Mix and match for best results

[Ruderunner]

I've got my seeds started and things are looking good. Be a few weeks till planting and I need to figure out what goes where.

I have 6 rows to work with, 2 rows will have pickles, different varieties as I'm looking for what does better in my area. 1 row of salad cukes just because I had seeds. 1 row each of hot and mild Hungarian and a row of Anaheim. The cukes and pickles will be trellised.

Since the above crops will be vertical, I also have beets and spinach to plant as ground cover. The question is which pair up better?

I'm thinking beets and cukes, spinach and peppers.

The second plot will be sunflowers for momma and green beans around the fence. Low maintenance stuff there due to other home projects.

 

[Martin Mikulcik]

You should plant your cucumbers, beets and spinach now.

Spinach is obligatory cool weather, peppers need hot so not a good combo in my opinion. But i guess the spinach might be gone before it competes with the peppers

 

[Ruderunner]

Still too much chance of frost to plant anything. In fact, we're expecting temperatures in the 20s a couple nights this week. Beets and spinach will go in 1st in a weekortwo. Cukes are still waiting for adult leaves, probably a month to go.

I realize the spinach will probably bolt before the peppers get big . Probably a month before peppers get planted.

I guess the better question is, what's a bad combination? The opposite of companion planting.

I've not found anything definitive about either combination but, I know Beets and dill go together, Cukes and dill go together, so by association Beets and Cukes should be OK.

Just to be clear, everything is sprouted already, nothing is direct sow.

 

[Martin Mikulcik]

Oh that makes sense. I thought you were direct sowing and they wouldn't germinate until after this next cold snap which should be the last

So long as you're not planting poisonous stuff next to stuff you eat, companion plant however you feel like. No lilies in the onion patch e.g. especially with children

 

[Ruderunner]

Other than sunflowers for the missus, I don't plant anything inedible.

 

[Martin Mikulcik]

Sunflowers are edible

 

[Ruderunner]

Really? I know the seeds are but not the rest of the plant.

 

[Martin Mikulcik]

Really? I know the seeds are but not the rest of the plant.

Well, some people eat the leaves/buds, but i haven't tried it that way and depending on how you define sunflower, Jerusalem artichoke is a helianthus and i love those tubers, but i was mostly referring to the seeds, we only grow a couple billion lbs in the usa for oilseed