The allotment and companion planting

This year I have spent some time planting companion plants alongside my vegetables.
I know there is some scientific research for plants like marigold, mustard and maybe chamomile but there seems to be very little research on any of the other recommended plants. I must admit that the poached egg plants that I planted under the sweet peas may have helped them. I would much rather think that it was the inoculated charcoal that was more effective though. I am the belt and braces kind of gardener that uses every technique he can to produce the best results.

The companion planting lists seem to be repeated from web site to web site and book to book with very little passing through people’s brains.

The lists of pests they are reported to be effective against read like the old quack remedies such as snake oil.

Is there anyone that can suggest some good research that has been done on companion planting?


I am always amazed at what academics research, because they seem to go for stuff that is not very good for everyday life. In horticulture research, I think that the funding comes from industry so research will be focused on what they think are important.
My main worry is the thoughtless copying of long lists of companion planting that I have seen in many books and websites.


I find it very difficult to rely on old wives tales about gardening techniques because I have found that many of them do not work. The “plant onions or garlic with carrots to keep away carrot root fly” does not work for me and I have tried it for years. However, each time I hear about a method I have not tried I will give it a go even though my scientific training makes me very skeptical.


Now I have read on http://www.allotments-uk.com/ that planting potatoes next to raspberries encourages blight. What is that all about? I have been reading gardening books and research for years and have not heard about that one. Rubus idaeus the raspberry and Solanum tuberosum potato both totally different species from different parts of the world. Not only that, I am growing potatoes right up to my raspberries this year. I can’t put them anywhere else because it would mess up my rotation.

What fascinates me is that there are very few non cultivated plants within the lists. If there is something in companion planting, and I think there maybe, then surely the fact that a plant is cultivated cannot be the important factor.


Native uncultivated plants, weeds for short, probably have a greater affinity for native mychorrhizal fungi may give a greater help to crop plants than the list plants. Mychorrhiza will be able to transfer any beneficial chemicals to partner plants much quicker, easier and more effectively than diffusion through the soil.
It may be true what people say,
But I keep wondering anyway…

Triple digging

I am triple digging the allotment. I have some brushwood to get rid of so I am digging a trench about three spits down and putting the hedge and tree cuttings in then covering them up again with the soil.

There are several reasons for doing this. The alternative is burning and I do not like to burn good nutrients and send them up into the atmosphere to pollute someone else's land. Taking the brushwood to the council tip means either it will be burnt or composted. Why should they have the benefits of my brushwood?

Putting the brushwood deep into the soil helps to drain the soil and keep it open. It will also raise the level of the soil and this will help with soil drainage. Nutrients locked within it will slowly be broken down and returned to the soil. Brushwood forms very good compost when it eventually breaks down. I am using a lot of mychorrhizal fungi throughout the allotment and I would like to think that they could exploit this brushwood both aiding in its breakdown and delivering the resultant nutrients to plant roots.

Before adding the brushwood, I put a layer of lawn grass mowings in to give the microbes a boost. Lawn mowings have relatively more nitrogen in them than the brushwood does. Another layer of lawn mowings goes on top of the brushwood to make a sandwich.

This has raised the level of the soil about 30 cm. and judging from last year’s triple digging the level of the soil continues to be elevated well into the second year.

Not only does the trench help to bury large amounts of brushwood, it also helps me to clear off a lot of the weeds and vegetables that have gone over. I have buried the old peas and some of the lettuce that has gone to seed. I will be also adding the chard that has gone to seed as well.

I still need to get some horse muck though Tone.

Frosty weather

After loosing my blog of about three years on another site, I have decided to continue on this one and hopefully I will not loose this one.
It is a very late year this year. Frosts on the 11th of May. Not the worst I have had. Once there was a frost on the 1st of June. It was some time in the 1960s when the weather was normal.
So, the greenhouse is full of plants and I cannot get into it. I think that I may loose the peppers but everything else will be alright.
I have dug the last of the green manure in on this years brassica bed and limed the area. This is all ready for the brassicas to go in now when they have grown a little larger. I am weeding the runner beans and the sweet peas. The sweet peas seriously need tying up. This will be done this week.
The onions are still doing well despite the onion fly still being around. I want to cover these with envirofleece but I have not gone to get the blue water pipe to make the supports yet. The sweet cicerly is enormous. I am wondering if it is the mychorrhizal fungi that I put under it. Possible.
Spuds are coming through. With the frosts I think they might get a bit damaged, however this will not be fatal and they will just throw up new leaves. I have hoed them all up quite high but I still think that I could hoe them up even more.
Carrots, spinach, beetroot and parsnips are showing now. These need to be weeded but I will leave them until I have the other beds clear. The strawberries are doing very well and I think that if the frost does not kill off the flowers I will have a good harvest this year. The raspberries are a little thin because I transplanted them this year, however they are doing really well and I think that the mychorrhizal fungi have done their work well on them.
The row of early onward is doing well. I will put up the chicken wire to support them as and when. The winter cauliflowers are coming now but I wanted to leave them until they got a little bigger. I do need the ground for more peas though so they will have to be harvested soon. The good thing is that they tend to all come together so I can harvest and freeze them together and get a big area of ground to use quite quickly. Hopefully this is what will happen this year.
The new rhubarb is champagne. I just wanted a named variety because the rhubarb on the allotment is what I inherited 28 years ago. It is good rhubarb but I don't know its variety.
I have been harvesting quite a lot of rhubarb.
French climbing bean posts have been up for a while but no beans growing up them until the frosts have gone.
I have taken my first crop of comfrey leaves and put them into the digester. I have moved the tub down to the comfrey bed - a sensible thing to do because there was no point in transporting barrow loads of comfrey leaves up to the top of the allotment for no reason. I have put the tub on a pedistall so that I can put a watering can under the tap. It is full of comfrey now but when this rots down I will put some sweet cicerly and nettle in too.
The resultant 'tea' will be used to make charcoal mix. I am attempting to replicate Terra preta soil.
The three bins at the bottom of the allotment are full with very well rotted compost and I will be planting these with cucumber, squash and pumpkin. I was going to put the courgettes on there as well but they will survive anywhere so I will put them anywthere - except where I had them last year. Far too cold to put them out at the moment though.
The greenhouse is cocker at the moment. I cannot fit anything else into it at all. I am hoping to plant out the runner beans at the weekend if the weather changes.
I think that I will loose the two gardener's delight tomatoes I put outside by the shed. I am hoping that the shed, being fairly black, would produce a micro climate that will enable them to survive. Some hope though. We will see.