Practical knowledge about mixed plantings of vegetables in the beds, compatibility of garden and garden plants, their influence on each other has been accumulated by many generations of gardeners. What is the advantage of mixed landings? What plants can not be planted next to the beds? How can plants influence each other? What vegetables grow well together? How to choose the best neighbors for your plants? What are the benefits of joint landings? We try to learn more about them, to take this knowledge into account in our practice. Sometimes, however, they are quite contradictory.
For example, many seem to often meet assurances about the incompatibility of growing cucumbers and tomatoes in the same greenhouse. This is explained by the various requirements of these vegetables to the conditions of detention, temperature, humidity. But, nevertheless, for many they get along well with each other. Why is this so? Until now, this controversial question has no definite answer. Is it possible to plant potatoes with cabbage?
Allelopathy - Plant Compatibility
Let's start with the theory.
What is allelopathy? This word is of Greek origin - allēlōn - mutually and páthos - suffering - compassion. It is understood that plants can influence each other, cause suffering, inconvenience to each other. This is the original meaning of the word allelopathy. Now, by allelopathy they began to understand not only negative, but also positive interaction of plants with each other. Allelopathy is understood as the interaction of plants with each other through various secretions - root and leaf.
Plants secrete various substances through the roots, mainly organic ones - amino acids, sugars, biologically active substances, antibiotics, hormones, enzymes, and others, which can affect neighboring plants, both positively and negatively.
Through the leaves of the plant, various substances are also secreted - most often volatile. But water-soluble ones can also be excreted, which are washed off by rain or when watering, fall into the soil, and have different effects on neighboring plants.
These properties - influence on each other - plants acquired during a long evolution, when they grew together in natural conditions. They had to compete, to establish some kind of relationship with each other. It is assumed that this property - allelopathy - is developed by plants during the competition for light, water, nutrients in the soil. In this competition, plants can even apply chemical protection, that is, they emit chemicals: enzymes, vitamins, alkaloids, essential oils, organic acids, volatile.
Some of these compounds in their properties resemble herbicides used to kill weeds. These substances, called inhibitors (inhibitors), kill neighboring plants or delay their growth, inhibit seed germination, reduce the intensity of physiological processes, their vital activity.
It is important to note that inhibitors act negatively only when there are many of them. Their small concentrations already act as accelerators of physiological processes, that is, as stimulants.
Mixed planting - the basis of organic farming
What is written above is rather theoretical information. Can this knowledge be put into practice in our garden?
You can, even need to! They must be taken into account when sowing, planting seedlings in a greenhouse or open ground, as this knowledge is verified not only by science, but by many generations of gardeners. We will go further on mixed or joint landings.
Such planting is part of organic or, as it is also called, biodynamic farming. It is based on work with nature, and not against it. The founder of biodynamic farming was the famous German philosopher Rudolf Steiner. Now the idea of organic farming is becoming increasingly popular throughout the world. A mixed planting in the gardens, vegetable gardens of Europe have long become commonplace.
Acceptance of joint planting in the garden for a long time and successfully used in Germany. The Germans are very pragmatic in approaching these things, they believe that it is irrational to aimlessly lose the area of their personal plots. The main thing for them is the amount of production per unit area. They are very proud that they have learned to receive as much benefit as possible from each piece of land. For example, one vegetable plant is planted on a bed, and the sides of the beds are empty - this is a mess. It does not matter what grows on this square - cucumbers or tulips.
In Russia, the reception of mixed, combined landings is still not very common.
Let's take a closer look at the experience of German gardeners. The optimal width of the beds, they say, is 1 meter.
The central part of the garden, the middle should be occupied by some basic culture. This is the culture that will grow in the garden for a long time, until the end of the season. During this period, it will grow rapidly, over time, it will occupy the entire area of the garden. For example, it can be cabbage or tomatoes.
But at the beginning of the growing season they are small. The lateral area of the garden can be planted with something else, quickly ripening. It can be spinach, lettuce, radish - friendly crops. Spinach is generally compatible with almost all crops; it even stimulates the development of neighboring plants.
By the time the tomatoes or cabbage are overgrown, spinach, radishes or lettuce will have been cut, ripped out for food. This is just one aspect that speaks in favor of joint landings.
Additional, fast-ripening plants should be small in size, compact so that their root system does not interfere with the main culture.
Often joint plantings protect each other from pests. For organic farming, this is very important, since it is against the use of herbicides or other chemical means of protection. For such purposes, most often used aromatic plants - basil, coriander, onions, sage.
Many spicy herbs bring triple benefits: they are beautiful, they enrich our table, they attract useful insects to our garden.
It is believed that coriander with its smell can even scare away the Colorado potato beetle. But, it should be borne in mind that many such aromatic plants should be planted so that aromatic fumes create a significant cover over the site.
Aromatic protection is also important for cabbage, as it itself attracts various butterflies with its smell. By the way, the Colorado potato beetle, the white butterfly, find their prey - potatoes, cabbage - by smell. Salad or celery planted along the edges of the garden can help protect cabbage from pests. That is, if aromatic herbs are planted nearby, their smell will interrupt the smell of potatoes or cabbage, and to some extent disorient the pests.
Among gardeners, such a term is common - a nanny plant. It is believed that if nasturtium is planted along the perimeter of the cabbage bed, then the cruciferous flea will first attack the flowers. That is, nasturtium - a nanny for cabbage - distracts pests. By the way, the salad for cabbage is also to some extent a nanny - it distracts slugs who love the salad, which has more tender juicy leaves than cabbage. And if the slugs have a choice, then they choose a salad.
If you want to protect cabbage from slugs - plant a salad. And how to protect the salad from slugs without resorting to chemistry? This is already more difficult ... It is believed that the oak bark, used as mulch, will well protect the salad (and not only it) from slugs.
Practicing gardeners have long noticed that neighboring plants can not only tighten plantings, protect each other from pests, but also improve each other's taste. For example, basil improves the taste of tomatoes, and dill improves the taste of cabbage.
Isop, parsley, lavender, sage, borage, thyme, mint, chamomile, chervil work well on almost all vegetables. Planted along the edges of beds or plots, white crayfish, dull nettles, valerian, yarrow make vegetable plants more healthy, resistant to diseases, pests.
Here's something else interesting about mixed, joint landings. I read this with N. Zhirmunskaya in the book “Good and Bad Neighbors in the Garden Bed”.
The history of using the idea of such landings dates back more than one century. The ancient Indians grew corn, pumpkin, and beans in one field. They noticed that corn, for example, creates a shadow, protects the earth and pumpkin from the scorching sun, is a good support for beans. Pumpkin covers the earth with its leaves, drowns out the growth of weeds, retaining moisture, protects the earth from drying out.
In addition, the ancient Indians did not destroy all weeds, for example, shiritsu, quinoa, which for us are now weeds. They allowed them to grow with vegetables.
How weeds help garden plants or the benefits of weeds
It turns out that some weeds can benefit cultivated garden plants. It was noticed by the ancient Indians that shiritsa, a malicious weed in our gardens, can share with some plants the nutrients it receives from their soil depths.
There is, for example, such an opinion that one shouldn’t pop out the whole potato mushroom, leaving 3-5 plants per square meter. Not having a number of competitors, the shyritsa grows, its powerful root system, penetrating deep into the soil, extracts nutrients there - phosphorus, potassium, calcium, which at a depth much more than in the upper layers. Excesses of these elements are secreted through the roots into the soil, nourish the potatoes. That is, the shiritsa, as it were, shares these surpluses with potatoes. Moreover, these nutrients are in an assimilable form, easily absorbed, absorbed by potatoes.
Agronomist scientists already in our days with laboratory experiments have established that, indeed, plants can share their root secretions with each other. I must say that plants do not skimp on root secretions - for them this is very important. It was found that approximately 20% of what is synthesized in the leaves of plants is secreted by their roots into the soil.
Recently, the question of the benefits and dangers of weeds has been substantially revised. If weeds are not allowed to grow uncontrollably and drown out cultivated plants, especially in the early stages of growth, then they can play the role of a useful member of the plant community.
By the way, I noticed that sow thistle - a malicious weed - distracts aphids. Cucumbers grew in my greenhouse. Grow well. They were healthy. Harvest gave a good one. A sow thistle grew up in a corner of the greenhouse - I didn’t notice it right away. Only then I noticed him when he waved taller than a meter and even threw out the buds. I decided to uproot it. She gasped when she saw that he was full of aphids. Here it is, I think, a breeding ground for pests - it must be destroyed. And what? Not even a day after that, as all of mine, healthy so far, cucumbers were covered with aphids. I had to take measures to destroy aphids. It turns out that sow thistle protected my plants from aphids.
I never spray all weeds on tomatoes planted in open ground. I do weeding only in the first period of the growing season, when there is a danger that the weeds will clog the tomatoes and cover them from the sun. But, when my tomatoes gain strength - weeds are not afraid of them. They cover the soil from the burning sun - it does not crust, does not dry out, watering can be less common. In addition, grass and weeds protect fruits from sunburn, which is very important in our southern hot climate.
Most weeds have a deep root system. In the struggle for existence, they developed the peculiarity of getting food deep in the soil. In cultivated plants, which we pamper with our care, this ability is rare.
The most important vegetable plants, such as potatoes, corn, lettuce, cucumbers and a number of others have a shallow root system and receive nutrition from the upper layers of the soil. And, for example, dandelion extracts calcium from the depths with its powerful root system. In addition, this weed plant releases a large amount of ethylene gas into the air, accelerating the ripening of fruits, not to mention the fact that its bright flowers attract bees and other pollinating insects to the garden.
Incompatibility or which plants do not need to be planted nearby
So far, we have talked about the positive effects of plants on each other. But there is, after all, their negative influence.
For example, do not plant carrots and parsley nearby. These are plants of the same family and their influence on each other is negative; they do not tolerate each other's root secretions.
There are plants that do not like their own root secretions - they are not recommended to be planted in the same place even for two consecutive years. It is believed that beets belong to such plants.
All legumes go bad with all kinds of onions and garlic. That is, they can not be planted nearby.
In one year, I placed nearby, almost did not even leave paths between them, onions and peas. I did not know about their incompatibility. And what? Peas could not stand such a neighborhood. Two rows of peas - the closest to the onion - sprouted, but after some time disappeared. So the peas made a path between themselves and the onion.
Watercress adversely affects many vegetables.
Fennel is recommended to sow away from all vegetable crops.
Plant beets away from cucumbers and potatoes.
Pumpkin doesn't like the potato neighborhood.
Even plants of different ages can affect each other in different ways. That is, plants are not initially hostile to each other, but planted one much earlier than the other can suppress each other.
Here is an example not from a book - from my experience. I identified one bed for late cabbage and Beijing cabbage. I decided that Chinese cabbage will ripen earlier and make room for late cabbage. Chinese cabbage seedlings were planted much earlier than cabbage. What came of it? Until I removed the Beijing cabbage, which, by the way, was very large, the seedlings of cabbage cabbage froze in growth. As a result, she began to gain growth much later, was unable to qualitatively form head out. I think this did not happen if I planted them simultaneously or at least one after another with a small time gap.