A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum Vegetable Gardening Companion planting spacing

I have a little business where I go to folks gardens and teach them to grow veggies. (Going well, by the way.) One of the things I do is for them is lay out their garden, and I always do so in companion-fashion. (this part is so much fun!) Putting compatible veggies together, or veggies and flowers together is easy.

But here's my question: Some plants are NOT compatible. For example, tomatoes and potatoes. If my client's gardens' are large enough, I make sure these will be planted as far apart as possible. But some folks have tighter spaces, and I'm wondering how far apart is far enough? I try to be creative and encourage them to use spaces they hadn't thought about using for veggies, but the fact remains that some folks just don't have a lot of space, and still want to grow incompatible veggies.

I have looked everywhere and am not finding an answer to this question. I'm especially interested in the spacing relationships between

beans & onions

corn & tomatoes

brassicas & beans

brassicas & nightshades

Any thoughts / experiences are appreciated!

Marica

good question and one i'd like the answer to also! i'll be watching to see how that goes.

There are no hard fast rules as to how many inches things need to be away from each other. Companion planting is a concept that comes from practice, not science. People find certain combination of vegetables that seem to do better, but it could simply be that those plants have similar needs and both benefit from that need being met that season (similar light, soil pH, watering pattern, heat, bugs present, worms, lack of common pest).