Lucky, I'm curious how you came up with your companions. The North Dakota Extension site linked below indicates that the following of your choices are good companions:

Carrots with Pole Beans with Cucumbers
Beets with Bush Beans
Bush Tomatoes with Onions
Corn with Melons
Peas with Corn with Winter Squash
Onions in the Strawberries

They claim that Tomatoes with Basil are allies. (And, I'm sure you can find many, many culinary experts who would claim those 2 as wonderful companions :o).

Nothing is said about Okra and Fennel at all. The claim is that Kohlrabi stunts the growth of tomatoes. Summer Squash with Radishes makes sense because radishes are supposedly good companions for melons and cukes.

It took me quite a bit of time to learn not to crowd things. Right now, the salad veggies are planted very close together and onions fit in very nicely with all that I grow. And, carrots can fit in quite well.

Allowing something to grow over the top of something else hasn't worked very well but things like radishes and onions (for scallions) can be out of the way long before tomatoes (for example) start to need the ground. My neighbor claims that his Early Girls are healthier with onions planted around them. He leaves the onions to mature and they seem to do fine together.

I have had some difficulty trying to grow the "3 sisters" together. Winter squash needs a long growing season and allowing corn to grow above them stretches out the needed days even farther. I'm fairly certain that I would run out of growing season for melons, as well. Planting corn and squash (or cukes, or melons) in hills separated by a good number of feet would probably help a great deal.

Pole beans make fairly rampant growth once they get started and can overtake and nearly smother sweet corn. Planting beans later than the corn, so that the corn gets a head start, may work for you, but I don't see how peas would solve the smothering of the corn problem. If you planted them later than the corn, you'd probably be running completely out of the good growing season for peas.

Do you not intend to grow salad veggies?

Steve

Here is a link that might be useful: Companions - North Dakota

Do garlic and leaf vegetables like spinach and lettuce make good companions? I could certainly plant them in my garlic patch, but I don't want to crowd the garlic.

That website claims that garlic is an ally of lettuce. That's even better than a companion, Lilacs.

It says you can put the spinach in your strawberry patch.

Steve: My salad veggies are in the smaller garden, by the back door. I have been putting things like lettuce mix with kale and chard, last year I even put zucchini under the teepee of pole bean MeraldaÂs and all did great. This experiment is for my "back garden". I want to add some corn and just didnÂt feel like I have a bed for it. Most of the information I have put together is from an article in Organic Gardening on companion planting and the rest is from an internet search.

Like you and lilacs of may are saying, spacing is the big question. Because I have a never ending supply of composted manure I donÂt worry about tiring out the soil but am more concerned in not getting yields because of overcrowding.

Lilacs of may: The info I have says garlic is great pals with lettuce, cabbage (deterring pests) and beets (improves flavor). The no-noÂs with garlic is beans, peas or potatoes. Sounds like a yes on the garlic and spinach and lettuce.

I have the opposite problem, Lucky - - lots of room and not enuf compost . . .

Really, I should go with John Jeavons' ideas (How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Every Thought Possible On Less Land Than You Can Imagine while going out for a drive with Grandma and the kids to a really nice view cafe and having apple pie and coffee on a checkered table cloth . . .)

Of course, I don't have time for the drive and if I did, I'd put more ground in vegetables . . . You can see some problem with my thinking but it is also reflected in my willingness to pack the salad beds with plants - they LIKE each other!

(Really, it is a very good book with fine ideas about growing your own compost. :o)

DigitS

Excellent! Now I just have to figure out how to keep the bunnies and squirrels away from my leaf vegetables.