I've been companion planting and square foot gardening in our home garden for two years. In that time, I have researched and learned many things from each growing season. In this blog post, you will find all the information I've gathered up and learned from over the years that has helped my garden flourish and thrive!
We live on just a little under a 1/4 of an acre in a village that is a proud farming community. This is what allows us to be able to homestead in the village and have chickens on our property soon. The family that lived here before us had GOATS! I can't even imagine how the neighbors reacted to that, but it was allowed. haha.
We are currently using one side of our yard as gardening space. Due to limited space, I found companion planting and square foot gardening to be the best option for us! We are currently growing in raised garden beds and no-till in ground gardening plots. We have been using these methods for two years, but last year was our first year in our new and permanent gardening location. It's a work in progress each year, we are continuously adding on, finishing paths, learning, and making it a more beautiful space.
Now before we begin, I am not a gardening guru. I am not well seasoned or have had a garden for many years. I simply grew up with parents that enjoyed summer gardening with us and have decided to continue this hobby for myself and my family. What I share is simply what I remember being taught and what I've learned through research. Gardening is simply an experiment of trial and error. I spend my winters reading other people's articles, pinning gardening tips, and ideas on Pinterest. By the time spring rolls around, I am out there with my garden tools in hand just winging it!
Companion Planting
This is a great way to use the most of your space while also encouraging your plants to thrive off one another for a better and bigger harvest. Companion Planting is simply a "buddy system". This system encourages growth, boost natural pest resistance, and even improves flavor by arranging the plants in your garden so they are near the ones they "get along with". Certain plants repel pests that might otherwise overtake their buddy, acting as a natural pest repellent without harmful sprays. This keeps your harvest more organic and saves you time and effort when protecting your garden. You can plant taller plants that need full sun light near plants that like more shade. This way of gardening also attracts pollinations! Certain flowers attract butterflies and bees, helping to cross pollinate your plants!
If you do a little research of your own, you'll find that companion planting is easy and beneficial! For example, tomatoes do really well when planted with herbs! Herbs can be planted all between most vegetables as a natural way to prevent pests, bugs, and diseases commonly found when growing gardens! Tomatoes also like to be planted with a large range of "buddies". This can make gardening fun by creating "themed" raised garden beds. A "salsa garden" could consist of tomatoes, peppers, onions, and cilantro. While a "tomato sauce garden" could consist of tomatoes, onions, basil, and garlic. Each plant has its favorite buddies and its most undesirable neighbors. This chart is great to reference when planning out the layout of your garden. Shown below is my go to Companion Planting Chart that I have used over the years by The Seed Supply.
Square Foot Gardening
This method of gardening is a useful way to use every inch of gardening space to its full potential without overcrowding your plants. Square Foot Gardening is a simple concept. Larger plants get a full 2 x 2 foot space. While smaller plants use less space, you can fit more within a 1 x 1 foot space. Our largest raised garden bed we currently have is 3 x 6 feet. That is 18 square feet of gardening space. Doesn't sound like a lot, but we planted 9 bush beans per 1 x 1 foot square space. That's a total of 162 Bush Bean Plants! We were able to grow enough to enjoy through summer and freeze for meals through winter. Shown below is a Square Foot Garden Planting Guide I created for your use. Be sure to save it to your Garden Ideas on Pinterest!
Companion Planting and Square Foot Gardening Go Hand in Hand
Now that we learned what companion planting and square foot gardening are individually; we can use them together. We now know what each plant likes to be near and what it doesn't. We also learned how to space out our plants to allow room for our plants to grow without over crowding them. This diagram below shows how we marry the two.
Imagine that this is a 3 foot by 3 foot raised garden bed! It's ready to be planted and you want to plant use companion planting and square foot gardening together to encourage growth and prevent pests naturally. You've taken a ruler and measured out each square foot ( you should have 9 squares within your 3 foot by 3 foot raised garden bed). Each square measures 12 inches by 12 inches. In the outer corners you decided to plant your tomatoes. Each tomato needs 1 square foot. You bought two pepper plants too; these both need 1 square foot space to grow too. I would put them between my tomato plants. You also bought some onion bulbs and basil plants. You can plant 9 onion bulbs in 1 square foot space. You can plant 2 basil plants in 1 square foot space. I would plant them between my tomatoes to help prevent pests. Your garden box is now fully planted!
I would plant my raised garden bed like this because, I would want to be able to access my tomatoes easily to remove suckers and continue to stabilize my tomatoes as they grow. Planting the tomatoes in the outer most corners makes it easer for me to reach the majority of all sides of the plant. By spreading them out, I am also giving them a little bit more room to grow instead of planting them in 4 squares next to each other. By planting the basil between the plants, this ensures all plants have some sort of natural pest repellent near by. Planting the onions in the middle allows the onions to be near all it's buddies at once! Then by planting some marigolds between in the open spaces around the tomatoes and peppers, will also act as a natural pest repellant too!
See, you can do this!
broccoli and bush beans. salad greens and spinach. 4 types of herbs.
I truly hope that me sharing what I've learned so far from researching and using these methods will inspire you to give it a try in your garden too!
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