Hi
I have made a few raised beds for a vegetable garden, and am looking at creating a border to hide the fence/wall around the bottom of my garden. Perhaps using trellis.
Is there any recommended plants/flowers I could use- or any to particularly avoid when planting next to vegetables/fruit.
Thanks
I plant marigolds.
There is tons of stuff on-line about companion planting for *veggies*: don't plant X next to Y; do plant A and B next to each other. Very useful!
Just wondering if a search for ornamentals compatible/incompatible with veggies couldn't also be found -- specific, of course, to your region of UK.
Good hunting! (There's also the time-honored method of asking a GOOD nursery!)
HB
You could try a few nasturtiums. They grow fast to make a good screen (on a trellis), are drought-resistant, good to look at, and you can eat the leaves and flowers (check for blackfly first!).
i would avoid a trellis as most veggies like full sun.
around here it is things not to plant next to flower beds that they will then invade: chives, mints, oregano, strawberries, ...
i use the tulip beds as veggie gardens after the tulips are finished. it's not the best for the tulips, but i can't stand the idea of leaving all that space bare the rest of the season. so far i've planted mostly beans. not sure what else i might try some season.
songbird
I also plant mammoth sunflowers along the north side of my vegetable garden so as not to shade my crops but they make an excellent dense screen, and in fall I place the trashcan lid sized blooms on my lawn so the birds can enjoy the seeds... birds are unable to get to sunflower seeds while growing on the plant. Bluejays are the champions at devouring sunflower seeds.
Very exaggerated. There are some plants that do not play well with others (allelopathy) by making biochemicals harmful to others or their seeds. There are possibly some that may be useful with others, such as to repel some kinds of pests, if you have those pests and if they work in your situation.
The tables of friend and foe that are commonly found are wildly over the top and just create more constraints in a business that is already complicated enough. Those tables are traditional and much like other traditional practices (eg moonplanting) have very little or no evidence that they work and less evidence for how they work.
There is no reason you cannot combine edible plants and good looking ones in the same garden - they may be same. Try sunflowers as a background, globe articokes as a feature, parsley as a border etc. The usual rules about matching soil, sun and water requirements apply.
David
David
Agreed. Companion planting is mostly folklore. From the Horticultural Myths page on companion planting:
There is no scientific basis, however, for any of the several lists that exist describing "traditional companion plants". Like horoscopes, these lists may be fun to use, but they should not be perceived or promoted as scientifically valid any more than astrology. Furthermore, those of us who value the science behind our horticultural practices should avoid using this phrase for precisely the same reason.
They are also often contradictory. I've seen pairings listed as good on one site and bad on another.
The problem I have with these is that there are almost never any supporting explanations. And when you get an explanation, it is often clear that the recommendation is not based on actual interactions between plants.
The lamest example I can bring to mind is suggestions to plant basil with tomatoes. Why? Because they taste good together.
Several years ago I briefly worried when, after setting out all the plants, I found lists saying not to plant dill and tomatoes together. It took a while before I found that the reasoning was that dill attracts hawkmoths, which is what tomato hornworms grow up to be. For market gardeners, this may be good advice. I had 4 tomato plants, and picking off caterpillars is no problem at that scale. Not that I've ever seen a hornworm in my area.
I wish the warnings about walnut trees were fiction, but that is another topic (and the neighbor's tree).
I've not heard of any warnings about walnut trees so can you explain what they may be please?
Walnut trees, or maybe it is just black walnut, produce a substance called juglone. It interferes with plant respiration in some way. Some plants are very sensitive and some not so much. (I can assure you that creaping thistle is not bothered by the stuff.)
Since this is given off by the roots, including dead roots while decomposing, and the trees in question are/were just across the fence, my yard is a bit of a mine field of plant risk. Both trees were taken down in the last few years, but one is trying to come back.
One year (4-5 years back) before I clicked on the fact that the trees were walnut, I had the garden fairly close to them. Things were fine for the spring. Then one week in the summer, everything (including the neighbor's plants along there) turned yellow and died. It was like someone snuck in and sprayed herbicide.
Walnuts release an allelopathic chemical that can cause problems with many favorite garden plants (both flowers and vegetables). The syptoms are called 'walnut wilt' and tomatoes in particular are known to fall victim to it. The chemical is juglone, and is found in the leaves, fruit hulls, bark and, perhaps most problematically, the roots.
d -- and unexamined -- beliefs re-evaluated.
Socrates famously said "The unexamined life is not worth living." Now don' t get me wrong; Socrates is not entirely my favorite person, despite his la ter aura. An eye-opener is "The Trial of Socrates" by the late, much-lamen ted I.F. Stone. Author of some way kewl books, like "All Governments Lie."
HB
Ah! Thank you. I won't plant any walnut trees in my garden.
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