Intercropping success stories 2010

We had good success rate in intercropping last season (I hate to feel the season is over now).
1.  lane of beetroot between winter onions. came brilliant. we had 4 harvest of leaves for cooking and the biggest beetroot was the size of swede (not joking. serious)

2. garden huckleberry plants, grown in plugs, potted and planted later between winter onions gave us 3 pickle harvest and two leaf harvest.

3. sister planting of calabash underneath sweetcorn. Calabash was trying to takeover the whole plot when I was away. so It was sucking a lot of nutrients. hence we got around 1 3/4 cobs per plant (healthy kernels).

4. courgettes bunged in the bean frame patch produced a wonderful crop.


Failures

1. a lane of white radish failed come between onions (I blame the seeds. they were not from the reputed seed sellers)

2. rocket packet just vanished underneath. well two reasons. I couldnt tell the difference between them and weeds and they were in during apr/may when i didnt bother to water them well.


Next season

carrots, beetroot, turnip and the newly sourced white radish will go in between my winter onion lanes.
will be careful with the sister planting but the result this year was amazing.

I like to plant carrots and beetroot between my onions and adjacent to my parsnips and leeks as I like the variation in leaves so it looks nice, and then when I harvest the carrots etc in summer, it gives the onions, parsnips and leeks a bit more light. Then when they come out in August, it gives the parsnips and leeks more light and so on. I try not to plant too close to the parsnips and leeks as they get a lot of leafy growth later on. I manure my root bed that will grow leeks and onions by spreading it over in late autumn and digging the remainder that's left over the bed in early spring. I don't dig it in where the carrots and parsnips are going - just hope the worms have done their trick1 When I sow these, I just push aside any remaining manure on the top and do my drills.