Companion plants- Why tomatoes, basil and garlic?


Companion Plants- Why we chose these specific plants

 
Source: Getty Images 
Companion plants is plant types that benefit each other when grown near one another. One example of companion plants is tomatoes, basil and garlic. Companion plant growing has some correlation to the disadvantages of mono-culture. If you go back in time to when farmers just grew enough to feed themselves, you can clearly see some of this principles at work. Even though they only had one or two fields and grew more than one crop on that piece of land, they used to grow certain plants together after seeing how they improve each other’s growth. Years later, many farmers and plant propagation nurseries are reverting back to using some of these principals. 

Here is some of the benefits tomatoes, basil and garlic is known to receive from one another:

  •          Basil can improve the taste of a tomato plant when grown near each other. (This means that you can try to sell both plants to people catering for the culinary industry.)
  •         Companion plant can help to repel certain pest, that targets the other plant. They do this by two methods, both involving biochemicals formed by the plant. These biochemicals can either mask the scent of the other surrounding plants, leaving pest in a confused and lost state, or it can deter them. Garlic is known to be very good at this!
  •          Because they can grow in the same environment and under the same conditions, you save a lot of space and money.
  •          The plants can help each other to improve nutrient uptake.
  •         Growing more than one plant in the same environment or soil can suppress the growth of weeds.


It’s very clear that growing these three plants- tomatoes, garlic and basil- together, can save you space, money and time! It also creates a great marketing approach when selling these plants to farmers or wholesale nurseries. 

To find out more about companion plants, be sure to watch this video:


To find out more about our choice of hydroponics click here.

Cecile Bester
20899629

References : www.southernexposure.com, Little sprout Learning, Natural Living ideas

Source: Balcony Garden Web





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