Companion Planting Update: Peas and Squash

This is how our squash bed/pea patch looked yesterday, 2 weeks after the version that ended  Eric’s post on companion planting.

garden bed with lettuce, peas and squash

asparagus to the rear, mowed central path at the right. Actual distance between: @ 20 feet.

The plan: Early in spring, plant lettuce, fava beans and peas at the path edge of what will become the winter squash bed. By the time it’s warm enough to plant the squash, the peas will be flowering. By the time the squash flows lavalike over the edge of the bed, the early things will be all done.

Big question for today: will they be all done?

The Webb’s Wonderful lettuce headed up beautiully and has been largely consumed. The early peas were just that – not much left to pick. But Laxton’s Progress and the fava beans are  just getting started.

For this thing to work, the whole caboodle has to be history in about  3 weeks, so I can remove the most of the pea vines and fava plants when I come down to harvest the garlic. (They’ll be cut at ground level, the roots will stay in place.)

If I weren’t scared rot might spread and/or the whole thing be slug heaven, I’d just leave all that leguminous greenery in place and let the squash smother it. Letting it simply rot in place would be great for the soil, to say nothing of very convenient for us, so we’ll leave a few plants to their fate as part of the experiment.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Add to Google

1 Comment »

  • Anna Said,

    Hey Leslie,
    Did I overlook the link to Eric’s website? By the way, my Italian hoe is fantastic! I think of Bill and his enthusiastic spiel every time I use it.

Get a Trackback link

Leave a Comment on Anna