Sub-plantings that actually work

Companion Plantings for your home garden 

Find out which subspecies work best to create a vegetable garden.

Beneficial ancillary planting

If you are looking for ways to reduce your chemical use and help plants help each other solve problems such as pests, weeds, and stalking, Jessica Walliser in her new book Plant Partners: offers some good advice on science-based sub-planting techniques. Vegetable garden. “I knew there had to be research to see the real ways plants would affect each other, and I wanted to find it in a form that was accessible to the average gardener and combine it together,” says Jessica.

Look at the science behind sub-planting

Jessica has discovered dozens of well-educated partnerships that provide new strategies for solving all kinds of problems in the garden, including breaking down heavy soils, fighting weeds and diseases, repelling pests, attracting particular beneficial insects, and improving pollination.

"I did a good experiment in my own garden with the partnerships I suggest throughout the book," he says. No doubt done.

Powerful sub-plantings

Although they are artificially created environments, gardens are ecosystems where many layers of organisms interact with each other in all sorts of ways. According to Jessica, the more organisms you have in that ecosystem, the more stable it is. For example, living mulch has been shown to reduce weeds. Living mulch is a crop that grows around other plants, retains moisture, improves soil fertility, and enhances the habitat of beneficial insects. Other plants work well together because one can elevate the other. Others reduce disease and even reduce pests. If you have trouble eating your vegetable aphids or Colorado potato beetles, there is a couple that can help. Let’s take a look at some of these sub-planting techniques and the science behind their success

Repel pests

Growing the right combination of plants will not only be beautiful but will also promote a healthy population of beneficial insects that will prevent pests from becoming a major problem.

Lettuce + Sweet Alyssum

Jessica discovered several studies examining the usefulness of the common flowering annual Sweet Alyssum for the biological control of aphids. Since both lettuce and grapes are particularly susceptible to aphid infestation, farmers have been planting sweet allium rows in their fields and vineyards to control pests. Similar results can be achieved at home by planting Sweet Alyssum on the edges of the vegetable bed.

Bad bugs versus good bugs in the garden

Sweet alyssum is an excellent food source for floating insects and parasitic wasps that help manage aphids. Beneficial flies and wasps eat their nectar and pollen. The flies then lay eggs on nearby aphid-infected plants and their larvae feed on the aphids. The wasps insert their eggs into the aphid and hatch inside, eventually hatching and leaving the aphid's carcass.

A) Lettuce Lactuca sativa

Year; Varieties include romaine, butterhead, glacier, and loose-leaf; From full sun to partial shade; 6 to 12 inches high and wide

B) Sweet alyssum Lobularia maritime

Tender perennial; Flowers fragrant, small, white four-petalled, from spring to early summer; From full sun to partial shade; 3 to 9 inches high, 6 to 14 inches wide; Cold-hard

Eggplant + dill

An agricultural study that examined the presence of the Colorado potato beetle in eggplant fields found that dill was alternately planted in strips with eggplant and increased the number of beneficial insects that prey on the Colorado potato beetle. Predatory insects such as hoverflies and parasitic wasps are attracted to the nectar and pollen of dill flowers, but they also feed on Colorado potato beetles (and their larvae) found in nearby eggplants.

Proven sub-plantings

In the home garden, instead of long rows, keep only one or two aubergine plants. You need to attract insects. Be sure to sow your dill seeds in the spring, but wait to plant your eggplant seedlings until all the threats of frost or cold nights have passed.

A) Eggplant Solanum melongen

Annual vegetable; Fruits of various sizes and shapes, from black-purple to purple-green to gold or white skin; Full sun; 2 to 8 feet high, 1 to 2 feet wide

B) Dill Anatom Gravolence

Tender perennial; Fragrant yellow flowers in mid-summer on large, flat umbrellas; Full sun; 3 to 5 feet high, 2 to 3 feet wide; Cold tolerant

Fight the weeds

You do not have to buy mulch or bags

 Natural fabric to keep weeds away. Let sub-planting work for you.

Cabbage + Crimson Clover

Used as a living mulch, the crimson clover suppresses weeds by forming a thick mat that provides food and habitat for beneficial insects. Improves soil health by increasing nitrogen levels.

Numerous studies have demonstrated the benefits of using crimson clover around most cauliflower crops such as broccoli, kale, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts because annual weeds are more complex in the production of cauliflower crops.

Seed sowing tips

An annual, Crimson clover prefers cool temperatures (between 40 and 70 degrees F) and will die back to extreme heat or cold. Sow the seeds at the same time as you sow your cabbage seeds in the spring or late summer (the plants will grow before winter arrives). Spread crimson clover seeds 2 inches apart and 2 inches deep in the loose soil. Slimming is not required.

A) Cabbage Brassica oleracea var. capitata

Annual vegetable; Many varieties including green leaves, red leaves, and compressed leaves; Full sun; 8 to 18 inches high, 10 to 30 inches wide

B) Incarnation of Crimson Clover Trifolium

Year; Bright red conical flowers in summer; Full sun; 1 to 3 feet high and wide