Companion Gardening – with a twist

Old gardeners don’t die…. One of the up sides to our current global economic crisis is indicators pointing to a dramatic increase in people’s interest in growing their own food – an important aspect of Off-Grid living.

Many first-time gardeners are purchasing seeds and regulars at playing in the dirt are expanding their efforts to grow their own vegetables. There is, however, another opportunity for people to help others while helping themselves.

When most people think of “companion planting” they think about “what grows best next to what”. There is another type of companion planting that has to do with spending some quality time with your elderly neighbors and helping them to continue to enjoy an activity that they can no longer participate in by themselves.

Like many others, I have the problem of too little space to grow everything I would like. I am faced with deciding what vegetables I will grow . . . and what I will have to skip out on. Many of my favorite home grown foods also take up the most room and have the shortest harvest period . . . can you say CORN?

I had decided early this spring that I simply was not going to have room for tomatoes although I was just as determined that I was going to grow them somewhere. My first thoughts were to find a vacant house or lot nearby since there are many available in our economically distressed city and community.
But then an idea hit me: why not find one or more elderly neighbors who used to garden, and love to garden, but had let their garden space go fallow as they were no longer able to meet the physical demands of maintaining it. I started asking around and quickly found two neighbors that were willing to let me plant my tomatoes in their back yards as long as they could share a modest portion of what I harvested (less lawn to maintain too). Then I started thinking about how much space my rhubarb bed was taking up and how little work it demanded other then adding amendments in the fall and/or spring and perhaps occasional watering during extreme dry spells. What about the asparagus bed I was planning for next year? What about raspberries, grapes, melons . . . or even my corn?? The possibilities are vast.
It seems that the best opportunities lie with perennials such as the rhubarb, grapes, raspberries, and asparagus, or with crops that just sit and grow for a while and require little care as long as they are heavily mulched (I am the compost king around here).
Perhaps at home you could grow the crops that need daily attention while growing the lower care crops away at someone else’s home . . . and then share with them some of everything grown. Not only would you be visiting them, but you could encourage them to drop by and spend time with you when you are working your space. You could find simpler tasks for them to do so they felt useful while you handled the harder jobs that are beyond what they could manage.

What I am saying here is that there are a lot of older people who need help, many who love to garden but can’t (or can’t do all of it themselves). There is a tremendous resource of available growing space, often times former garden spaces filled with deep rich soil. There is a win win opportunity for both you and your neighbors as long as you are willing to explore a customized solution that will benefit both you and them.
Or perhaps you now live in an apartment or condo and could set up “shop” at the home of an older church member or friend whose house you pass daily on your way to work.

So what say ye? Veggies aren’t the only thing that benefit from companion planting . . . people can too!

To read more ideas on maximizing resources, go to www.pandscorp.org

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