Companion Planting debate

I've been reading "The Vegetable Gardener's Bible" and 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 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. Do any of you plant like this and can any of you help me persuade him that it really isn't that hard to cultive with wide rows? Thanks.

I did companion planting last year for the first time. It was also the first time planting in our new yard. Some things did better than others but I don't think the failures were due to companion planting but more to picking the wrong site, planting too late, and other similar factors. (Also, I never fertilize, shame on me.)

The reason I did companion planting was more because I like the way it looks than anything else. Also, you can get more stuff in.

Gwendalou

It's no secret that overworking your soil (frequent tilling) destroys tilth. Cheers on you for wanting to keep the machinery at a minimum. You'll (your soil will) be much happier using mulch to keep the weeds at bay.

Al

I use my mantis every year to mix in the debris from the last years garden and to mix the new compost from the harvested greens. then I stand perpendicular to the rows and use the mantis to dig down in the walking area and pile up the planting area. I make them 18" wide and I think it speeds up the germination (raised beds) and helps develope deeper roots. I do it for both sides of the row. Clay needs organic stuff, grass, bark, composted sawdust and wood chips to make soil healthy. See picture of my vegetable garden. Cultivation is easy when you can pull the juvenile weed from soft soil. Please note this soil was primarily clay when I started. The pine needles are great material for clay because they are slow to break down and give worms freeways to carry goodies up and down.

This message was edited Mar 2, 2006 7:31 PM

I grew up with my mother gardening in heavy clay soil. It was the way everyone in the neighborhood grew their gardens. I'm convinced its really the best way with clay soil. She put down a thick layer of lawn clippings to help keep things soft and retain moisture. She also watered with soaker hoses buried along the rows when I got older, and still does.
Anybody that doesn't till a large garden in heavy clay soil is just nuts. We always had to pull all the weeds before the ground was tilled, since the tiller didn't weed, it broke the crust and made the soil workable. So we only tilled twice a year really. Once to wake up the garden and again to put it to sleep for the winter.
My favorite tool for weeding in the clay garden in the wing tipped hoe or the circle hoe. A huge help keeping the crust off once you've started.

renwings I enjoy clay. It is a better way to get the trace minerals to your plants just don't water it or it is ceeeeeement. How did the wing tip keep the crust off? Don't you miss that time in the garden?

"Anybody that doesn't till a large garden in heavy clay soil is just nuts."
Well said.

As a clay sufferer, I quadruple dig 50% organic matter to 2' minimum. I have controlled crust most effectively with coarse compost, made from woodchips. I use pine needles like Soferdig for the worst areas, mixing them in a bit. He also hits the nail on teh head about worms. Nature's rototillers that preserve soil structure.

Intercropping:
The best carrots I grew were among the lilies. Think how easy it is for over flying bugs to spot a big strip of one kind of good food. Like a cross between a buffet and an alien crop circle signal. I tell you, flying insects can get confused when the lettuce are spread out between smelly Marigolds. I am going 100% intercropped next year. no flower/veg garden distinction.

Read up on those companions (Get the book "Carrots love Tomatoes") as some are beneficial, and rare others fight with eachother.
K. James

Renwings & JamesCo, People have very different theories on rototilling. Why belittle the other point of view? You like rototilling. Other people believe its bad for soil. No one is "nuts".
Dave

I'm "halfway" on rototilling. I'll till a new area that hasn't been cultivated the first time then never again.

Agree with Dave47 though, to each their own...I'm not the boss of anyone :).

I can see that JamesCo you just follow what is currently cool. HAHA obviously you aren't using a chicken tractor in your garden to grab those B52 bugs. You need the weeding, bug catching, fertilizing, and egg production of this wonderful machine. I love my chickens. When I am out in the garden I turn them loose and they tell me where I have grubs, worms, aphids, etc. just by where they hang out. Two hens are plenty for a family of 2 for eggs and you don't have to keep track of them as much. They just go back to their roost at dusk.

I never did enjoy the clay much at all, Soferdig. I miss gardening with my mom, but I don't miss the clay part! I'm gardening in sandy soil here, but I add ground up multi-vitamins (when I can find them cheap and put them in the food proccessor) and I haven't noticed my plants looking depleted at all.
The wing-tip hoe looks like a delta. You use the wings just under the surface of the soil to break up the crust by pulling it towards you or pushing away, like you are vaccumming. It doesn't get deep enough to disturb the roots like other culitvators.
Clay soil does have a special "splatter" factor though. Awfully fun to play in!

JamesCo, the first time we planted Marigolds along the rows with the leafy vegis I thought my mom had lost her mind! But I do the same now too and use herbs as well. Teenagers always think they know more than their parents do . . .

Sorry for the double post, but I have to agree with you on that Soferdig! Chickens are awesome.
And I bet they keep my flowers gardens weeded for me too! Now if I could just get them to stop digging up the daylillies . . .

Put them back in the tractor and make them have a time out. they will be glad to get free again and choose a proper plant to feed on. LOL

Wow! I just found out that I'm nuts! Who knew?

shoot, and my garden grows so nicely, too... all them wormies...

We all need to maintain a healthy level of insanity in our lives, Zeppy. I use cloth diapers and everyone thinks I'm nuts too.

Hee Hee! a chicken time out.

And here I was just taking "tilling" as any kind of mixing for soil amendment. (More emphasis on the "clay" part.) That puts my anme on the "crazy" clipboard. My Rototiller sits under a blanket of dust in the garage. I have been doing all of it myself with a spade shovel, a flathead shovel, a turning fork and a hay fork.

Soil- especially clay- is easily overworked. This is no fun to remedy. Convincing an army of worms to eat through it...

When I have some bigger jobs this summer for clients, I will probably use the tiller prudently.
K. James

I don't know how you guys get the compost down in your beds deep without a rototiller. Your right I don't rototill after the soil is mixed except my little one to weed and mix the compost every early summer. I use my rototiller to clean my grass borders and place my rock trim around the beds. I use it to pull up my rows in my veggie garden so they are hilled. Lastly I use it to cut the runners off a bunch of native Buck brush to shape my wild area busher. I love my rototiller. please don't exclude me from your graces!

Tillers have their place, but if a person is going to go down 2', he just has to dig it out, then put down and mix the compost down there. Frankly, I can't get that deep with mine unless I pile soil aside.
Are you back in Alaska, Steve?
K. James

Sorry. I may have come on too strong. I'm sure no one meant any harm. But after someone posted that they think tilling is harmful to soil's structure,I thought saying that you'd have to be nuts not too till was a bit strong.
Didn't want to inhibit a good thread. My apologies for coming across as moralistic.
Dave

My apologies for coming across as a "crazy" yelling finger pointer.

More like: "I don't know how anyone can garden in clay without soil amendment."
Tillers are a horiibly useful thing that a person must carefully use, I think.
K. James

I feel better now Kenton. OLL yes I'm still up in AK. Picture of sunrise on Monashka bay.

JamesCO, I've always appreciated your posts as I have bumped into them. I'm sure you meant no harm, renwings too.

Personally, I go back and forth from a more no-till philosophy to a tilling philosophy.

Again my apologies to both of you for over-reacting.

I waiver on tilling whenever it becomes apparent that I know more about gardening than I do about maintenence of small engines...
Steve, you lucky dog, you. No pun intended. What have they for you to treat up there ? Carabou?

This is my favorite fishing hole for high tide fishing. I get goat, elk, venison, and all kinds of bottom fish. I just got a bunch of black cod to chew on. One of my favorites. There is so much food to eat up here I have a freezer the size of a semi full of everything. I love it up here.

I can't apoligize for my opinion. I still think it's nuts, but don't take anything I say personally. After all, I am no expert. Do what works for you and never mind what the peanut gallery has to say!

In other words, Don't worry about what other people think, they don't do it too often.

And as I said before, tilling is best left to the beginning and end of the season in my opinion and doesn't harm the soil or its little creatures. I've seen habitual tillers who would rather till that pull weeds and I think that kind of tillings does more harm than good.

Whatever happened to companion plants anyways? Is there anything out there that slugs despise?

Me, I hope.

They don't like the pods of the sweet gum tree. We pile them around the perimeter of the garden.

Yrs sincerely,
Nutso

Slugs despise barren waste land so I use this to eliminate slugs. LOL any way any irritating surface works well. try Black sand paper, Dietoneasous (sp) earth, coffee grounds, or whatever. There are no plants to discourage only dead plants. Try to use dog food traps, beer traps, more importantly do a walk in the garden in the morning with you cup of coffee and look at the moist areas and drop the lovely critters in your coffee and move on. Hee Hee. Living here in Montana I have seen about 3 slugs in 10 years. What a bummer.

This message was edited Mar 9, 2006 10:20 PM

Sofer now you've done me in. :S

I couldn't help myself, Zeppy aka Nutzo...
The mental image was so overpowering...

Liquidambar: The Night Sentinel...

LOLOL only you!!!................how bout just hand pickin and a cup of salt water??? ;)

OK Kenton I enjoy writing humor and you have the gift of drawing. Lets get together and start a gardening cartoon column.

You just D-mail the premise (it ahd better be colorful and evoke a good image) and I'll find some obtrusive place to post it in DG. Seriously, Steve.
Also seriously, we've hijacked yet another thread for the purposes of our interminable banter!
K.

I wish slugs despised me too!

I think the slugs around here are now immune to the beer traps or perhaps its just a fact that a 8 inch long slug can't drown in an inch of beer. And then give the cup of coffee to my neighbor on April Fool's Day! It's coming up! Moist areas? The whole region is a moist area! But I hadn't thought of sandpaper . . .

I got a wild hair one day last fall and decided to take out a bowl of salt water and comb the yard for slugs. I filled up the bowl, and then a mason jar, and then an ice cream bucket. Then I gagged and gave up. And while the slugs were pickling in the salty brine, my strawberries continued to disappear. The only evidence? Silvery trails in the morning.

Maybe I should get a goose.

Do we have a gardening humor section on DG? You could be regular contributors. Then we can say we knew you when . . .

Nah, says the humble beastie.
Perhaps your strawberries failed from Salt poisoning! I admit to toasting slugs with Ammonium sulfate...
I ahve used industrial quantities of "Bug'getta Plus." try it once or twice.
K

Is it a pellet or a liquid? Liquids won't work because of the rain issue. Pellets are nice, but the kitty eats them.
It's a sad sob story, I know. If I could find some USE for them it wouldn't be so bad!

Your right most methaldahyde slug poisioning is like death to dogs and cats. If you use it It is best to place it under large slabs of concrete or flat rocks that are difficult for you to move with stones under it to raise it up so slugs hang out there and die. The product is like dog food and pets love it. Make the rock heavy!

Fine granules. Lined up in a perfect line, encirling a pile of slugs, who want to escape eachother so badly they will fry themselves to cross the burning threshold...

No wait, that's the Ammonium I'm talking about. Steve is right about bug-getta, I have to disperse it carefully, it smelles invitingly fruity. "GardensAlive" offers some "pet-safe" "Escar-go." I've ordered some to see how effective it is.
K