Companion Planting.

I've been reading "The Vegetable Gardener's Bible" with his idea of wide rows, deep soil, and raised beds. My husband and I are having an agrument over this. He's alway gardened in rows using a tiller. As a matter of fact he bought me a small honda tiller just so I could cultivate that way. I've known about this other method for years and have always wanted to try it. I've seen many other gardens arranged like this. He think that with our clay soil that pack very easily that this kind of planting would be very hard to cultivate. Our soil crusts over and becomes very hard even without walking on it. I told him I thought if we mulch, that might help to keep it soft and moist longer. I basically told him I wanted to try this method in a few rows just to see if it would work. I don't mind pulling weeds by hand. Actually I kind of like sitting in the garden in the evening and weeding with a small hand hoe. He thinks I do way to much hand work.

But I really want to try companion planting. Can any of you help me persuade him that it really isn't that hard to cultive with wide rows?

Are my eyes doing funky things or did you post this in several forums?

I can't convince anyone who isn't open to an idea, but maybe reading him the part in the book where Ed Smith talks about his own "conversion" from rows to raised beds (and the compaction issue) would be helpful. Don't know. I'm not sure how your dh can object if you're willing to do the work yourself. ???

We have extremely heavy clay. I just did soil tests to send in to the extension. Digging in the raised beds was simple: the soil was full of worms (and I mean FULL... ) and dark. Digging in the area where I want to start amending but haven't yet was hard: heavy, slippery red clay. No worms. I started this garden on that same clay last year, adding chopped leaves, straw, greensand, manure, and some coir.

Here's the garden in May, shortly after planting most things:

And (below) here they are a less than a month later:

and, finally, click this link (first post) to see them in July.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/fp.php?pid=1608356

This message was edited Mar 2, 2006 1:30 PM

Yes I did post on other forum, just to see if others that don't watch certain ones would see it. Overkill? Yes, probably. :)

I can tell him that we just need to build up the soil and add stuff. We hope to get some horse manure with hay in it. What is greensand and coir?


Great looking garden by the way.

This message was edited Mar 2, 2006 11:12 AM

Greensand's high in slow-release potash; nice for fruiting, etc. It'll stick around in the soil for a while and is considered a soil conditioner. You don't need much. Coir's the brown fibrous stuff on the outside of a coconut. It's used like peat to slightly acidify and lighten soil w/ organic material. Can't wait till my chicken poop & shavings composts and I can add all that stuff. I keep wetting it down and hoping the weather will let it cook...

Here's the same response I made in the other forum:

This is my interpretation of "companion" planting (and I have very few insect problems) and I do everything organic:
1. I never plant more than one block 5' by 5' with the same plant (and my blocks are seldom as big as that). Tomatoes never more than 4 plants together.
2. Lots of native perennials, well adapted perennials, shrubs, and trees are interspersed throughout the garden. Live Oak, Shumard Oak, cypress tree, redbud, vitex (vitex), hamali patens, turks cap,TX star hibiscus,tecoma stans (esperanza or yellow bells--several), possumhaw hollies (several), and ilex vomitores (native here), cuphea, LA iris, antique daylillies, a peach tree, chives, autumn sage, society garlic, native autumn asters, echinaceas by the millions, rangoon creeper vine, coral bells vine, chinese wisiteria vine, butterfly weed (milkweed), a very large clerendendrun ugadensese shrub. I also have alot of herbs in pots because otherwise they take over the planet down here: basils, dills, chives, oreganos, thymes, rosemarys, parsleys, fennels, and probably others I'm not remembering right now. Of yes--a ton of LA creole heirloom garlics both in the ground and in pots--I literally have about 6-7 lbs of them planted.
3. The annuals go into the mix of #2: zinnias, hollyhocks, stocks, poppies, snapdragons. I know I'm forgetting something here......and these are the cooler season annuals; they will die and leave room for other stuff.
4. Vegetables either out there or will be soon include tomatoes, peppers, garlic, a million lettuces, broccoli, beans (bush and pole), cucumbers, melons, squash.....more? probably forgetting something here to.
4. mulch, mulch, and more mulch....A nice mix of leaves, grass clippings, pine needles, and hardwood mulch when I feel like buying something to keep the leaves from blowing around.
5. succession sowing of every vegetable except tomatoes (spring and fall) and peppers (they last the whole season for me given afternnon shade).
6. What will I not grow? Roses (I hate thorns) and any noxious invasive ornamental landscape plants (nandina comes immediately to mind here) and indian something shrub thats so popular with landscape companies--blooms white in April--terribly invasive down here and horrid for allergies.

Here's a longshot of one-fourth of the garden showing a very large russelia(6' by 6') suffering from seasonal mix-up disorder (should bloom during the heat--but always blooms year round for me) with some nearby weeds I really need to get around to pulling soon.....
edited to add: I know I can't spell and I don't care....and I've got to get that rangoon creeper "hacked" back this week!

EDITED TO ADD I HAVE 4 VARIETIES OF DILL CURRENTLY GROWING TOO--sorry forgot them!

And here's another view of an "area" open and ready to be planted this weekend. Row gardening, in my opinion, is just a throw-back from the past. Many smaller market growers down here don't even use that method anymore....and did I mention we have "world famous gumbo clay" soil down here?

I constantly sheet compost with grass clippings, leaves, pine needles and hardwood mulch...Zeppy, ship me down some of that chicken-enriched hay...lol...the "yard nazis" as I lovingly refer to the Home Owners Asso. would definitely not allow chickens! Could I borrow them over the weekend whil they aren't on duty? lol

This message was edited Mar 3, 2006 5:33 AM

This message was edited Mar 3, 2006 5:34 AM

Dmj, I thought Houston had better chicken laws then some. You mean the local home owners association? I grew up in one of them... somebody "reported" us for painting our front door without first getting a permit. CREEPY.

You can borrow my chickens if I can, um, have your yard. I wonder if that fencing helps a little with bugs: I know some pests just won't fly high ever.

And what's your favorite dill variety?

"Yard Nazis" - dmj, that's an apt description if ever I saw one! When I first moved here I was told the HOA wouldn't allow raised beds (wrong!) but the person objecting and reporting me turned out to be the next door neighbor. He insisted I have nothing but lawn in my back and side yards. Couldn't have a compost pile, so I bought two bins and later a ComposTwin tumbler, all placed, of course, next to the fence dividing our properties. Where there's a will there's a way. Our HOA does a good job, and I conform as to the front yard and general maintenance, but feel that back yards should be private, as long as there is no illegal activity or junk collecting going on. I'd like to have a beehive to get better pollination, but since that's not allowed I have to depend on yellow jackets (hornets) and bumblebees. Since I avoid all synthetic chemicals I wouldn't spray them anyway. I do fight the fire ants! Boiling water into the mounds works well. A substantial component of companion planting is the help of beneficial insects, but fire ants do not qualify!
Yuska

Yuska--thank you for the kind words! The yard nazi's folks will NOT tell me what to do in my backyard either! Besides, they are powerless in Texas now that they lost their ability to take your house....so if they wish to take that entire $200 a year I send them to mail me letters, well, I would just have to say they got more money than sense (as is true with alot of folks in Texas...lol...or at least that's what the rest of the nation thinks!). By the way, diatonmaceous (sp?) earth works superbly on the fireants. You get to watch them walk around dazed and confused as they slowly dessicate.....they are the very spawn of the devil in my opinion. My front yard barely hits expectations--its all done in raised island beds with trees and native plants. I have, however, been known to tuck in broccoli and peppers and they were apparently too ignorant to know what they were. The lettuce bed below is on the side of the house for all the world to see. I DEFY them to find fault with that planting!

Zeppy--that tempts me to paint my door red just to see how many letters they will send to me. Right now my favorite dill is a fernleaf, miniature; but I'm open to suggestions...What's your favorite? They did outlaw the chickens in urban areas (I think about the same time they outlawed the world famous chicken ranch...lol) but they CANNOT make us give up our cowboy boots, pick 'em up trucks, or our guns. We HAVE NOT evolved that far.......lol