InterCropping

[cambourne7]

Hi

In the past i have grown things in the own beds.

I understand the concept of companion planting and crop rotation, but i was wondering what combinations people have found to work?

i.e. interplanting tomatoes into main spuds, radish with parsnips?

Look forward to hearing from you all :-)

Cambourne7

[cambourne7]

[ACE]

Works a treat and space saving, but don't plant spuds and toms together, as you pick one and dig the other. Stuff that is cropped is alright as you will not be disturbing other plants. I used to use the shade of my runners for lettuce and leeks with sprouts. You need to put extra feed into the ground for obvious reasons.

[manicscousers]

some people reckon a root with something that grows up,
one popular one is sunflowers, beans and squash, apparently, the beans use the sunflowers to grow up and the squash keep the roots cool, never tried it but it sounds good,
we grow kohl rabi in with cabbages and turnips, garlic around the beans, parsnips with radish as the radish germinate quickly so you know where the parsnips are, if any ever grow, we had lots of radish, no parsnips,  :)

[tim]

I know folk do inter-cropping, but if you have room to put something in between your rows, were they not to far apart? And how do you then hoe? I can never figure it.

And if you mix it all, where's the rotation??

[cambourne7]

thanks guys this is all giving me ideas  ;D

[Barnowl]

I seem to remember that you shouldn't intercrop spuds and tomatoes - something to do with blight - anyone else seen this?

[Garjan]

As far as I know they are the same family and both can get blighted.

I grew tomatoes a few summers ago and they overnight became blighted. My neighbour allotmenteer told me that I had planted them in the spot where potatoes grew the year before. And as blight is soilborn it affected the tomatoes.
Hope that this makes sense.

[cornykev]

They are from the same family but we are advised to grow them as far apart as possible because tomatoes are susceptible (big word for me ;D) to potato blight. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[cornykev]

Also agree with Tim about the hoeing but still plan to intercrop radish with parsnips and from what I have read some crops don't need rotating so thats how they just fit in a space or used for intercropping. :-\ :-\ :-\ ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[Robert_Brenchley]

Blight is normally airborne, but overwinters underground on potato tubers. So don't plant toms where you had spuds the year before, and be ruthless about getting rid of accidentals. It should be OK to follow toms with spuds as nothing overwinters to carry infection.

[flossie]

Thanks for that Robert
Normally  I would not follow pots after toms.  However I want to this year but I  am a bit concnered as there was some blight on the toms last year.

[glow777]

Also agree with Tim about the hoeing but ......

I do sweetcorn and squash. Neither need rotating and the squash cover the ground so there is no need to hoe

[Robert_Brenchley]

I do that was well, and find it's very successful. I've never tried adding beans to the mix though, as I've never grown the really big corn varieties.

[supersprout]

I know folk do inter-cropping, but if you have room to put something in between your rows, were they not to far apart? And how do you then hoe? I can never figure it.

And if you mix it all, where's the rotation??

Once the seedlings of longer-growing veg are up, you can see where to intercrop (or is that catch-cropping?) which will come out before the main plant needs harvesting. E.g. old fashioned trench celery interplanted with lettuce or rocket, Spring cabbage interplanted with toms etc.
We pull leeks from one end of the bed. At the moment broadies are chasing the leeks up one of the beds - we grow a lot of both.
Tim - some of us don't hoe :-[ ;)
I plant different 'blocks' of similar veg along a bed to maintain a rough rotation. So, 12 celeriac: then a block of carrots; then a couple of rows of parsnip; and so on.