No Plans Like Garden Plans {companion planting and crop rotation}

Hello everyone 😄

I am so wonderfully excited that it is spring. Wonderfully isn’t even a good enough adjective to describe how excited I am.

I’m over the moon.

I. love. gardening. so. much.

I’ve not been as active on the blog lately and this is partly due to the fact that I’ve been spending all kinds of quality time with little green things…and the little brown things that they come from 😛

Little seedlings🌱🌱🌱 below (picture captions are still being glitchy).

Clockwise from left: radish sprout, hot pepper plants, radish and carrot sprouts, marshmallow, dill sprouts, tiny beets, and alllll the tomatoes.

I have done a lot, and I mean a lot of work on my garden. I’ve expanded it, which is a short phrase to describe a long and back breaking process associated with the relocation of S-O-D.

But you don’t want to hear about that.

**Just for the record, before I dive in. I’m in a zone 6, so planting usually doesn’t happen till memorial day/late May. 

 

Crop Rotation

For a visual on my expansion and what I’m growing this year vs. last year check this out.

This ⬆⬆⬆ is last year’s garden. Dimensions are about 12×13′.

(In an additional garden bed #8 by the house I grew sweet potatoes and marigolds.)

And I got bored of it.

I read in The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible: Discover Ed’s High-Yield W-O-R-D System for All North American Gardening Regions, (by Edward C. Smith) that if you find you are bored with your garden, add more to it. Woo hoo!

So I did.

Here ⬆⬆⬆ is this year’s garden plans. It measures 20×17′. New garden beds this year are #s 2, 3 and 7.

So the old beds that I rotated are #s 1, 4, and 6.

Confused yet?

Here is a better description:

Bed #⬇     2017➡2018

1. Corn ➡ cucumber, nasturtium, bush beans, carrots
2. (New bed)
3. (New bed)
4. Tomatoes, marigolds ➡ cauliflower, dill, carrots, radishes, onions
5. (Unchanged)
6. borage, cosmos, thyme, basil ➡ borage, echinacea, marshmallow, bee balm
7. (New bed)
8.  Sweet potatoes, marigolds ➡ spinach, strawberries.

Basically, it’s all about taking care of the nutrients in the soil so the plants grow better. And It’s also about planting the right things together so that they benefit each other.

I understand it’s mostly rotating the heavy feeders with the lighter feeders.

 

Companion Planting

And that’s crop rotation. But what about companion planting?

Companion planting is just planting things in the same bed or row that will benefit each other. Those plants are friends. They grow up together and make each other happy, either by keeping away pests, or giving each other nutrients or both.

Q: How did I implement companion planting this year?

A: Pretty much any way I knew how to.

Companions

Bed #⬇

1. cucumbers & nasturtium. Bush beans & carrots.
2. sweet potatoes & marigolds, onions & tomatoes.
3. tomatoes, onions, hot peppers and basil all go together.
4. Cauliflower & dill, carrots, radishes and onions. The onions area divider of sorts because dill and carrots do not go together.
5. (Unchanged.)
6. Most herbs go together, especially bee & butterfly friendly flowers. 💐 🐝
7. See above.
8. Spinach & strawberries. 🌱🍓

 

Found some spinach randomly growing in the garden…didn’t want it there, so I picked it and ate some!

Got any garden plans? Do you have any fond memories of gardening as a child, teen (or even as an adult)?

What do you think of crop rotation and companion planting?