Vegetables need friends too! Nature works in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways, and with a little know-how you can harness the powers of nature to boost and protect your crops as well as wildlife. Ben reveals some of his treasured secrets in this week’s episode.
Our team of passionate plant nerds have been hard at work for many many months, thoroughly researching the science behind beneficial plants, bringing you tried and tested Evidence-Based Companion Planting methods.
All of this in depth information and more is available on our online Garden Planner software. See the link below.
To watch our video about how to grow perfect lettuces every time, see this link: https://youtu.be/fB4VDwbSu80
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I planted nasturtium, calendula, and marigolds in my garden last year and the pests were a lot less.
Being in North America and the heir of fields of tansy when we purchased our 5+ acres, I can tell you to be careful if planting it intentionally! Because it seeds both through rhizomes and seed, it is incredibly difficult to eradicate even one patch of it. Nasty stuff! I have, unfortunately, come to dread the yellow heads!
As a graduate of Iowa State University, I really appreciate all your videos and the Garden Planner Almanac website.
Tansy is classified as a "noxious" weed here in Washington State, so that won't be on my list. But I do like to plant nasturtiums everywhere–and also marigolds!
What is the app you suggest
I wonder if you have a suggestion for repelling red spider mites from my tomato plants. I hate to use poison so companion plants would be a lifesaver.
Inspired by Tony Smith, Emmas Allotment Diaries, Green Side Up, Lifesabooch, Malcolm Kingswell, Jessie at Plot 37 and now you. Not sure when I'm going to find time to watch all the blogs and still get the work done on my Allotment. Have access to a large plot (0.75 of an acre). Plan is to create a community resource. Have a few volunteers in the team so far and made connections with a local food bank and support groups for survivors of domestic violence and people suffering from anxiety. I'm going to record the progress, not initially for blogging reasons but for progress reporting. Thank you for inspiring me. My seed potatoes will start chitting this week I think. Red Duke of York is one of mine. No idea what I am letting myself in for. Very little experience. But I find myself really excited. Time to graft ……
I like interplanting and companion planting! anything that reduces pests and or increases yield!!
Love these videos! I use my exercise bike in the morning, while watching Bens videos. I’ll be ready for spring gardening.
In North America, I would replace tansy with goldenrod. It serves a lot of the same purposes and it’s native
I started using the companion planting this year in my garden planner. This is my second year with the garden planner app and I plant to take advantage of more of the features, including weighing my harvest so I can see how I do on certain plants!
Great videos from a great all round guy I’d say!
I actually made an app that did this exact thing as a school project a couple of years ago. We didn't have a lot of combinations in our app but I found it super cool
The dog is soooooo adorable!
I’ve only been gardening a few years, but every year my garden is attacked by Japanese Beetles. When I planted basil by itself they got demolished by the beetles. Last year I planted basil with my tomatoes (which are never affected by the beetles) and the beetles never touched my basil.
Thank you Ben. As always a treasure of useful tips. We let two of our fennel go to flower last year and wow the amount of life that lived on it was astounding!! Love the insect sounds and rhythm they all add.
Ben – I wonder if you can suggest something 'organic' to keep ants off of corn. Last year the ants ate the corn before i realised what was happening do you have any ideas about this? Thanks
Your garden planner is the best I’ve seen .. I’m definitely going to sign up.. impressive !! Great job.,
Long ago I bought books on how to companion garden. HOWEVER, I really didn't have time to completely learn and remember the information. That's why I'm totally loving the garden planner. I'm going to add many more companion plants and see what happens. Last year I focused on the soil. My beds (4ft high) have been mostly just compost that I add each year. I saw this video about biochar and added it, along with mulch, to all my beds. Little did I know my plants would love the first-year application as much as they did. My garden exploded and became totally unmanageable. This year I'm using the planner to get organized and spaced out. One thing though, I'm a bit confused about, is I also watched videos on how to trim potato plants and tomato plants. Once I began trimming my tomato, it got higher and bushier and so heavy nothing could hold it. Can you give us a video on trimming and how to keep large plants under control? Thank you for what you do, and I really enjoy every video.
Would be intrigued about the research behind this. Have done some searching with some mixed results; so, should anyone have some research paper names, let me know.
Brilliant Ben, thank you so much, this is an area of gardening I'm really interested in. I wonder do you have the transcript of this and many other videos?
Really enjoy your videos. I live in North America and we also use marigolds as a companion plant to our tomatoes but basil is a new one on me. It is traditional here to plant, corn beans and squash together. It is called the three sisters not sure what all the benefits are to each other but it is a tradition. Also due to native or indigenous person traditions, we plant three corn seeds together with a little fish in the bottom of the hole. I don’t know if it’s the heat from. The fish, decaying or what or just the dead Fish is a good starting fertilizer, but I have some of the best corn when I do this. Anyhow, thank you again for all your beautiful enlightening videos.
Bump
Natural defence beats its con job cancer causing retail equivalent.
Wow I love that garden planner makes life so much easier giving time to sit back and enjoy all of your hard work …thanks so much