:00
couple of different combinations or use some examples of what I
00:58:04
provided so that you kind of have a foundation of things that
00:58:07
you know have worked at least for somebody else before.
00:58:10
Use, you know, your garden planning journal or use my
00:58:14
workbook or whatever to sketch it out or at least write it out
00:58:18
in terms of measurements. And don't forget to track your
00:58:22
timing and your harvest so that you can fine tune this for next
00:58:26
season. If you found any of this
00:58:29
helpful, will you share it with a gardening friend?
00:58:33
The way that this podcast grows is by people sharing that
00:58:36
information with each other. And I really do think that this
00:58:39
is one of those episodes or one of those concepts that can help
00:58:42
so many people, especially if you are gardening in a small
00:58:47
area, but also if they're dealing with pests or weed
00:58:50
pressure. And if you haven't downloaded
00:58:53
the garden planning workbook that I have, you can head to
00:58:56
justgrowsomething.com. It's in the shop over there.
00:58:58
You can grab your copy. You will find tools that will
00:59:00
help you to maximize the yield from in your beds.
00:59:05
Can you do it on the fly? Yeah, I do it.
00:59:08
I do it all the time. But I've been doing this for a
00:59:10
really long time. So if you find yourself in a
00:59:13
situation where you're staring down at the garden bed and you
00:59:15
go, there seems to be a lot of space in between these plants,
00:59:20
that might be the perfect opportunity for you to try one
00:59:23
of these techniques. Just remember to pinpoint the
00:59:27
one thing that is going to be in that garden bed for the longest
00:59:31
and figure out what size it is at maturity and then plan from
00:59:37
there. Until next time, my gardening
00:59:39
friends, keep on cultivating that dream garden, and we'll
00:59:41
talk again soon.