I've seen some people refer to underplanting their veg. As a newbie to growing veg and wanting to make best use of my available space could someone explain what this means? And suggest some combinations please.

Would the underplant need to be one that doesn't need so much light if it is partially shaded by a larger plant?

Thanks for any help.
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"..I went from adolescence to senility, trying to bypass maturity.." Tom Lehrer

Hi Rossa,

There's a common companion planting method called the 3 sisters that you may like to try - you grow sweet corn in a grid pattern. You then grow climbing beans using the corn as support stalks. Around the base you grow courgettes. This means the corn supports the beans and the courgette smothers the weeds. This probably means that courgettes aren't so fussy about sun either so could be grown under anything?

I haven't tried this approach myself, but i've heard that it is great if you can get the timing right so that your beans don't grow up faster than your corn and end up falling sideways.

Margaret

You can grow fast growing crops between slower ones, e.g. radishes, baby turnips or kohl rabi between, say, winter broccoli, kale, parsnips or leeks; or you can grow crops that like a bit of shade underneath taller crops, e.g. lettuce under a wigwam of beans. Squash is often grown under sweetcorn because the squash plant needs a lot of space for its long trailing vines and huge leaves whereas sweetcorn is tall and narrow and doesn't create too much shade, so the squash fruits still get enough sun to ripen (assuming we get any sun, that is!).

I usually grow garlic around my outdoor tomatoes, since the garlic doesn't take up much space and is ready to harvest before the tomato plants get really big (also garlic is a good companion plant for tomatoes).

Most people use underplanting / intercropping to make the best use of space - it's like trying to get two crops out of the same bit of land.

Intercropping tends to have two crops that have different growth rates - you could plant radishes on the same bit of land as your cabbages. And a long time before the cabbages needed the space, the radishes would have been long gone

Under cropping something like sweetcorn with dwarf French beans or salads is usually done as the beans / salads can stand a bit of shade, and don't compete for the same light / space / nutrients. Peas or beans fix nitrogen which is in turn used by the sweetcorn. The idea is that everyone wins - 3 sisters planting is a well known one for sweetcorn. I only do 2 sisters

A different reason for undercropping can also be to help reduce damage from pests - underplanting brassicas with clover, for example, is said to reduce damage by cabbage whites. The butterflies check potential site vegetation to see that it's "mostly" something appropriate before laying eggs. The fact that cover is among the cabbages, means that the butterfly think it's a less tasty site and it may move on. Like the above tho, the cover also fixes nitrogen which is taken up by the cabbage.

Hi Douglas,

How do you time the planting so that the corn is tall enough to support the peas/beans? I've never grown corn before, is it fast-growing?

Margaret

When i underplant Sweetcorn, it's with a dwarf variety with only grows to about a foot high so it doesn't need much in the support - it just has a few twigs in the ground

I found doing the 3 sisters really cut down on the lifespan of the beans & courgettes plants ie less crop and also a nightmare spotting/picking your beans/courg's. But then its always worth trying again & again and maybe oneday mastering the art

I was thinking of trying 2 or 3 sisters this year.
I figured that if the beans / squash were the kind that don't need to be harvested regularly (beans for drying, pumpkins??) then it wouldn't matter if it was hard to get in there. Or maybe use yellow beans / courgettes so they are easier to spot?

It also occurred to me to use Sewer Rat's tip from a recent thread to pop a bean seed in the hole when planting out the sweetcorn plants, so the bean comes up only once the corn is well established. Thoughts?