Rainy summer equals a lush, feral-looking veggie garden, yet shockingly productive. Evolving spring strategy pays dividends as once planted the veggie garden mostly takes care of itself. A little weed-whacking and mulching (#10), irrigation if it’s a dry year, but we attribute most of “our” success to companion planting.
Benefits include:
- No pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers needed; plants prefer to thrive.
- Dramatic human labor/time and cost savings.
- Diverse pollinators (ie birds) keep predators (ie cabbage worms) in check.
- Space savings as multiple species are planted together to support, shade, camouflage and/or nourish each other and the soil.
- Increased yields.
- Beauty – so many edible flowers.
- Healthy soil and significant carbon sequestration.
- Improve flavor!
We rotate crops so soil-borne diseases and pests won’t find their preferred hosts the following year.
Sometimes we do everything “right” and still have problems. Other years, we get a bounty.
Here’s hoping we didn’t just jinx our luck.
Planetarily,
Laura & Gil
Our friends Laura & Gil Richardson are, in their own words, “imperfect” but they are much further down this Planetarian path than anyone I know. They are a treasure trove of sustainable living inspiration and we’ve asked them to share one simple swap per week that they’ve made (and the products they love) in hopes it might inspire you to make them, too.
