Organic vegetable gardening means that you will not be spraying toxic chemicals on your fresh food, and you won’t be spreading chemical fertilizers on the ground. If you don’t do that, how do you keep your garden from becoming a bug feast or prevent sparse, low quality crops?

Companion planting is the solution. Companion planting can be described as growing two or more different kinds of plants close together so that some benefit is derived, like repelling pests, attracting beneficial insects, adding needed nutrients to the soil, or providing shelter

Some plants give off scents or chemicals that repel insects, insects like worms and beetles that can destroy your garden. Other plants help prevent disease or attract insects, which are beneficial to plants. And some plants are exceptional at breaking down the soil and helping other plants absorb vital nutrients. Essentially companion planting is used to help your core plants thrive without chemicals.

An example would be planting corn and beans together. Corn removes nitrogen from then soil while growing. Beans fix nitrogen back into the soil while growing and help the corn

I’ll provide a warning though to people who would plant beans in with their corn. Bean varieties include pole beans (climbing beans) and bush beans (non-climbing beans). Do NOT plant pole beans in with your corn. The climbing beans will create a twisted and leafy jungle around your corn plants, making it difficult to harvest the corn.

Companion Planting Suggestions

Marigolds have a very strong fragrance. Many insects find marigolds quite distasteful including nematodes (roundworms), whiteflies, beetles, and aphids. To use marigolds as a companion plant, plant them at the perimeter of your square foot garden box. Take care to not plant them too closely to your vegetables because they do attract spider mites and slugs.

Nasturtiums or wormwood are good when planted close to the cabbage family as they attract the white cabbage moth away from the plants. Nasturtiums are also very helpful when planting broccoli

If you’re growing tomatoes, geraniums repel cabbage worms, Japanese beetles, and leafhoppers. If you’re planting corn, grapes, peppers or cabbage, geraniums are also beneficial.

If you intend to grow tomatoes, planting garlic with them is a good idea. Planting them with carrots is a bad idea because the tomatoes will stunt the growth of the carrots. Avoid planting dill and kohlrabi near tomatoes, because they slow tomato growth.

Horseradish is good with potatoes.

Parsley is good with tomatoes.

Santolina is a good insect repellent, especially for spinach and lettuce.

Thyme is a good protective border for the vegetable garden and repels fruit moths.

Keep ants away? Catnip, Mint, Onion, Peppermint, Spearmint, Tansy, Wormwood.

Slug repellent? Artemisia, Fennel, Garlic, Rosemary, Sage (Fennel is harmful to most plants especially beans, cucumbers and tomatoes)

When you don’t want flypaper in your garden – Basil, Pennyroyal, Rue, Tansy (also repels Aphids and greenfly)

Don’t Forget The Bees

You need bees and other pollinating insects if you are:

• planting tomatoes
• planting potatoes
• planting beans
• planting pumpkins

Bees are attracted by most flowers because they collect nectar to make honey and pollen to feed to the larvae. Going from flower to flower to collect as much as they can before going back to the hive, they take pollen from one plant to the next and help with plant fertilization as they go. Flowering plants are important in a vegetable patch. Some of the best include: allysium, red clover, Queen Anne’s lace, cosmos, coriander, parsley flowers, dill, small daisies and lucerne.

Happy eating!

Thinking about growing some vegetables in limited yard space? Your food dollar definitely goes a lot further when you grow your own vegetables. Discover how to do all new square foot gardening at http://www.squareboardfootgardening.com

Read our latest article at http://www.squareboardfootgardening.com/all-new-square-foot-gardening/all-new-square-foot-gardening

When you go to the nursery it’s all well and fine to buy your own seedlings and plant them in your garden. But wouldn’t it be easier, and cheaper, if you could learn how to do this yourself without having to go to the nursery in the first place?

Seed gardening is easy, rewarding and will certainly save you money. This is where the techniques of square foot Gardening really come to the fore, as you can garden in a limited space to grow and raise your seedlings in a small box, before planting them out. Here’s how to do it.

First you will need to buy or make a container approximately 1 foot square. You can use timber if you wish, or you can use an old fruit box you have lying around or even a polystyrene box will do. Next you need to purchase some seed raising mixture. This is especially nurturing sandy based soil which will allow you to easily grow from seeds. The second step is to have the seas themselves! You can get these from a nursery in packets or you can harvest them yourself from other vegetables that have gone to seed in your garden.

Gently tamp down the soil to make sure it is not to loose. The tiny seedlings need a fairly tight space for the roots to latch onto that is why making the soil reasonably compact is a vital first step. Just think like a seed! Now you can scatter the seeds over the surface of this prepared bed then lightly sprinkle a layer of potting soil over the top of the seeds, then water everything in.

The seed trays can now be placed where ever you like, usually in a protected area a little bit of sun and even light. The important thing is to keep them well watered at least to keep the soil moist as this encourages the seeds to grow even better.

Depending upon the seeds you have sewn you may find that once they have begun to sprout they are quite tightly spaced. Do not be concerned at this point because you can thin them out after they are fully grown as you plant them. This will not always occur but with larger plants like lettuces it is more common than with, say, carrots.

Once your first seed tray is alive with new plants you can think back and price each one that you see with the nursery price, and that is how much you have saved. You will find that one seed tray which has cost you may be four or five dollars, will have around 30 or 40 seedlings which you would have paid three or four dollars each. That means one tray can save you close to $100.

Read some amazing extra tips which will revolutionize your gardening at Raised Bed Gardening Tips, a site you will want to visit again and again.

I have only been experimenting with square foot gardening since December 2008, but my efforts and investment have already paid off. We moved to a townhouse, which has a very small back yard. Prior to that we had a very large yard with many fruit trees and a large garden. Trying to economize was a bit humbling but has been very educational.

My husband put together a square foot garden frame, which was 4 x 4 feet with a wooden frame to divide the 16 evenly spaced squares in which to grow my produce. We originally invested in some perculite to mix with the soil. Also we added some compost from a local farm, which contained scraps from vegetable peelings and such. I got the vegetable seeds from a local shop and made sure they were not expired.

I learned that I needed to read the instructions carefully to make sure they were evenly spaced and at the correct depth. Also some plants do better in direct sun and others do better in shade.

First I planted tomatoes, pak choy, lettuce, yellow peppers, long beans, peas, green onions, carrots, swish chard, corn and cabbage. I was so excited when the first small sprouts came up after about a week. I had to let them grow a bit to distinguish between the actual vegetables and the weeds. I had a watering can that I filled up each night so that it would be warm when I watered my baby plants.

Of all the vegetables I planted, the ones that amazed me most were the tomatoes, swish chard, pak choy and long beans. They seemed to do well without a lot of care other than watering and occasionally spraying for the insects. Since I love making stir fried meat with vegetables, we had some very healthy meals from our garden.

I purchased some insecticide but found that mixing a little dish washing soap (1 oz.) with 6 oz. water and spraying the plants weekly, the pests stayed away as well being much more economical. I also didn’t have to worry about being poisoned by the insecticides.

I did plant some marigolds, which insects do not like, and they add a touch of color. I also splurged and bought a small seedling from a local shop of a tomato plant. It only cost about $2.50 and produced well over 10 times that worth of yummy tomatoes. The thing I learned from that is to only plant one large seedling in a box so it won’t be crowded as it grows. I also learned to only water the roots since watering the leaves too much promotes diseases and insects.

From this experience I learned that corn needs a much larger place to grow – it will take over and cast too much shade on the other vegetables. We did have a few very delicious sweet ears of corn, but lost some other vegetables like the cabbage because they were shaded too much. Another thing I realized is that I need not be scared to thin out the carrots and green onions otherwise they won’t grow too much.

I am really enjoying my square foot garden. I will be experimenting with flowers next and let you know how that goes.

Ruth Elayne Kongaika
http://www.hubpages.com/profile/elayne001