Other companion plants..

We need to plant other companion plants also besides dynamic accumulators and mulch plants. Some of those plantings that needed to be added to your beds are nitrogen fixers, insectories, nurse plants and spike plants.

Nitrogen fixers are generally from the legume family and they have the ability to remove nitrogen from the air and fix it in nodules on their roots, which makes the nitrogen available to nearby plants. A lot of the plants that are thought to be invasive plants are actually nitrogen fixers. When land has been overused, damaged or abused, nitrogen fixers move in to repair the land by feeding it with nitrogen. Many misunderstood plants are nitrogen fixers such as purple loosestrife (lythrum) and russian olive. They take over damaged fields and polluted wetlands and feed the land with nitrogen and clean up the pollution, and then when they have done their job they die. But people frown on them as they seem so invasive, if the land had not been damaged they wouldn't be growing there, as they cannot grow in healthy soil that is filled with natural fertilizers.

When you plant your own nitrogen fixers in soil you have disturbed, you are preparing your soil for future plantings, I have planted comfrey under all of my fruit trees, it is not only a nitrogen fixer but a nutrient accumulator, a spike plant and a natural mulch plant. Many common nitrogen fixers are peas, beans, lupines, siberian pea shrub, clover, and many others.

Insectories are extremely important to all properties. They feed the bees !! If you don't have bees you don't have crops. Well that really isn't quite true, some crops are pollinated by other insects, moths, small mason bees, even wasps, flies and spiders. And some plants like nut trees and sweet corn are wind pollinated.  But insectories are extremely important, especially if you have fruit trees.

In the photograph above you see the small yellow plant, this is a very easy to grow perennial called corepsis, seed packets are quite inexpensive, and it will grow nearly anywhere, can be easily dug up and divided, and will feed a whole gamut of beneficial insects. Composite plants such as daisies, parsley, carrots, parsnips, caraway, dill, etc. are some of the most important insectories. The comfrey I mentioned above is extremely attractive to bees, most flowers will attract insects and should be planted in or near all your orchard and garden areas. 

Spike plants are also important to break up the soil so that plants can send their roots deep down into the soil, some or obvious, such as carrots and parsnips. There are many plants that have very deep and extensive root systems, as do most trees and shrubs. They not only break up the soil but bring up nutrients from deep in the earth.

Mulch plants are another extremely important plant, although most plants can provide some mulch. Some of the best mulch plants grow large leaves, and will regrow more leaves several times a year if they are cut down. Comfrey is my favorite, but even the leaves of rhubarb are great for mulch, as you don't eat the leaves, just the stems, so when you harvest the stems use the leaves as a mulch in your garden. Milkweed and some other weeds are also great as mulch plants, even the bracken fern and cattail leaves can be cut and used as mulch. 

Nurse plants are plants that protect your baby plants from wind and sun when they are growing and are especially useful for some trees that need protection when they are babies. Russian olive is one of those nurse plants that when planted near a  baby tree will shade, protect from wind and feed the baby tree with nitrogen and other nutrients when it drops its leaves in the fall. When the baby tree no longer needs the nurse plant it can either be cut and removed or you can wait for it to die when it is no longer needed. 

Remember, food forests are a combination of many types of plants each meeting a different niche, this group is called a GUILD. We will discuss Guilds in another post