Companion Planting, the Lazy Way to Garden...

Today, me and Tuck are going to show you how to use companion planting to let nature do the work for you. Let's go! Companion planting isn't a new concept. Plants have been doing it in nature forever. When it comes down to it, some plants encourage the growth of one another and some plants inhibit the growth of each other. It's about setting up the scenario to allow our plants to take care of each other. One way to take the lazy approach is to let companion planting aid in our pest control. Imagine being a pest in my garden with all the diversity. Right next to me, we have blueberries. Behind me, I have a pear tree. Underneath me, there are strawberries. And check out this raised bed here filled with all different kinds of crops, a focus on brassicas. Right here, we have some beautiful cauliflower. Look how healthy that looks. Underneath it, we've got some marigolds, a nice flower. Right over here, we've got some parsley, a fantastic herb. And then swing right around over here, we've got some cilantro. If you were a pest, it would be confusing to try to find the crop you're looking for. Now imagine this whole backyard was a monoculture of just cabbages. That would be super easy if you were a pest to just find those cabbages and go after them. So companion planting helps us both deter and confuse pests. When it comes down to it, diversity in a garden can often lead to balance and stability. Some plants deter pests for one reason or another. Maybe because of their odor or maybe a reason we don't even understand. Let me bring you over to an example. You'll notice I plant garlic between all my tomatoes in my trellis because garlic is a deterrent to spider mites, aphids, and Japanese beetles. Garlic also has some anti-fungal properties, which can help reduce the risk of my plants getting blight. Also, basil, like you see right here, this is a purple variety, is said to repel tomato hornworms. So it's a good idea to plant next to your tomatoes. And the scent of marigolds is said to deter pests like whiteflies, aphids, and a bunch of other pests. Nasturtium is a useful flower as well and is known to deter whiteflies, squash bugs, and cucumber beetles. Making it a good crop to plant next to our squash and cucumbers. I'll take this squash that's ready and plant it right next to my nasturtium over here. One thing about nasturtium though is that it actually attracts certain pests like aphids, which you think would be a bad thing, but it can actually be a good thing if we use it to our advantage and use plants like nasturtium as a trap crop. A trap crop is essentially a sacrificial crop that we grow to attract pests to it instead of to the crop that we're trying to get a harvest from. I use this technique with cucumber beetles. For my cucumber plants, I will plant amaranth next to my cucumber plants and the cucumber beetles go for the amaranth instead of my cucumber plants. You can even use some varieties of a specific kind of crop that pests prefer over a different variety. For instance, the blue hubbard squash is a favorite of the cucumber beetles and squash vine borers. So you can plant the blue hubbard squash as a sacrificial plant and the vine borers will go for this because they prefer it over something like your prized castato romanesco zucchini. Some plants like dill can even act as early warning signs. Tomato hornworms tend to go after dill before they do tomatoes. So if you plant some dill near your tomatoes, keep an eye on them. If you see tomato hornworms on them, then you know that they're coming for your tomato plants soon. Tomato hornworms are also much easier to see on dill plants than they are on tomatoes. If you do see some tomato hornworms, you could either go out there and pick some of them off or you could use something like BT as a spray if you have a large infestation. Using a plant's inherit ability to either deter or draw in pests can be beneficial to our garden as long as we use it in the right way. Another way companion planting can work for us is by creating habitats for beneficial insects to be drawn in and then allowing those insects to improve our garden. Tuck's out here helping us. He knows that planting flowers like borage throughout our garden will draw in pollinators like bees. This will help increase the pollination of crops like squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, and many more. Some of the best crops to bring in beneficial insects and pollinators are herbs, especially ones in the mint family like oregano. When this thing blooms, it gets loaded with all different kinds of bees and beneficial insects like parasitic wasps, which lay their eggs in pests like caterpillars and aphids and eventually kill the pests. Other beneficial insects are drawn in as well like ladybugs which eat soft-bodied insects. When it comes down to it, adding more flowers like chamomile, for example, which you see right here, it's getting ready to flower and allowing some of our herbs like cilantro right here to remain in the garden and flower will draw in and create a habitat for more beneficial insects and pollinators. This will help balance out all the pests and create a better overall ecosystem. That's why I love a food forest garden so much because it's a paradise for all birds, all insects, and everyone. This brings in so much life and the life is what actually creates some of the balance and helps the whole system work together. Flowers do more than just make a garden look beautiful. I think that's one reason that we love to look at them. It's like we know without knowing how valuable they are. Even if they don't produce a food crop that we can eat in the garden, they still help the overall harvest and they give us something a little more than just food. Companion planting can also help by allowing us to get the most use out of the space in our garden. Some plants occupy different space and can grow well next to one another. For instance, I plant onions here next to cabbages and also some lettuce mixed in with that. You can see this whole bed is thriving and there's all different kinds of plants in this bed and in this bed. It's another reason that I love square foot gardening. It's like companion planting on steroids when you do it correctly. Crops like carrots we grow for the roots and they occupy a much different space than something like lettuce does or even something like spinach. What we can do is plant carrots and lettuce at the same time. Then we could harvest our lettuce and that will open up the space for our carrots. This way we can get multiple crops in a very close proximity to one another. Carrots are great companions for tomatoes as well, especially when you grow your tomatoes vertically up a trellis. It reminds me of one of my favorite companion books. This one right here, Carrots Love Tomatoes. I have used this book for years. There are additional ways we can use companion planting to our advantage as well. One I love is I love planting cucumbers in front of my peas. As my peas start to finish, I'll take cucumbers and I'll transplant them right in front of the peas. The peas will take atmospheric nitrogen and store that on their roots. Then when they die back and I get rid of them, I'll leave the roots in place and the cucumbers can tap into that nitrogen. This makes it so I always have a crop growing and producing in the same spot while getting the benefits of the inherent qualities of the peas. There are also combinations of plants that are said to make other plants around them taste better. For instance, basil is said to make tomatoes taste better when planted next to them and borage is said to do the same thing. The fact is that we don't fully understand companion planting, but maybe we don't need to. There's something deeper than scientific facts when it comes to gardening. Sometimes it's better to just mimic nature and take the lazy approach. One thing you want to watch out for is what I call uncompanion planting or incompatible planting. Some plants actually hinder the growth of one another so you want to avoid that. The heart of good companion planting is about planting things together that make beneficial connections and beneficial combinations. When it comes down to it, companion planting isn't going to solve all your problems, but it can really make a massive difference and make overall like your pest management easier. It can open up space for you and it can create combinations you never even thought that could happen that could benefit the garden and just make a overall more balanced healthier ecosystem and it just makes a whole garden a better place to be in when you could have a big food forest like take a pan around. Look how much food we're surrounded by back here. I mean there's garden beds everywhere. We're hanging out nestled in the shade of a cherry tree. You can see we're just nestled under this cherry tree. It's got cherries all over it. So a food forest, like I said, it's truly a paradise. When you can combine companion planting, interplanting and everything working together, it just becomes an actual oasis. I'm going to list a few common crops and some of their companions and what I call uncompanions. So let's pull it out right here. First, we have tomatoes. A great companion for tomatoes are basil, marigolds, carrots and garlic. You don't want to plant your basil next to corn or fennel. Carrots, some great companions for them are onions, leeks, chives, lettuce and radishes. You want to avoid planting dill, parsnips and fennel next to your carrots. When it comes to cabbage, great companions are onions, garlic, dill and nasturtiums. You want to avoid planting next to your cabbage, strawberries. Beans, some great companions for beans are corn, cucumbers, carrots and marigolds. You want to avoid planting onions and garlic next to your beans, especially next to your beans. Beans and onions, they do not mix. When it comes to peppers, great companions for peppers are basil, marigolds and carrots. You want to avoid planting fennel next to your peppers. Good companions for cucumbers are corn, radishes and beans. You want to avoid planting sage next to your cucumbers. When it comes to lettuce, some good companions for lettuce are carrots, radishes, strawberries and marigolds. You want to avoid planting parsley next to your lettuce because they can compete for nutrients. When it comes to squash, some good companions are nasturtiums, corn and beans. And you want to avoid planting potatoes next to your squash. It's not something you're going to want to do. That's today's video growers. Thanks for watching. We hope you enjoyed it. We hope you got something out of it. Me and Tuck had a blast out here. Let's go check him out. He's been hanging out in the garden. He's a real good guy. He's super loyal. So make sure you spam some hearts down low if you love seeing the young boss in the videos. We also wanted to send a thank you to one of our new channel members, Karen Walker. Thanks for being a part of Team Grow. Thanks for having your hand in everything we're doing out here. There's still time to get some stuff planted, to get growing so you can be getting big harvests coming down the pike. Tuck and James will be back to you again real soon. We out!