Companion Planting

In researching my pea/onion dating situation I was frustrated by the sheer volume of charts that graph companion planting but the limited few that go into details as to WHY plants should be kept at a distance. And none that I found so far give any ideas as to what constitutes ‘companion’, how far away do these combatants need to be kept?

The best info came from Seeds of Change , Garden Toad , and Mother Earth News - which is actually an excerpt from the wonderful and ’soon to be purchased for our reference library’ book …

From what I understand, onions will inhibit the growth of peas; there doesn’t seem to be any negative effect on the onions. Since the nearest I planted onions to peas is about 4 ft. I will keep track of how these little guys respond and compare them to the ones in beds where onions are absent….I’ll keep you posted.

Another tidbit on companions comes from Sheriden Gardens which gives info on the benefits of certain herbs inter planted with veggies.

Originally posted on October 29th, 2008