Gardening has always been something I liked doing but I never took the time to really learn how. I would just throw plants in the ground and wait to see what happened. Turns out when you're starting a garden there's a bit of planning that should happen before you even touch the ground.
This week's skill is: Planning the layout of your garden.
Initially, you need to figure out what you want in the garden. A friend of mine is starting some creative gardens based on meals: spaghetti garden(YUM!). We are not that creative in this house. We went to the local garden center and picked out whatever was there that sounded good. We did end up with a few garden oddballs. Why? Well because of: "companion planting."
I .L.O.V.E. companion planting! Who has heard about how marigolds should be planted with tomatoes to help keep hornworms away? That is companion planting. I haven't found any exhaustive lists but wikipedia has a good start. Anything that's not on there you can just type in a search for "[plant] companions" and you should be able to find what you need. It is so neat how certain plants just love to hang out together! Plus it's such an easy, organic solution to help you get the best from your garden.
With some quick research I learned:
-Marigolds are great with tomatoes, squash, peppers, well with most plants really. Wikipedia mentions the benefits of planting them everywhere.
-Another plant that does well paired with tomatoes and peppers is basil.
So when we're planning our layout we now know we want to keep the marigolds, tomatoes, peppers, and basil all close together. And hopefully there will be some marigolds left over to scatter around the rest of the garden.
Next time: Spacing
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