Carrot Companions

If you remember from way back in the spring, one of my goals this year was to try to do more companion planting. The hope was for a bigger yield in my garden. The Three Sisters Garden didn't work due to the bad weather. The corn just didn't grow and I had to rig up other supports for the beans. One bed however worked out better than my wildest expectations.

Twelve feet of one of my four foot wide beds was taken up by a combination of tomatoes, peppers, carrots, marigolds, and basil. Only the peppers and carrots are left. The rest were taken down when the tomatoes came down.

In the front of the bed were 12 hot pepper plants. They were given a total of one square foot each. The tomatoes were grown in the back of the bed and were given a 2'x2' area for six tomato plants. In between each tomato plant at the back edge of the bed, I alternated marigolds (my Ground Control Marigolds, for nematode control) and basil. Between the tomatoes and peppers were three rows of carrots each 4" apart. They were planted two weeks after the peppers and tomatoes went in.

All of the basil except for the one on the end of the row quickly died when the tomatoes got tall enough to shade them. Note to self: don't plant basil in the shade on the north side of the beds. Really I should know better anyway. The marigolds probably would have grown better in the sun, but they put up with the nasty treatment and did a great job of nematode control.

The tomatoes grew better than I've ever had tomatoes grow even with our cold wet June and less space than I've given them in the past. Usually I give them a 3'x2' spot. This year they had 50% less space to grow and grew twice as big. My peppers usually get to about 12-18". This year they are over 2' tall. So they are happy with the arrangement too.

I was worried how the carrots would turn out. They were quickly shaded by the peppers and tomatoes. The peppers and tomatoes quickly grew toward each other and entangled in spots. I kept cutting them back to try to keep a little light down there, but I wasn't very successful. So they grew slowly in the shade all summer long.

They were planted on May 14th and have had over four months to grow. They grew very slowly and are just becoming big enough to harvest now. They seem to taste fine. They aren't any more bitter than the spring carrots (Danvers tends to a bit of bitterness, but the Atomic Red, Big Top and Sugar Snax are all quite sweet).

Now that the fall carrots are big enough to harvest I had to deal with the spring carrots that were still in the fridge. Yup, I haven't eaten them all. I was going to. There weren't too many, but the issue was too many other things that were more perishable had to be eaten first. So they sat there all forlorn. They seemed as sweet and as crisp as they were when they were harvested two months ago. I decided to blanch them and tray freeze them. I tray freeze most of the veggies that I freeze: celery (store bought), peppers, carrots, corn (from the farmers' market) and beans. I spread them on a cookie sheet and let them freeze quickly in my chest freezer. Then I put them in ziplocks. I should use a straw to suck the air out, but I don't. I just squeeze as much as I can out.

I'm really quite escatic over how the bed did. I know that part of the increase in growth was the double digging and compost in the lower levels of my heavy clay soil, but I think the companion planting added to the mix in a very good way too. Next year I'll repeat the process, but I'll find a better place to put my basil.