Fun With Interplanting

Here's a fun thing to do from Mel's ORIGINAL SFG book (shortened slightly) and something I still love to play with today:

"You know that peppers need 12-inch spacing, so just just place one plant in the center of the square. You'll see that the space around the outside edge won't be needed until it grows bigger. This is an excellent place to put a fast-growing crop like radishes, scallions, Japanese turnips or even some leaf lettuce to harvest when it's young."

The accompanying photo below says:



"A 4-square space (remember he didn't use raised beds nor permanent grids back then) planted with a large, long-season crop like a bush tomato, above, can be interplanted with fast-maturing crops that will be harvested before that big plant needs the space. This space contains four Oak Leaf lettuce plants in the corners, and eight radishes were planted from seed in between them."

I'm actually planning on doing this all over my garden, plating 4 carrot, beet, or radish seeds with all of my broccoli, peppers, and tomatoes. I hope to put up pictures of my garden plan and results during the season.

-Devin

Excellent tips Kim

Keep the ideas comin'!

LavenderDebs, you will not tire me of your interplanting experiences. Please post more. I did not know that crops do not like to be near fennel. You may have saved me some productivity with your post.

I have okra and eggplant penciled in for the summer garden. Both are 1 per square but tall and straight up. Around the base of these plants looks like wasted real estate. I saw this in my previous post https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t10114-from-the-nc-cooperative-extension-service

Sweet potatoes take up room but may be used between other plants to shade soil and lessen weed growth.

Any thoughts on this out there? I'm thinking 3 sisters type thing. Or would the sweet potato tubers put too much strain on the roots?

Maybe interplanting is a way to lessen the hogs of summer, squash.

Kay

thanks for this topic. I was about to start one with the subject of interplanting and a bunch of questions.

A book of interplanting or companion planting which is helpful to me is: "Carrots Love Tomatoes". However, in this book and other readings there appears to be gaps.

First is what is the distance for Companion/Hateful combinations? Example is keeping Radishes away from Cabbages. I use 4' x 4" boxes, divided appropriately into 16 squares. Can the radishes be interplanted on the North row, while Cabages are in the south row? Or is this too close, especially since, of course, the soil is continual through out the box?

Next, none of the lists include Asian plants, i. e. Asian Cabbages, Bok Choy, Napa Cabbage. These are particularly interesting since they are apparently of the Cabbage family, but maybe don't respond similarly.