Content
- Mixed culture - Guide for practical implementation in the garden
- What is meant by mixed culture? - Definition of terms for practitioners
- Monoculture - dark opponent with chemistry in the luggage
- Tips
- Good neighbor - Dream teams of mixed culture
- Colorful flowers and aromatic herbs - ideal companion plants for the mixed culture
- Bad neighbors - here conflicts are inevitable
- Practical example of a vegetable patch in mixed culture
- Tips
- Advanced mixed culture - How to incorporate crop rotation
Strawberries and leeks go well together
Mixed culture - Guide for practical implementation in the garden
Among the plants in this database, alliances can be formed to join forces to ward off diseases and pests. Anyone who is familiar with how a mixed culture works benefits from the convincing advantages in the home garden. This guide explains the exact nature of the organic farming strategy. Familiarize yourself with the context here and get to know proven plant coalitions that perfectly complement each other as neighbors.
What is meant by mixed culture? - Definition of terms for practitioners
The mixed culture as an ingenious cultivation method results from precise observations in untouched nature and practical experiences of ecologically oriented home gardeners. By contrast, scientific research on this topic is still in its infancy, so that the findings and procedures are based primarily on empirical data. As the term implies, the socialization of different plants has an advantageous effect on growth, earning power and health in the vegetable garden. The following definition sums up the findings about mixed culture:
In the long version, this definition states that plants can be mutually beneficial, despite different demands on nutrient and water supply. Deviating rooting depths ensure that plants in a mixed culture do not enter each other's enclosure. Rather, local resources are used perfectly without leaching the garden soil. The bundling of root exudates, root residues and escaping odors strengthens the immune system against diseases and pests in harmony with nature. Put simply, the motto 'Opposites attract' is transferred from the human partner search to the planting plan for the vegetable garden.
Monoculture - dark opponent with chemistry in the luggage
Those who plant too much of a variety in one spot often can not avoid the use of chemistry
A look at the principles of monoculture illustrates the outstanding importance of mixed cultivation for plant cultivation according to ecological principles. The cultivation of plants of identical botanical association has numerous negative effects. To make up for this, commercial agriculture makes use of chemical aids. The use of pesticides and artificial fertilizers as well as other environmentally and harmful methods is common in monoculture fields.Tips
To ensure that only the benefits of mixed culture come into play in your home garden, important prerequisites must be observed. Choose a location that is suitable for all plants. Dig the garden floor two spades deep and work in compost, bark humus or manure. Do not use synthetic fertilizers and chemical pesticides so that the colorfully mixed plant society can optimally exploit its natural strengths.
Good neighbor - Dream teams of mixed culture
The prime example of a successful socialization of crops according to the principle of mixed culture is the duo carrot and onion. The carrot effectively repels onion flies while the onion sells approaching carrot flies. In other alliances, the benefits go in one direction because one plant sacrifices for the other. Horseradish steers approaching Colorado potato beetles so that potato plants remain undisturbed. The following table presents proven Dream teams in the vegetable garden, which favor:
Another important premise for the successful mixed culture is, furthermore, that the neighboring plants do not shadow each other. Therefore, observe a sufficient planting distance if you choose one of these floral coalitions. Horseradish, for example, can perfectly fulfill its role as a natural bulwark against Colorado potato beetles when the plant is located at each of the four corners of the potato field, far from the shadowy potato leaves.
Colorful flowers and aromatic herbs - ideal companion plants for the mixed culture
The strategic implementation of a mixed culture in the kitchen garden does not mean that you have to do without colorful flowers or aromatic herbs. The following flower beauties make themselves useful in the vegetable garden as good neighbors:
Where chives are added to vegetables, fungal infections have bad cards. The ethereal root exudates effectively ward off cunning mushroom spores. Chamomile ensures that bed neighbors build a stable defense against disease. Where nasturtium thrives, whiteflies, lice and ants go wild.
Bad neighbors - here conflicts are inevitable
The downside of the mixed culture medal are unfavorable plant combinations. By no means all commercial and ornamental plants maintain a harmonious neighborhood, but interfere with each other in growth and vitality. Therefore, please do not indiscriminate your plant favorites indiscriminately, but research in advance exactly how it is ordered to the neighborly compatibility. Among other things, the following vegetables are not suitable for a mixed culture:
The aversions within incompatible plant combinations even go beyond the immediate neighborhood. So it is not recommended to grow cucumbers after carrots, because the soil of nematodes can be contaminated. Cucumbers are also not suitable as crop rotation of potatoes due to the danger of remaining wilting fungi in the soil.
Balcony gardeners like to grow strawberries in the planter. In terms of mixed culture, tagetes and marigolds are colorful neighbors, while tulips attract various pests, such as wireworms and nematodes.
Practical example of a vegetable patch in mixed culture
The following practical example illustrates how the concrete implementation of mixed culture works in the own kitchen garden. From popular plants of this database, we have created a planting plan for a total of 4 beds. These are managed in mixed culture with the aim to provide a family of four from spring to late autumn with delicious, healthy vegetables. The beds have a working width of 1.20 m and are separated by 30 cm wide paths.
Cabbage and salad have a positive effect on each other
In bed 1, plant in 3 rows of your favorite cabbage species, such as rose, red, flower or white cabbage. A row of plants is in the middle of the bed. The other two rows are placed 10 cm away from each other. Within a row, the planting distance is 50 cm. As it takes some time for Kohl to fill the square, put in between the salad and the early kohlrabi. These plants have been harvested long before cabbage closes the rows.In bed 2 plant bush beans, kohlrabi and celery. The planting distance is within the rows 50 cm. The rows themselves come with a distance of 40 cm, as these vegetables do not thrive as expansively as cabbage in the bed 1.
In bed 3 cucumbers, lettuce and Frühkohlrabi should flourish. Of the cucumbers, plant only one row in the center of the bed at a distance of 30 cm. Since cucumbers only start planting in mid-May, use the area until then with two additional rows of your favorite salad. Early kohlrabi and lettuce act as marginal planting.
For Beet 4 tomatoes, peppers and hot peppers are intended as the main crop, supplemented with radishes, lettuce, cress and spinach as secondary crops. At the beginning of April sow in 4 rows of spinach or put on the windowsill early seedlings. Garden cress, cut salad and radishes follow at the end of April. These plants harvest after 6 weeks when spinach takes up more space. In mid-May, the spinach plants have to give way, because the planting time begins for tomatoes, peppers and hot peppers. Place tomato plants in the two middle rows. The two outer rows are intended for peppers and hot peppers. In the middle of the main rows you sow parsley, marigold and tagetes in the sense of mixed culture.
Tips
Meeting conspecifics of various genera in the bed, suffer plant health and yield underneath. Classic examples of fatal neighborhoods are cruciferous vegetables, legumes and umbelliferae. Therefore, avoid a mixed culture of types of cabbage, such as cauliflower, Brussels sprouts or kale. Peas, beans and vetches are just as unsuitable as carrots, dill and celery.
Advanced mixed culture - How to incorporate crop rotation
If you are familiar with the basic functionality of mixed culture after some time, you can still optimize the cultivation principle. For this purpose, the planting plan includes the correct crop rotation of the crops. This means in concrete terms that from year to year the bedding planting alternates between weak, medium and heavy eaters so that the soil does not leach out. Annual crop rotation ensures that soil fertility is maintained, significantly reducing the need for fertilizers. The following table illustrates how it works:
Typical heavyweighers are cabbage, potatoes, tomatoes, corn, beans and spinach. Pigs, radishes, onions, leeks, celery, carrots and spinach are added to the middle earners. As a weak drinkers are considered salads, almost all herbs and garden cress. The borders are fluent though. Different assignments among gardeners are discussed controversially. In this context, green manure has the task of regenerating the soil of the garden and preparing it for the next year's planting with heavy eaters.
The art of implementing mixed crops with crop rotation is to include all aspects, including nutrient needs, in the planting plan. Accordingly, the carrot / onion duo follow the corn / bean dream team from year to year as a medium taster to live off what the starvationists have left of nutrients.