grannyjojo, I'm sorry but I'm a bit confused by this statement: "should I put it down on TOP of the fabric or underneath it?". Could you clarify what you mean? I don't think I would put the seed on top or underneath the fabric.

I grow a lot of carrots fairly successfully. When I spread the seed I usually sprinkle a very light amount of soil on top of the seed. Actually just a dusting of soil. Then I water very lightly several times to settle everything and ensure it is all moist. Then I routinely lightly water to keep the moisture present until they germinate and put down roots. I'm not sure that I would want any fabric involved in the process to be honest. But maybe I'm not understanding what you are trying to do.

I would think that there would not be any problems with intermingling carrots or onions with your cabbage/cauliflower/broccoli since they are in different families. As long as the spacing is such that they are not competing for moisture or nutrients. Both carrots and onions like/need plenty of water.

Those are some of my thoughts on the matter. I am very familiar with growing carrots and onions, not so much cabbage/cauliflower/broccoli.

I agree with ScottOkieman on the fabric issue. I wouldn't try to grow something as closely spaced as carrots with a weedblock type fabric. You'd have to cut holes in the fabric for the carrots to grow up through and the holes would be so close together as to render it fairly worthless as a weedblock/mulch type cloth.

It is hard to get cauliflower to produce in spring because the hot temps arrive almost too early for it, so when I grow it at all, I grow it in fall.

Have you grown cabbage, cauliflower or broccoli before? The plants get pretty large and generally their big leaves expand to fill whatever space is available. I wouldn't plant anything between them because the cole crops will shade out whatever is planted between the individual cole plants unless you plant the plants 6-8" further apart than the typical recommended spacing, and even then the cole crops might just send out bigger leaves to fill up that open space.

If you're growing onions as green onions, why not just plant a row of them alongside the cole crops, like a border, instead of between them? Normally you wouldn't space onions closely together, but for green onions you can. However, I wouldn't interplant both onions and carrots together because they will mature at different times and the one that is pulled/harvested first will disturb the roots of the remaining crop.

If you were growing onions for regular onion bulbs instead of green onions, I wouldn't interplant the onions with carrots or in a bed of cole crops because they do not compete well with other crops and, if planted too closely to one another or to anything else, they don't bulb up well. I'd plant a 'border' alongside the cole crops of carrots in one spot and green onions in another, but would plant them far enough away from the cole crops that the cole crops wouldn't shade them.

Are you trying to cram a lot of plants into a little space? If so, that sometimes doesn't work out well because while some crops tolerate crowding, others don't, and I wouldn't mix too many things too closely together because typically when that happens, none of them perform well.

If you want to keep down the weeds around your carrots and onions, just mulch them lightly with grass clippings (assuming you do not spray herbicides on your lawn) or some other lightweight mulch after the carrots and onions are a couple of inches tall.

Dawn

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear enough but you guys did answer my questions. :) What I got was that fabric which you put down in order to help keep weeds out. I wasn't thinking about the fact that I would need to cut holes for the carrots to grow out of, duh! heheheh So I'll just plant my carrots in one of my other beds. To answer your question this is my first year doing cool weather crops and I had heard that cauliflower can be hard to grow but thought I'd give it a try anyway. I only put in 8 plants each of broccoli and cauliflower to see how it goes. I gave each plant an 18 inch square around them so I hope thats enough room. And yes, I was just going to plant onions for green onions. I actually have a regular onion patch that I use for bulb onions but have extra room in the bed that has the cauliflower and broccoli. Not really enough for something larger but since I know you can grow onions for green onions pretty close together I thought maybe I could tuck some in there. I really hate to waste space. I just couldn't wait any longer to get some stuff in the ground this year. I do usually just do the summer veggies (minus my onion patch)but am trying to branch out a little bit with the cool season crop. If my cauliflower doesn't do well this spring I intend to replant for fall, if I'm not totally worn out by that time!

Anyway, thanks for your help, I really appreciate it and keep having good thoughts about our weather! Happy planting!

You're welcome.

I hope you got the fabric that is more like a woven material with no holes and not the horrible stuff that is perforated with millions of tiny holes "to allow water to penetrate" because I made the mistake of buying the one perforated with holes the first year here, and a weed or grass grew up through each and every one of those tiny holes.

Eighteen inches is reasonable spacing for the cole crops, but it won't leave much unshaded space, if any, between them for other crops to grow between them. I'm always surprised what monster plants the cole crops are, especially in wet years or when given good irrigation.

You could grow radishes between cole crops because the radishes will mature before the cole crops get really big, or you could plant nasturtiums there and let them sprawl around and underneath the cold crops. As a bonus, nasturtiums are edible, attract beneficial insects that eat pest insects, and the flowers are pretty too. Sometimes I plant sweet alyssum in a border alongside the cole crops because they also attract beneficial insects, perfume the garden and are pretty as well. I am always and forever tucking flowers and herbs into any little open spot in the garden because I like the "crazy quilt" look more than the perfectly-straight neat-and-tidy farm row look. I also stick gladiola bulbs here and there because they are so strongly vertical that they don't take up much growing space and add tons of beauty to the veggie garden. Usually my gladiolas come back for 5 to 6 years here until a very wet year or a very cold winter takes them out. They last longer in the well-drained areas and not as long in the clay areas.

I can relate to feeling worn out by fall. Some years I am so tired by August that I don't even want to step foot in the garden. I usually get over that feeling though.

"crazy quilt" idea sounds good to me! i am going to plants some nasturtiums, alyssum, other flowers in the vegetable beds and borders! Thank you Dawn for the wonderful suggestion. -Chandra

grannyjojo, thanks for the explanation.

Good luck with stepping out into the cool season crops. Half the fun of gardening is trying out new things. The other half is eating the results.

Chandra,

You're welcome. I just try to take clues from "Mother Nature". The plants in our woodland and pastures, which basically were undisturbed for decades before we bought the land, do not grow in neat tidy rows. They are a huge mixture of all kinds of plants, happily co-existing and even helping out one another. If you pay attention to them, you learn a lot from them. I have noticed many fruiting plants bloom and provide fruit in a much shadier location than I tend to give them in the landscape or garden, so that tells me that can produce well with more shade than we think, for example.

The way plants grow in nature is what I try to replicate in mny garden. Sweet alyssum, for example, shades the ground under taller vegetables, looks nice, smells great and attracts both pollinator-type insects as well as beneficial insects that eat pest insects. Nasturtiums can be eaten and also attract beneficials, help shade the ground and give your spring garden lots of colorful blooms. As much time as I spend in the garden, I want for it to be an attractive, fun place to visit. Companion plants that shade the ground help keep your soil temperatures lower and also slow down the sprouting and growth of some weeds. Think of low-growing plants as a living mulch.

Also, monoculture fields or even monoculture beds allow pests and plant diseases to travel right down a row of similar plants. If you mix things up a bit, it can confuse and slow down pests and also slow down disease organisms (althought I don't know if it confuses them or not). Even in my onion beds, which are mostly a monoculture, I mix in some garlic, scallions (green onions), chives, leeks, shallots and some smaller flowers like violas. You have to be careful doing companion plantings with onions because onions have shallow roots and don't compete well, but I still set aside areas here or there to mix in a few non-onion plantings.

Dawn

Just a note to add to what Dawn said. I usually pair plants together that do not come to harvest at the same time or do not grow in the same space. For instance, I plant a row of carrots and radishes intermingled in the same bed as I plant tomatoes in. The carrots/radishes go in midMarch, the tomatoes midApril. The carrots and radishes are all out by late May/early June and the tomatoes get the space all summer, with a good mulch. Onions for green onions usually go in next to the Sugar Snap pea trellis. Most of the onions come out before the peas are all done. But they will both be out by June. Then I plant pole beans on the pea trellis with no competition for the summer. The problem with your idea is that carrots and the cole crops have almost exactly the same growing season and as Dawn said, the cole crops get huge. They would outcompete and crowd out your carrots. A better idea would be to plant a summer crop in the cole bed in June/July (June for me here in 6b) when those crops are harvested. I have followed with crowder peas or meal corn in June with good success. Or I have waited until Aug for fall green beans or even Sept for more cole crops--fall turnips, radishes or chinese cabbage.

Dawn, my garden is a crazy quilt too, as I let flowers and herbs selfseed in the garden and insist that DH leave at least some of them for the bees and butterflies. Dill, cilantro and arugula move around my garden as do petunias, poppies, zinnias, celosia, larkspur and cleome. DH keeps asking why I can't keep them contained in the flower beds, but I tell him it's just not possible. We do have to weed some of them out, especially the dill which comes up "thick as the hair on a dog", as the old saying goes, but we eat or freeze that.

Dorothy,

The very first time I "mixed up" different plants together in the garden a long time ago, it was with a planting of lettuce, carrots, radishes and onions around and in between tomato plants that were spaced about 3' apart. It all worked out surprisingly well and I was hooked on the crazy quilt look from that point on. It is hard to plant much of anything too close to the cole crops because of the way they spread out, but I'll often plant vining winter squash plants somewhat close to the brocoli, and after the broccoli come out, the winter squash just fills in that area.

I almost always follow my cabbage planting with pinkeye purplehulls merely because the timing works out well.

I love the surprise of having flowers and herbs pop up all over the garden, even in the pathways (and I transplant those to wherever I choose). The only reseeder that has been a problem is tansy which probably would take over the whole garden in about 2 months time if I didn't yank out most of the seedlings. It just gets too big and seems intent on conquering the world.

Today I saw a nice-sized chamomile plant in the middle of a pathway that I don't remember seeing there before, but it is doubtful it sprang up and got that big literally overnight. Tomorrow I'll move it someplace....

Everything you listed as moving around in your garden moves around in mine too, which makes me laugh when I remember how hard I "had to" work to get them established the first year. Of course, I haven't had to work at that since then. Hollyhocks used to reseed, but haven't done that in the veggie garden area since the huge downpour of April 2009, so maybe I'll scatter some hollyhock seed this coming fall. The French hollyhocks (Malva sylvestris 'Zebria') have made up for it but they're in a flower bed by the house, not by the garden, and they reseed so prolifically I am afraid to put any near the veggie garden because they do reseed as thick as grass.

I kicked mulch (chopped leaves) over the volunteer basil seedlings this afternoon, hoping it will keep them from freezing tonight. I also noticed mint and lemon balm up today, and some greening up on the rosemary, which appeared to freeze back during the February snowstorms, but which may have survived after all. Lately, every trip into the garden is an adventure just to see what's sprouting....I like it that way!

Dawn