While most vegetable gardens produce their main crops in spring and summer, there are a huge number of vegetables you can grow in the cooler months as well. Chris Smith has written an interesting article on the topic over on SeatlePI. An excerpt from his article:

Success has not come at a cost of backbreaking labor or expensive gizmos. It’s essentially a matter of planting the right crops at the right times and lucking out on the weather.

A lot more gardeners could and should be enjoying their hobby year-round.

Be sure to take a look.

Companion planting in your vegetable garden is a great way to increase the size of the crop you will have when it comes time to harvest. The right combination of vegetables planted together improves growth, reduces disease, encourages beneficial insects to thrive in the garden, and discourages pests.

But companion planting vegetables does have it’s drawbacks, as some vegetables are much more fussy than others about who they are planted next to. This simple guide will help you with a few of the more common combinations you should keep in mind when companion planting vegetables.

Asparagus get on well with most vegetables, but their ideal companions are tomato, parsley and basil.

Bush beans like potatoes, cucumber, corn, strawberries and celery, but hate onions. On the other hand, pole beans are a little more selective – they only like corn and radishes, and hate beets as well as onions.

The cabbage family (broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower and kale to name a few) like many companions - beet, celery, cucumber, lettuce, onion, potatoes and spinach. But they have a few hates as well - dill, strawberries, pole beans and tomatoes.

Carrots get on well with a wide variety of vegetables - peas, lettuce, rosemary, onions, sage and tomatoes. Just keep them away from dill.

Celery is also a very accepting vegetable, liking onions, the cabbage family, tomatoes and bush beans. Like asparagus, they don’t hate any vegetables.

Keep your corn away from tomatoes, but to keep it happy plant it near potatoes, beans, peas, pumpkins, cucumber and squash.

Cucumber doesn’t like being near aromatic herbs or potatoes, but plant it near beans, corn or peas and it will be happy.

Lettuce is an accepting plant, not hating any vegetables but appreciating being planted next to carrots, strawberries and cucumbers.

Onions generally like being planted next to beets, carrots, lettuce and the cabbage family, but keep them away from beans and peas if you want good results.

Peas like being planted next to carrots, turnips, cucumbers, corn and beans, but be sure to not plant them near onions or potatoes.

Speaking of potatoes, you should plant them near beans, corn and members of the cabbage family for best results, and make sure they are away from pumpkins, squash, tomatoes and cucumbers.

Finally the humble tomato - one of the more popular summer vegetables for the gardener to grow. For the best results plant them near onions, asparagus, carrots, parsley or cucumbers, but keep them well away from potatoes or members of the cabbage family.

This isn’t a fully comprehensive list – obviously there are many more types of vegetables available for you to plant in your vegetable garden. But this list of the more common vegetables should be a good start.

So give companion planting in your vegetable garden a try. You’ll find you’ll have happier, healthier plants in your vegetable garden, which in turn will give you tastier vegetables to feed you and your family. And if you want to learn more about companion planting, be sure to have a look at the Companion Planting Guide to learn the full inside story.

Is your garden overrun with pest insects? Are your plants not growing as well as you would like? Do you want to increase the yield of your vegetables? Then companion planting may be just what you are looking for. 

Companion planting is an easy-to-use method that can help plants grow larger and healthier. It’s extremely popular in organic gardening, since you don’t need to buy or use any chemicals on your plants to reap the benefits. But even if you don’t practice organic gardening, you can still use the same methods to get happier plants and larger crops.

The idea of companion planting is extremely simple. Certain combinations of plants, when planted next to each other, will improve the growth of one or both of the plants. This can be due to the effect one of the plants has on the soil, by attracting beneficial insects to the area (for example, attracting pollinators like bees), or even by repelling pests.

There are many plant combinations that work well together. One combination that dates back many centuries (it was originally used by Native Americans) is known by the nickname of “The Three Sisters”. This involves planting corn, beans and squash together in the same area. The corn provides a structure for the beans to grow up. The beans fix nitrogen in the soil, which helps the corn and squash grow. The squash performs triple duty – it provides a ground cover that restricts the growth of weeds, it helps keep moisture in the soil by acting as a living mulch, and the prickly hairs of it’s vines deter pests.

But just as some plants benefit from being planted next to each other, others hate being next to each other. Planting them together can make one or both of the plants grow much slower, and potentially reduce their yield. For example tomatoes hate growing near potatoes or corn. Strangely enough, this hatred doesn’t always go both ways. While corn also hates growing next to tomatoes, potatoes don’t care if they are planted next to either vegetable (and in fact like being near corn).

Companion planting is an extremely simple idea that improves growth in your plants, but requires no extra work after planting your crops. Why don’t you try it the next time you plant out your garden?

Find out more about companion planting and how it can make your garden grow faster, healthier and produce larger crops than you ever thought possible.