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by: Sally Jean Cunningham
Topics include: plants with row, crops with row, dwarf white clover, companion gardening, perennial clusters, fish emulsion solution, flowering companions, gourmet greens, plant friends, block weeds, last spring frost date, light feeders, crop list, spined soldier bugs, gardening system, imported cabbageworms, plant radishes, carrot rust, companion planting, use black plastic, tarnished plant bugs, lady beetles, broccoli plants, suck plant juices, tachinid flies
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Book Description:
"Great Garden Companions is a book as fresh as the first spring carrot, as new as a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. Sally Cunningham's gentle appreciation for the intricacies of nature coupled with plenty of practical, hands-on gardening experience makes her book both useful and soul-satisfying. Her garden plans are doable and earth-friendly, and her guide to backyard beneficial insects is invaluable. This book deserves a place in the library and hearts of concerned gardeners everywhere."--Sharon Lovejoy, author and illustrator of Sunflower Houses and Hollyhock Days and a contributing editor to Country Living Gardener magazine "Great Garden Companions lives up to its name-- it's great! This very approachable how-to book brings organic gardening to a whole new level-- viewing the garden as part of nature. I wish I'd had a book like this when I started gardening."--Rosalind Creasy, author of The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping and Herbs: A Country Garden Cookbook
Discover the secrets of a naturally pest-proof vegetable garden with Great Garden Companions. Let master gardener Sally Jean Cunningham show you how to keep pests and diseases at bay with her unique companion-gardening system. By planting special combinations of vegetables, flowers, and herbs, you can minimize pest and disease problems and create a high-yielding, beautiful garden!
"Sally Cunningham's gentle appreciation for the intricacies of nature coupled with plenty of practical, hands-on gardening experience makes her book both useful and soul-satisfying. Her garden plans are do-able and earth-friendly, and her guide to backyard beneficial insects is invaluable. This book deserves a place in the libraries and hearts of concerned gardeners everywhere." -Sharon Lovejoy, contributing editor of Country Gardener Magazine
From the Back Cover "Great Garden Companions is a book as fresh as the first spring carrot, as new as a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. Sally Cunningham's gentle appreciation for the intricacies of nature coupled with plenty of practical, hands-on gardening experience makes her book both useful and soul-satisfying. Her garden plans are doable and earth-friendly, and her guide to backyard beneficial insects is invaluable. This book deserves a place in the library and hearts of concerned gardeners everywhere."--Sharon Lovejoy, author and illustrator of Sunflower Houses and Hollyhock Days and a contributing editor to Country Living Gardener magazine Discover the secrets of a naturally pest-proof vegetable garden with Great Garden Companions. Let master gardener Sally Jean Cunningham show you how to keep pests and diseases at bay with her unique companion-gardening system. By planting special combinations of vegetables, flowers, and herbs, you can minimize pest and disease problems and create a high-yielding, beautiful garden! "Great Garden Companions lives up to its name-- it's great! This very approachable how-to book brings organic gardening to a whole new level-- viewing the garden as part of nature. I wish I'd had a book like this when I started gardening."--Rosalind Creasy, author of The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping and Herbs: A Country Garden Cookbook About the Author SALLY JEAN CUNNINGHAM is an organic gardener, garden writer, and garden lecturer. She lives in East Aurora, New York.
Reviews:
Useful addition to the organic garden library.... Although GREAT GARDEN COMPANIONS appears to be about what to plant with what, Sally Cunningham's book is about much more. Cunningham is a `Master Gardener' associated with the Cornell Cooperative Extension in upstate New York (growing zone 6) and has spent many hours practicing what she preaches in her nearby garden. Her garden (as shown in diagrams and photographs) reminds me somewhat of those shown on National Public Television's long-running Victory Gardens (raised beds, yummy soil), but Cunningham's advice and ideas are 100 percent organic. While many people understand organic gardening involves the use of raised beds, mulch, compost, and cover plants that enhance soil friability, retain moisture, and restore soil, few books discuss the ecosystem within which gardens exist. Cunningham works a large garden at the edge of fallow farmland (where the glaciers left very nice black soil), however, many of her ideas will work in a smaller and/or less fertile places. Some of the more interesting sections of Cunningham's book cover "old-time" notions such as how to build row hedges that attract birds and act as wind breaks; how to identify insect friends and foes and cultivate the former while repelling the latter; why toads, moles, birds, dogs, cats and horses can be great garden companions. For example, Cunningham says moles have been given a bum rap and dogs and cats can actually help you ward off the bunny rabbits and other critters who might make a meal of your lettuce. Horses are a fabulous source of organic fertilizer-should you be so lucky to own one. Cunningham uses virtually everything that is biodegradable to make compost. She stops by the side of the road to sweep up leaves and pine needles discarded by others. She rips newspapers into long strips and mixes them into compost piles. She buries composted material directly in the garden under straw and other coverings to decompose over the winter. These practices work. I have buried half-digested material next to my roses in fall and by spring produced fabulous flowers on 3/4 canes ordinarily measuring a third of an inch. Regarding companion planting, Cunningham suggests mixing the members of "families (i.e. tomatoes, eggplants, peppers) in the same bed along with companion herbs and perennials. She suggests members of the same family have similar growing requirements and by combining like with like you will save work. This might be so, but many garden writers suggest the opposist--combining plants from different families as companions. These writers believe the pests and diseases that attack one member of a family are likely to attack another member of the same family and by separating them you confuse the enemy. In addition, authors like Riotte (CARROTS LOVE TOMATOES) suggest certain combinations produce synergistic results. I tend to agree with Riotte, but like much else in life, you will have to experiment with various combinations to find the answer for your garden.
Great Garden Companions -- What a Resource! If you do `Organic', then you probably already know Rodale Press and their penchant for searching out and finding the best possible authors. With Sally Jean Cunningham they certainly have a hit the jackpot. She writes so clearly and with such joy that you would think she was a Rodale herself. To give you an idea of what her style is like, in the introduction, Sally Jean illuminates the three harvests that she personally derives from her garden. The first is what you would expect, healthful vegetables and beautiful flowers; the second however is "satisfaction and peace of mind". And the third, she says, is the experience of getting to teach to others the techniques and secrets that she has learned over a lifetime of experimentation in the garden. It would be very difficult to outline all that she teaches. Giving the chapter headings would only be misleading, but suffice it to say that she covers companion planting, french intensive/raised gardening, organic soil building and pest control (which happily includes how to train dogs and children to stay out of the raised beds-LOL) And this in the first few chapters. From there she covers `"good guys" or those beneficials we'd all like to see dancing about our blooms, the inclusion of perennials amongst the seasonal throng; and design elements, such as arbors, creative mulch, creative garden design, etc. Of continual use to me over the years are the sections at the end of the book where she goes veggie by veggie describing friends, foes, growing essentials, spacing, feeding, harvesting tips and problems one is likely to encounter. She also has some summary charts for Beneficials (insects) and plants they like; plants and the pests they may repel; as well as several pages on "Preventing Pest" problems in the first place. Personally, I have only 3 gardening books at home and this is one. And if you are organic (or want to be) or if you just want a wealth of veggie and flora information, then this book will be a great addition to your gardening library.