Companion Planting Growing Food Security Series

The hardest part of gardening can be taking the initial step. Is Food Security a passion for you? Do you get excited at the thought of your grocery store being right out your door and at a fraction of the cost to boot? Food Security Series is all about growing!

This can be your reality in a matter of weeks!

Let’s Get Planting – Growing Food

Once you have your seeds, it’s time for action. Time to fill your starter cells/pots with seed starter mix. You can find this at a local retailer and I’ll leave some links at the end. The purpose of starter mix, it acts like a sponge holding water and allows aeration for the roots. The starter cells come with a plastic dome lid which gives a greenhouse effect, holding moisture and heat inside, setting the stage for germination.

After your beauties have sprouted, keep an eye on the seed mix. You want it moist, but not soggy. In a few weeks or so you’ll notice a second set of leaves on your sprouts. This is when I transfer them to a larger pot using organic vegetable potting mix (pot should be 2-3 sizes bigger than cells).

Here in the mid-west our last frost date is April 19th, so anytime after that is cool to transplant to the garden. They’ll need to harden off, or in other words, get acclimated to the outside. Your porch or covered canopy is the perfect location for this.

Companion Planting

Just like all of us enjoy hanging out with some people, and not so much others, plants can relate to that! They thrive planted next to certain plants and struggle beside some.

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Below are some examples of friend or foe plants, “Companion Planting.”

Sometimes the struggle of being planted next to certain plants is that they share the same pests or disease. This could devastate your garden. And then there are cases where the plants use the same nutrients, this would deplete your soil from that particular nutrient, resulting in your plants not being able to thrive.

Companion planting also incorporates flowers and herbs in planting. Take oregano for example. It will benefit any vegetable. It likes well drained soil, so keep this in mind when mapping out your garden and plant it alongside veggies that like well drained soil.

Marigolds deter pests like cabbage worms and beetles. They also attract pollinators to your vegetables.

Basil benefits several vegetables, including my favorite combo pair is tomato because basil will repel the tomato hornworm. Basil also helps asparagus, peppers and root vegetables. It’s believed the basil scent helps deter pests.

Check out the Food Security Series Day 4, looking at maintenance, harvest and food preservation! Share the Growing Food Security and Let us know what you’ll be growing in the comments.