Gardening and DIY: Clever companions

Photo / Paul Thompson

'The three sisters'

Companion planting puts plants together for their mutual benefit. A great example of this is what's known as 'the three sisters'. Originating from native American growers, 'the three sisters' sees a ring of half a dozen or so sweet corn plants with a squash or cucumber planted in their midst and a couple of runner bean plants clambering up around them. The beans scale the corn, tying them together whilst fixing nitrogen into the soil. The corn benefits from the extra nitrogen and provides a climbing frame for beans and the squash/cucumber. Finally, the squash/cucumber climbs the corn and its broad leaves provide shade at the corn's base- keeping roots cool and shading out weeds. Three plants growing together and giving to each other in the process - got to be worth a try!

Basil

Tomatoes and basil are dear companions

The perfect herbal companion for a good crop of tomatoes is a fresh bunch of basil. Sow your own or plant a basil seedling on the sunny side at the base of each of your tomato plants, and watch the friendship bloom.

6 Tips for growing basil:

Well-drained, finely dug soil if sowing in garden. Seed raising mix if sowing in pots.
Full sun or partial shade
Sow in batches for long harvest. Sow seeds 1cm deep.
Keep seed bed moist. Thin seedlings or transplant when large enough to handle
When seedlings reach about 15cm tall, pinch out tip to encourage bushy growth
Leaves develop best flavour on flowering. Remove flowers to encourage leaf growth

If sowing is not your thing, you can, if you are careful, turn one of those supermarket bought pots of fresh basil into 10 or 20 individual seedlings in a matter of minutes.

Simply lift the growing basil, along with the soil, from its pot and gently rinse away the soil from the seedling roots under a tap.

You should then be able to gently pull the crowded seedlings away from each other and pop each one into an individual pot half-filled with potting mix.

Carefully top up the potting mix around the roots of each seedling till only the stem and leaves are showing.

Don't be too concerned if the individual seedlings flop around and look a bit sorry for themselves initially.

Water carefully and protect from wind and intense sunshine for a week or so, until seedlings start to stand up and grow strongly.

As long as all risk of frost has passed you can plant your seedlings into the garden.

They will continue to produce a bumper crop of pesto-perfect basil long after you'd have stripped and discarded the pot-grown supermarket version.