hello,

i am looking for information about the grouping of vegetables in the garden. i.e. tomatoes, peppers, squash, melons,

do you plant all the vine type plants together, all teh peppers and tomatoes in a row. or am i making this too difficult?

thanks
mc

I think you want to look up companion planting. This will tell you which plants are beneficial to put next to which and why.

thank you,

yes, i have looked into companion planting. i use the garden primer by barbara damrosch for info. i was looking for layout, design, and any other infor i can find about grouping. too much info cannot hurt me when i am setting up my garden. plus i like the idea of getting it set for the different stages of gardening through the seasons.
btw, sorry about the multiple posts concerning same topic, i kept getting error messages and was not aware it was posting my request for info.

Well I haven't heard of a specific veggie grouping diagram. the next concern for me would be the height. amount of space, sun, and water that each type of plant needs. In another words put your tallest plants on the north end of the garden so they aren't producing shade that cuts down the amount of sun another plant is getting. For example if you are going to do sweet peas or something else that needs to climb set those rows farthest north. Then your taller plants like tomatoes, after that maybe the carrots and then the squash. Squash takes up a huge amount of room unless you are going to use vertical gardening. That's a technique that I haven't tried but you can look it up on the search engine there have been some good posts on it.

Probably if you put the list of veggies and your question down in gardeners chat someone could give you a very good idea of how to go about it.

I'm sorry I'm not much help. I have a tendency to put plants wherever I can find the space that fits there requirements.

Also, be aware of what veggies you can, and can't plant next to each other. I was going to do 2 vining plants next to each other.. canteloupe & cucumber.. then I had the strange feeling that I was about to make a mistake. I looked it up, and sure enough, they will cross pollenate & you could end up with cucumber tasting canteloupe. *blech* (I found out, the only good thing for growing near canteloupe, was corn.)

Meg

I think you're looking for crop rotation priciples. This is whereby you grow plants together which have similar requirements and are vulnerable to similar pests and diseases and then move them about to different beds each season to help prevent those problems getting a good start on the vegetable each season. It also helps to use the nutrients and water more efficiently.

The concept is that you prepare a bed to suit a family or genus of plant , for example brassicas, which include things like cabbage, cauliflower etc. Once they are finished, the bed will be ideal to use for the solanum family which includes tomato, capsicum etc.

These plant families have different requirements so you won't need to do too much between the crops to prep the soil for the next crop and the pests that affect the brassicas won't be a problem for the solanums. By the time you plant the brassicas in that bed again , maybe 4 years away, the problems that were there will be long gone. That's the concept anyway. There are plenty of variations within the theme, for example, did you know potato are in the solanum family with tomatoes. Have a look at the flower on a potato compared to a tomato. You'll see a resemblance. You may decide you need a whole bed for potato though so may not plant them with the other solanums. But i digress.

Here's a link with a basic four bed rotation system, you can get more involved but this one gives the basics of a 4 bed crop rotation system. http://www.yankeegardener.com/resource/croprotate.html
Plenty of other sites if you google "crop rotation vegetable"


The companion planting suggested previously is more of an accompaniment to these crop rotation principles. For example, in your solanum (tomatos etc ) bed you can plant some basil. This herb, while not related to the solanums, has very similar growth requirements to these plants, and is reputed to keep pest insects away, improve the flavour (especially tomatoes) and create a soil level relationship beneficial to the crop plant. I use these plants as a fill in where the space allows . Maybe around edges where the crop might be exposed to wind etc. Up to you how you use them really.

Yikes,

Longy that sounds like I need a diagram too. Cucumbers that taste like cantalope, not good.

In fact that sounded down right complicated.

See you scared the dickens right out of me.

Borage is supposed to be good for tomatoes too!
I had a beautiful bumper crop of borage..
B~e~a~u~t~i~f~u~l blue flower and it attracked
alllllllot of beneficials..

And I just picked up another book from the library today on Companion Gardening..
I was leafing thru it and came acrossed something I didn't know..
When I find it again :rolleyes: I'll post it.

Weezie

thereis a book I have used for years, it is called "Readers Digest-Back to Basics". It is a fountain of info aobut all kinds of things, I love the gardening section, it covers alot of things. You will be able to find it at the book store. I put radishes in front of my tomatoes, they do extremely well, since I do succession planting they work out well with them.