Now, nobody knows best what your soil can do than you, but I wanted to pass along some valuable information that I picked up last winter, but have yet to put into use. The common terms are companion planting, biodiversity gardening, French Intensive, square-foot gardening, or permaculture. They are very popular in Europe and Africa, I am told, and the point is to get the maximum benefit from the least amount of space. Think around 500 times your seed value in produce!
It’s more than container gardening, but less than traditional row planting. The key is raised beds and strategic placement of certain plants. For example, there is the Terrific Trio. Native Canadians used to plant corn with beans spaced in between, and sprawling squash nearby. The benefit of this pairing is that the corn provides a sturdy stalk for the beans to climb, the beans add nitrogen to the soil which the corn and squash adore, and the leaves of the squash spread out and keep the soil moist and cool for the corn to thrive. All three plants do better together than if they were planted separately in rows.
Now, you’re probably thinking: How am I going to reach the beans and corn without stepping all over the squash? And the answer is: Raised Beds. Building a frame to raise the soil not only aids in drainage, but you don’t have to walk in them so the soil will not compact. This makes weeding a breeze in such nice loose soil. And if you make the beds around 4 feet across, you can just reach in from both sides and access anything you need!
Now, it takes a little work to get this set up. This fall, I’m going to build four or five 4 foot by 20 foot raised beds, probably 12 inches high, and I’m also going to rig them up to accommodate hoop houses for the spring. Before the snow falls, I’m going to layer in some straw, soil, composted chicken manure (for nitrogen), newspaper, leaves, etc., covering it all with cardboard to hold it in. Over the winter, these layers will break down, and I hope to find wonderful nutrient-rich soil in the spring when I open them up!
I’ve also drawn up some garden plans, with appropriate companion plants arranged for maximum impact, both for my crop yield, as well as for pest control. For example, Marigolds are an excellent trap-crop, attracting insects that would otherwise be chomping on your strawberries. There is an excellent list of companion plants at www.gardensablaze.com, which shows compatible and incompatible pairings of many common garden plants, herbs, and even trees! You’ll have to search a little harder to find more exotic plants, but there is always trial and error, if you can’t get a solid answer from a Google search!
So, while your raised beds are composting beneath the snow, you can spend some time dreaming about what you’d like to put in the ground come spring. Here’s one of my plans that I’m hoping to try out next year.
Picture here...eventually!
Another thing that will help in an unpredictable growing season like the one we live with here in Southern Alberta, is hoop houses.
I’m bolting rebar pieces to my raised beds, so all I have to do to create one of these babies is bend a piece of PVC pipe over the bed and attach some tarp or poly and voila! Instant tiny greenhouse! So there will be no need to start hundreds of tiny peat pots inside, which you then have to transfer to larger containers, then transfer again when it’s after May long weekend. This is what can happen when you planned on doing this but let other things get in the way!
Picture here...eventually!
Since the soil in the raised bed is above the permafrost, it is already warmer than the ground, and adding the hoop house on top makes the best use of whatever sunlight you get, trapping the heat in the small amount of air above your soil. Then, when your plants have a good start, you just lift off the hoop house, and away you go!
If you want more of a three-season greenhouse, a hoop house also delivers, warming a target area on its own, or improving the impact of a space heater. You’ll have to reinforce the hoops with cross braces so they don’t fall in on each other, but using pipe and poly, it’s still cheaper than a greenhouse kit, and completely portable!
So here’s the best part about gardening this way: It can be completely organic. Using trap-crops to manage the pests means you won’t need chemical pesticides. Planting different crops next to each other where one adds nitrogen, and the other adds something else means that you won’t have to use fertilizers other than what’s already in your lovely composted soil. Planting close together and making use of shade plants means your soil holds its moisture better, and you’ll use less water. And nice loose soil means that weeding will be easy to do by hand (oh, did I mention that the over-winter process of composting the soil is supposed to help limit weed growth!), and you won’t need to use herbicides. Now, doesn’t that sound great?
I’ll let you know how it goes.
But for now, Happy Small Farming.
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