Mixed beds

Hi all

An excellent book I'm reading (The Veg Gardeners Bible) recommends mixing beds, to foil pests...his sensible theory is that an onion root fly will have a wail of a time in a whole bed of onions, but won't have as much success if the bed is mixed with various other veg

As you'll probably know, loads of people recommend growing carrots and onions together, to foil their respective flies.

BUT, carrots are not supposed to be watered OR manured, and onions are supposed to get both.

Do you therefore just compromise and use a little water and no manure, and get mediocre crops of each??

Have you mixed other crops with good results??

Cheers very much,
Alexei

 

I haven't done it myself, Timecharger, but am intending to this year, so I'd appreciate some answers too! I would think that you could manure rows, though, and water that way too. After all, you do need to give a bit of space between rows, so, provided that you marked out where you were intending to sow, it would be possible, even in a relatively small area, as I will be working in.

I'll be using my raised bed, to give the carrots an even better chance, and will be putting up nets just about a foot high too - overkill? maybe :rolleyes: but I want my carrots, and don't want the carrot-flies getting them instead!

The other thing that's supposed to be useful is to grow tagetes with them - have you heard of that? That's useful for root crops, but it's more tp do with nematodes.

http://www.dgsgardening.btinternet.co.uk/companion.htm

Last year I only had the raised bed, so that had a bit of an odd mixture in it - potatoes, beetroot, dwarf beans and a different lot of potatoes! The dwarf beans didn't do very well, but the others did.....

 

You could manure the edges of the bed and plant the onions round the outside of the bed and then plant carrots on the inside of the bed - it might work!

 

thanks dendro and badsal. I may take bad's idea and put onions round the outside, carrots inside...

I have heard of tagetes, dendro - I've never used them though (have only been growing veg for a year).

I didn't (touchwood) get hit by carrot fly last year, but have got an allotment this year and may suffer...we'll see. If I get hit badly I may use the fleece protection you're talking about

cheers,
TC

 

I recently read somewhere, sow poppys among the veg.The poppys attract hoverflies,they lay their eggs,and those babys eat whitefly.Fantastic!I`m gonna try it.

 

cheers elaine. nasturtium and thyme are also supposed to be very good, as are mint. I forget what for if I'm completely honest

 

I`ve just read that nasturtiums will not prevent cherry black fly.(Organic talk in Kitchen garden).Don`t know if thats any use?but i do think nasturtium is good for the soil.(I think it`s Hornbeam who knows about it).I don`t know much about companion planting but would like to.A couple of things have stayed in my mind though like,french marigolds in the GH to deter whitfly and also garlic planted underneath raspberries,something about the smell??..

 

I would have thought it was more difficult to practise crop rotation in a mixed bed. i never bother mixing them. A lot of my flowers will grow better in conditions that don't suit vegetables. If anything i have mixed flowers in with the veg if I want them for cutting or for growing on to flowering size.
Carrot fly is so bad round here that I have to use fleece. Either that or delay sowing until after the carrot fly is flying. Onion fly has never been a problem so far. Cabbage root fly is the other one - I make cardboard collars for the cabbages, sprouts etc and radish has to grown under fleece.
Wasn't it Carol Keine who found that companion planting did not work very well against carrot fly? Some of the new varieties are supposed to be less attractive and have appropriate names.