[Ma Lowe]

After reading the companion planting info I am having to rethink where I plant things.
Last year I had my beans on a Munty Frame that worked well and we planted Leeks underneath it but after reading the companion planting i wondered if this was the wrong thing to do as leeks are part of the onion family are they not?
If this is so would I be ok to plant my dwarf beans under the runner beans. They will be on the side that gets the sun and as it is a munty frame again the ground below is not enclosed.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

Ma x

[BabbyAnn]

  I'm growing french dwarf beans under my french climbing beans which will be on a sort of munty frame (not quite so elaborate but still leans forward a bit)  Last year I grew runner beans on the same sort of structure with chick peas underneath and it worked fine.

[JayG]

I've heard about this alleged incompatibility between alliums and beans before but the only "explanation" I've ever found is that because beans are legumes and fix nitrogen the soil could become too rich for neighbouring alliums (I believe they were referring to onions and garlic rather than leeks.)

I don't see much validity to that argument unless they were actually being grown together (pretty unlikely!)  - the only issue for me would be whether one was competing too much with the other for light, water, or nutrients, but those would be considerations with any crops.

Perhaps someone else has a better explanation for it?