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Most gardeners have heard of companion planting, but I am here to tell you that it's not all that it is cut out to be. That’s why I am changing things up and teaching you a superior gardening method: intercropping!
Intercropping allows you to avoid all the garden drama of this plant doesn’t get along with that plant. Instead, it fosters amazing biodiversity in a garden which will help with production, pest control, and achieving healthy soil. Let's get started!
You only live once, right? I want to live life to the fullest and have fun doing it, so while I do follow some loose rules in gardening that help me get great results, I don’t want to get bogged down with a lot of strict do’s and don’ts.
Your garden is your canvas and you are the painter! I hope you will use these guides to achieve gardening success, but I also hope that you will try new things and make your garden what you want it to be!
Here are some more planting guides you may find helpful:
Intercropping is a gardening method where different kinds of plants are grown intermixed in close proximity instead of in dedicated beds of singular crops. With intercropping, many kinds and varieties of plants all live symbiotically as they would be found in nature.
No perfect rows, no uniformity; organized chaos, to put it nicely. This organized chaos is exactly what makes the method valid.
There’s a lot that I don’t like about companion planting, so much so that I really avoid using the term companion planting completely, even though there are some parts of it that are true. The problem is that the majority of information out there is not true!
Companion planting is based around the idea that there are certain plants that do well together and others that don’t do well when grown together, when really there are just plants that would not exist together naturally. The real problem with companion planting becomes obvious when you look on the internet.
You will find that information about companion planting changes from source to source! You have all these bloggers and influencers saying to plant these good companions next to these plants because there is a benefit, but don’t plant these plants next to these other ones.
There is so much conflicting information that gardeners have no idea where to go or what to do. That is why I have completely moved away from ever talking about companion planting and have started using a different method called intercropping.
I’ve used intercropping successfully for so many years and I know you’ll have great success with it as well. Here are some of its advantages:
Saves Space - What I really like about intercropping is that it advocates growing a lot of plants in a smaller space, which in turn means you are creating a more productive and efficient garden! Meanwhile, companion planting leaves people bogged down and overwhelmed trying to avoid planting non-companion plants near each other, so they eventually create a lot of empty space in their garden to avoid growing this plant next to that plant.
Biodiversity - Intercropping leads to greater biodiversity. Biodiversity in a garden has scientifically been proven to be the best control method for garden pests! When different plants are near each other, their pheromones are mixed, creating a cocktail of chemical scents that confuse pests. This helps me use as few chemicals as possible, even reducing the organic pesticides I need to use.
Soil Health - Dense planting protects the soil from erosion and solarization that would kill beneficial microbes. Growing multiple crops together also helps keep the nutrient content of soil more balanced because plants requiring all the same nutrients do not singularly dominate the soil.
The rules of intercropping are very simple! There are only three and once you follow these rules, everything else will make sense. The world becomes your oyster as you realize that you can plant just about anything you want next to just about anything else as long as you follow these rules.
Plant Height Matters - You don't want to plant a tall plant next to a small plant because the tall plant will block the sun from the shorter plant. All of the plants in one intercropping zone should be a similar height. For example, you do not want to plant lettuce at the base of your corn stalks because the corn will block the sun and the lettuce will struggle.
Similar Leaf Size - When you use high-intensity spacing, you can grow a lot of plants in a smaller space, but you have to make sure that plants with large leaves (like cabbages, zucchini, pumpkins, or rhubarb) won’t shade and smother other plants. When you first plant, it seems like there is a ton of space, but you have to take into account the overall mature size and future leaf size of the crop that you’re planting to know whether or not it is smart to intercrop around it.
Compatible Root Zone - Make sure that the root zones of plants will not interfere. For example, when I plant out a bed of potatoes, I don’t intercrop any other plants there. The reason is that potatoes take up most of the root zone, stealing the nutrients and water away. Plus, when it comes time to harvest those potatoes, I would be seriously disturbing the roots of any other plants intercropped there. Another example of roots that don't play nice are sunflowers. They actually excrete a chemical that stunts the growth of plants in the surrounding soil to allow the sunflowers more root zone to grow nice and large.
There are a lot of different forms of intercropping. Here are some of the ways that you can use intercropping in your garden to get the most benefit:
Intercropping can be used to provide a micro-climate or some type of environmental impact on other plants. A prime example would be growing beans or cucumbers on a trellis that provides more shade to crops that don't tolerate too much heat, like a bed of lettuce, spinach, radishes, and cilantro.
Herbs and flowers are often great choices to intercrop for pest control (like planting marigolds to repel rabbits or root knot nematodes). Simply plant herbs and flowers that pests don’t like near the plants that they are attracted to. Or use the strong fragrance of flowers and herbs to mask the scent of your crops from pests.
Planting tomatoes next to basil is one of the most famous intercropping examples. The roots of basil and tomatoes play nice, so you can check the box of root zone. The plants get about the same height and similarly bushy, and when you prune your tomatoes with the single stemming method, they won’t block too much sunlight from the basil.
So, intercropping tomatoes and basil follows all three rules and it does something else amazing: basil masks the scent of tomato plants to help protect them from tomato hornworms!
It’s no mystery why pollination is important! If you have a vegetable garden or fruit trees like peaches, apples, and pears, you can attract beneficial pollinators to them through the use of plants that bring pollinators into the garden, like lavender, borage, and nasturtiums.
Intercropping isn’t limited to planting different kinds of plants together, but you can also intercrop different varieties of the same type of plant. Many people have documented the benefits of having multiple types of plants within the same species planted next to each other!
Near my house, I am growing different types of currants together: red currants, white currants, pink currants, and black currants. Having all of those currants next to each other provides cross-pollination between currant plants that leads to better fruit set.
Another example of this form of intercropping is how I alternate planting green and purple cabbage in my beds. There is quite a bit of evidence that intercropping different cabbage colors actually helps reduce cabbage moths!
This form of intercropping is pretty well documented, but I don’t hear enough people talking about it, and that is decoy planting. This is essentially a pest control method, but you don’t use plants to repel pests, instead you plant something that attracts pests to keep the bad bugs away from your crops.
You are basically planting certain plants with the sole purpose of sacrificing them for the betterment of the rest of the garden. This method doesn’t get rid of your pests, but it can be very effective.
Some examples include planting mustard crops to attract cabbage moths away from your garden, or planting flowering kale as an attractant for aphids. My family once visited a U-pick blueberry farm where the farmer had planted hedgerows of tiny red berries in between every row of blueberries to attract birds and keep the birds from eating his blueberries.
The disadvantages of intercropping primarily affect commercial growers and large farms because intercropping makes crop management and using farm equipment to harvest crops more difficult. On a smaller scale, intercropping can increase competition for light, nutrients, and water due to the dense planting, so make sure to fertilize and amend soil each season and water when needed.
Strip intercropping is growing multiple crops in alternating rows or strips, like the example of the U-pick blueberry farm that I shared.
Luke Marion
Luke Marion created MIgardener in 2011 with a passion for inspiring others to grow a garden, live healthier lives, and have fun doing it. With the help of social media, that was all made possible! Today, MIgardener can be found on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. We believe gardening should be made fun and accessible to anyone of any skill level. Our slogan, “Grow Big or Go Home,” was created to help drive home our mission. We believe that when you put 100% effort into something, you will get 110% back.
Comments
I love the simplicity of this. And it makes sense! I’m going to plant with this method in mind this year. I feel refreshed. And I’m looking forward to the new gardening season more than I was before reading this post. Thanks!
