Our vegetable garden layout is packed full of flowers and herbs that work with companion planting practices. Planting a mixed garden with vegetables and flowers is one of the ways we grow a healthy garden with an abundance of crops!
My Favourite Home Garden Items
Plant labels: I have made my own in the past, but these are now my favourite.
Waterproof marker: For those plant labels… I have had too many fade or get washed by the rain.
T-Posts: to hold the cattle fencing for all our climbing plants. We love building structures for our plants to grow vertical and have a larger yield in a small garden space.
Cattle Fencing: for my beloved arch trellis, or any kind of structure for vertical growing.
Twine: for tying up plants or keeping structures together for our vertical garden spaces.
Companion planting
Companion planting is one of the great secrets of gardening. Just like we have friends we get along with easier than others, so plants have companions that they get along with better than others.
What companion plants go together
Here is a handy companion planting chat that will show you our main crops and plants that grow well together.
Why I plan a vegetable garden layout
So I plan our garden with companion planting practices mind. I take a plain sheet of paper, or the back of one of our garden calendars, and draw out our garden simply.
We are just backyard gardeners, so I don’t have to plan an intensive crop plan and guide necessarily. Although I do plan because:
- we are growing a lot
- everything needs to fit
- we want a good harvest
- I do want to make sure nothing gets missed
- I can structure everything in a way that they would benefit from companion plants (which would be a lot to remember if I just get out there and plant)
Our vegetable garden layout
Why is it good to companion plant?
Having plants that mutually benefit one another close by each other can be useful in terms of the plant growth, but also to protect one another in that a certain plant can “lock in” the pests while it deters from the other plant. So much to know and discover with companion planting, let’s get going!
Benefits of a mixed garden
Now, you will notice that a lot of the vegetables I named companion planted well with a flower. This is because companion planting is not simply about the veggies that grow well together to support each other nutritionally, but also about attracting and repelling pests and diseases.
This is best accomplished by planting flowers and cover crops around the vegetables.
So while I would like to have a high production garden where everything is neat and organized, organized will never be the case for us. This is because:
- We grow crops close together to cover the soil and grow more food with our limited area
- We grow lots of flowers and herbs among our vegetables to attract pollinators and deter pests.
Read a book about companion planting
A lot of what I know I learned from Brian Lowell, the author of “Companion Planting for Beginners”. If you feel like you could use more information after watching this video, I can highly recommend buying his book.
Other gardening posts
Read our latest gardening updates January 2023 and how we built our indoor greenhouse here.
Leave a Reply