Christo Sullivan - The Companion Planting Soil Mates Guide: The Complete Beginners Guide to Growing an Organic, Healthy and Bountiful Garden With an Effective Plant-Partners Strategy + Planting Charts and Planners

A healthy and fruitful garden requires more than soil, sunlight, water, and fertilizers. What to plant close together and what to plant far apart depends on how many areas you have available and whether or not your plants can benefit from each other.

Some of life's worst aspects can be avoided by surrounding yourself with supportive friends. Even your plants know this! Companion planting is the practice of cultivating two plants near together for the benefit of one or both. One-sided or reciprocal benefits are therefore possible. To attract pollinators, plant nectar-rich flowers among the crops, or plant two vegetables to repel and confuse pests.

In Native American villages, the Three Sisters trioclimbing beans, maize, and winter squashwere typically grown together due to the plants' complementing characteristics: the tall corn supports ascending beans, the close to the bottom squash covers the ground to minimize moisture loss, and its huge, prickly leaves deter pests and weeds; and the quick growing beans are 'nitrogen fixers,' rendering nitrogen accessible to other weeds and pests.

Oaxaca, Mexico, was home to squash, wild beans, and teosinte for 12,000 years before humans cultivated crops. When hunter-gatherers began cultivating wild plants for nourishment, indigenous peoples began forsaking their nomadic lifestyle and began cultivating these plants for a more stable food supply.

Domestication of the first of the three occurred approximately 10,000 years ago. In the beginning, it was grown for its strong rind, which was used to manufacture utensils and bowls, and later for its nutritious seeds. Squash was originally bitter, but it was eventually improved by indigenous peoples.

The wild ancestor of maize is teosinte, according to legend. Some 9,000 years ago, the Mayans domesticated this grass, which had a 12-kernel seed head, into a useful and delectable crop. There have been many varieties of maize cultivated since then, with more genetic diversity than many other plants.

The common bean can be found throughout Mesoamerica and the Andes of Peru. For the past 7,000 years, a vine with coiled seedpods and little seeds has been selected and bred to produce greater seeds and bush development.

As in farmer's almanacs and other forms of garden wisdom, companion planting is generally based on observation. What works best for one person may not work for another. To make better plant selections, it may be helpful to view the garden as a biodiversity system where plants are interconnected and dependent on one another.