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organic crop layout suggestions

 
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Hello

Looking into starting a decent size garden/small personal crop specifically for onions, garlic, and asparagus - they're favorites in the family and it would be nice to grow these organically myself.
I've researched some of the major diseases and pests with these crops but I'm not sure what to do with my information and I'm coming up short on sources that have grown these together.
Do you have any recommendations as far as a basic crop layout? I'm open to multiple strategies for controlling pests and diseases (cover/trap, beneficials, deterrents, spacing, etc). I'm located in the Midwest and I have about 26x26 ft. to play with
 
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Welcome to permies Bruce!

Since asparagus grows to be bigger than onions and garlic vertically, I think a good planting pattern would be to have the asparagus in the back or wherever they will not shade out the garlic and onions; the garlic and onions look like they are similar enough to each other that they will behave nicely with each other. None of the three plants appear to antagonize each other. When deciding on how to setup a companion planting area, I think it would be useful to consider how the plants are structured and grow above and below ground. For independent research on plants, I think the Plants For a Future Database is useful.

Here is a neat companion planting guide I think would be useful:


Then, there is a more detailed guide:


**right clicking the images and selecting "open in new tab" will allow you to see a larger picture**
 
bruce jay
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Dave Burton wrote:Welcome to permies Bruce!

Since asparagus grows to be bigger than onions and garlic vertically, I think a good planting pattern would be to have the asparagus in the back or wherever they will not shade out the garlic and onions; the garlic and onions look like they are similar enough to each other that they will behave nicely with each other. None of the three plants appear to antagonize each other. When deciding on how to setup a companion planting area, I think it would be useful to consider how the plants are structured and grow above and below ground. For independent research on plants, I think the Plants For a Future Database is useful.

Here is a neat companion planting guide I think would be useful:



Then, there is a more detailed guide:


**right clicking the images and selecting "open in new tab" will allow you to see a larger picture**



Thank you for the helpful information! Tomatoes seem to be a good companion for all 3. How could I incorporate them and should I bother with incorporating them with all three?
 
Dave Burton
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Since tomatoes are taller than asparagus, I think the tomatoes would go in the back; the asparagus would go in front of the tomatoes; then, the garlic and onions could be interspersed with each other in front of the asparagus. I am not qualified to say whether it is worth your time or not to bother trying to incorporate them all together; however, with anything, there is usually risk, sadly. For gardens, it is possible wasted time and money. One idea of mitigating this would be- as silly as it seems- to just not try at all; a combination of the Masanobu Fukuoka techniques and Ruth Stout would be to just toss rotten tomato guts with seeds, asparagus seeds, onion seeds, and garlic bulbs as you use them and let the plants decide for themselves when and where they want to grow. Nothing would be guaranteed, but since minimal money and effort is put in, it would be easier to acquire a net gain. Here is a nice movie about Masanobu Fukuoka:


I think this vegetable cheat sheet that was mentioned earlier on permies may be useful, too:
 
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