Companion planting guide for organic gardens

I lived in CT for over 50 years and I had a garden most of that time. I think I started my first garden when I was living in North Woodstock, CT when I rented the back ¼ of a beautiful colonial house. After I came home from the Peace Corps, I had a garden at my parent’s house.

I started to do research for my book in 1987. I was ordered home with my feet up. My house was on the hill and I got tired of walking up and down between the house and the garden. I thought I would summarize what I had to do in the garden and that way I wouldn’t have to bring my books into the garden. You can guess why. If I brought the books into the garden, I would forget to bring them in and it that night, of course, it rained.

And that’s how I started the idea of first summarizing the information and then

eventually write an entire book.

Enough history.

MY GARDEN AND MY COMPANION PLANTING GUIDE

My garden is planted except for 2 boxes and I plan to get the seeds in this weekend

with root crops. I am now 76 so bending down or kneeling is out. It also makes it difficult with 3 knee replacements. My Companion planting guide will help you know when to plant your garden.

I live in Central Florida, and I moved here in 2020. So for 3 years now I have tried to figure out how to garden down here. The timing is crazy and one definitely has to get a few books to figure out the planting schedule. I have it almost down now.

If you live in a humid climate and then you add a hot summer there are several things you have to do.

And those are:

• You have to mulch to prevent the soil from drying out

• You have to inspect plant almost daily for insect or diseases – and I will explain

how they are connected

• You can’t crowd your seedlings or seeds the way you do in a colder climate

• And you must spray to prevent the spread of disease. If one plant has a fungal

disease, it will spread to the other plants. You can take that to the bank! The

squash family is very prone to fungal disease and it will spread quickly to other

plants – that’s where the bugs come in. They are the vehicle that infects all the

other plants in the garden.

I water almost every day but I am trying to encourage deeper roots so I don’t have to do that. So, when you water, inspect the plants and jump on any insect or evidence of a fungal disease immediately. Last year I didn’t spray and I had to pull up my squash family.