Companion planting = harmony and chaos
It’s June and most gardeners are probably scurrying around like ants, dragging seedlings out to the garden, opening up bags of mulch and diving back into the greenhouse or car to get more stakes, tomato cages and twine.
We’re sore and exhausted and ecstatic, all at once.
The interesting thing about gardening is that it requires both a strict and a loose schedule. This year, I waited and waited for evening temps to rise over 50 degrees. I dragged my potted Meyer lemon tree out to the patio in the morning and then back inside each night in fit after fit of dashed optimism. And then suddenly, it was time to plant all the little seedlings nurtured since February in the greenhouse — tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and kohlrabi.
It was time to direct-seed the okra, corn and pumpkins. It was time to water and mulch and strategize.
For many years now, I’ve companion planted. For people unfamiliar, it’s sort of like playing “Twister” and chess simultaneously, in soil, while holding a hand hoe, little planted pots and packets of seeds. Years ago, I discovered Louise Riotte’s wonderfully easy to follow “Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening” (Storey Publishing, $14.95). First published in 1975, the book was revised and updated in 1998.
The idea is that certain plants
help other plants grow by nourishing the soil, warding off pests and disease or attracting good bugs. I’m now exploring Jessica Walliser and Jeff Gillman’s 2020 book, “Plant Partners: ScienceBased Companion Strategies for the Vegetable Garden” (Storey Publishing, $24.95), which gives excellent, fact-based reasons why certain plants lust after or loath each other.
Like people, not all plants get along. So, companion planting challenges me to create harmony in a limited space, which is a rewarding practice across the garden bed and in real life.
I plant rows of carrots between the tomatoes and I scatter radish seeds in with the cucumbers. I line up onions in a border around the broccoli. I plant watermelon in with the peas, and beets and squash hunker down inside the garlic rows, waiting their turn. Each year, borage blooms under the plum tree and nasturtiums reseed here and there among the kale.
This might sound chaotic, and it is! I can’t deny it. My garden does not have a stringent, straight-row vibe. Instead it suggests a more freespirited, nonlinear thinker. Flowers — marigolds, irises, calendula, zinnias, cosmos, that’s OK. It’s a welcome surprise. comfrey and anise hyssop — I cut the fragrant flowers bloom in the midst of everything when they’re fully open to lure in good pollinators and let them dry in my and keep out bad bugs kitchen on a piece of paper. and critters. At least that’s This summer, I’m experimenting the goal. with tea cocktails.
The critters still come I’m a whiskey drinker, and around, but maybe not as my preferred cocktail is the much? I was just reminded Perfect Manhattan, made by the other day via a Facebook either my husband, Rick, or photo memory of the Great RaeLynn Harshman Gigler Groundhog Broccoli Slaughter at Dish Osteria bar on the of 2020. South Side.
The pleasant mess of my As I wait for Dish to reopen garden reassures me that and for my pandemic not everything has to be or homebound self to open up look perfect. Sometimes I to the idea of going out again, think of my garden as a visual I’ve turned to garden-focused manifestation of my mixology. Herbs and brain. I work things out out edible flowers make great there. Things are complex, flavored simple syrups or ideas are bountiful and then pretty garnishes for alcoholic — bam! — the deer eat all the and nonalcoholic sauce tomatoes. drinks. I put pea pods in
Why? I don’t know, but it’s Manhattans instead of cherries my job to figure it out, just and float borage blossoms like it’s my job to figure out on top of my wine. It’s real-life problems and take fun to see the garden manifest some action to solve them. in this surprising, intoxicating
Once my garden is in and way. mulched, I can sit back on the Take a moment to kick deck and take it all in — the back and appreciate the gardener accomplishment, the in your life by toasting changes, the weather, the potential, to all the future success their the beautiful chaos. present exhaustion will Of course, this mulling over manifest. benefits from a good cocktail.
This year, I have a great little crop of chamomile sprouting in big pots on my patio. I don’t remember planting chamomile, but