Great Garden Companions: A Companion-Planting System for a Beautiful, Chemical-Free Vegetable Garden

From the cover this looks like a practical guide to companion planting. However, when I opened it and started reading I found it to be verbose and too cutesy. It contains a lot of good ideas and information if you want to wade through it. The author is somewhat wishy-washy and lacks authority (which is both refreshing, but also unreliable). I would recommend another more thorough book like Sandra Perrin's "Guide to Cold Climate Gardening." or if you're looking for something more on the subject of companion planting (another deceptive point of the cover), I would recommend Louise Riott. This book contains a lot of general gardening information and should not be used as a companion planting guide.

If you like to plant in rows - just go ahead. Cunningham's book is crammed full of much useful and fun information, but you must first know that she is an avid proponent of raised beds and the intensive French Method of gardening where many different kinds of plants are sown throughout a rectangular bed in non-linear patterns.

I enjoyed so much about this book but I was disappointed in Cunningham's participation, albeit mild, in the current unilateral maligning of monoculture. Monoculture is one step in the journey of agriculture as a practice. Monoculture was derived from "sustainable agriculture" before that cliche was termed. It is not we who are learning to create gardens with high enough yields to sustain us through the winters. We are relearning what has already been done by earlier generations. We tend to forget that "sustainable agriculture" was a necessity not an experiment for many families right up to the early twentieth century.

Many of the GI Generation farmers who so enthusiastically practiced monoculture grew up as tenant farmers, often living in what we would consider shacks, and deriving nearly all of their winter provisions from a family garden cultivated when they were not working the owner's farm. Pestilence was feared because the consequence might be hunger.

So in the mid-twentieth century there were a lot of men and women with a knowledge of farming, a fear of starvation and a GI bill that was going to finally allow them land of their own. They felt like they were feeding the world. They wholeheartedly took to chemical pesticides and fertilizers because they thought their use would wipe out hunger. They were not unenlightened as is often insinuated. They were tough survivalists and they thought they were doing the right thing. Though there is much to be learned and admittedly much to be revised from their practices, I lament that I do not hear much in the way of historical context.

That annoys me and it annoyed me that such a terrific teacher and gardener as Cunningham does fall into this a bit. Beginning gardeners are easily confused by so much information. Let's not add any fears that by planting in rows they are practicing monoculture and thereby damning the planet to oblivion. Two rows of beans flanked by three rows of corn is not monoculture. Monoculture is acres and acres of the same plant. Nor are they sellouts if they break down and spritz a plant with the occasional hit of bottled insecticide.

Unlike agribusiness, the home gardener only sprays when a problem is evident therefore much less is used and more pointedly. I don't think home gardeners need to fight the organic battle and I find the bugs much more unpalatable than the pesticide. Second hand smoke probably did me more harm than anything my farming family ever dusted on the crops.

That said, after checking the book out of the library, I went ahead and bought her book. Though I do not completely follow either organic or intensive method farming, I found her strengths as a writer and teacher very compelling.

1) She has some of the best drawings of good and bad bugs. Growing up on the farm we had bugs we liked,and those we didn't. It was nice to learn their names and have confirmation that we were right in liking those little guys. Most of them didn't even bite.

2) For the small gardener interplanting and succession planting may increase yield significantly.

3) Grouping plant families by their feeding needs makes interplanting easier to understand and also makes crop rotation more comprehensible to someone new to the idea.

4) She dispels many myths of interplanting, such as potatoes can't be planted near any other vegetables, and that carrots hate dill. Her dedication to separating fact from folklore is invaluable. If you are serious about companion planting Cunningham is the finest source of reliable information on how to do this.

5) The discussion of how interplanting various flowers with vegetables "confuses" the bugs sounded a bit farfetched to me at first. But after consideration, insects must use some sensory perception to find their food. Plants in mixed beds or seen in the woods do not seem to take the same punishment from bugs as a garden row of single plants. Differing the foliage type around the vegetables as a ruse may have some validity. Along with providing alternative housing for insects that eat bugs that destroy gardens.

6) Providing a home for wildlife can enhance insect control. Our landscape used to host a healthy population of garter snakes and I had no insect problems in my beds. My insect problems have increased upon getting a jack russell who ousts every snake she encounters.

7) Cunningham provides very useful drawings and instructions for making common garden equipment such as cages, and goes where no gardener chronicler has gone before by detailing step-by-step how to repair that dratted hose.

My disagreements or possible concerns with her advice are few.
1) Planting vegetables amidst perennials may not be an option if you want enough of that vegetable to put aside for the winter.
2)Purchasing flower seed for every bed or row can double or triple the cost of your seed purchase.
3)Raised beds may not be practical or like me, you just find them cumbersome and expensive.
4) There is a bit too much concern over walking on the soil between your rows. Most of us have a home garden, not a sustainable farm. Walk on your rows. You are going to till them up next year anyway.

Cunningham really just wants to give you everything she has got, so the book is dense with information and to the beginning gardener so much detail may feel like a heavy load of do's and don'ts. This is a book to try out a few ideas and then go back to for more the next season. When you aren't talking raised beds her tone is very inclusive and friendly and she truly wants you to enjoy your gardening adventures. This is a terrific reference volume for any home gardener packed full of innovative ideas. The politics of planting in rows aside I do recommend this book wholeheartedly and as a home gardener who enjoys putting food by I look forward to trying out several of her ideas in the hopes of increased yield.

love this book. it is a must have if you are doing a veggie garden. what she shares is simple to understand and easy to follow instructions that make all the difference in finding great companions in the garden.

The book, GREAT GARDEN COMPANIONS by Sally Jean Cunningham, arrived in great condition. Since it was shipped from the Coffeyville, KS warehouse I was disappointed that it took so long to arrive at my house only about 50 miles away. It seems that it went all the way to Dallas, TX before coming back to Bartlesville, OK.

Great information on growing specific plants together to avoid using insectides.I borrowed this book so many times from the library, I finally bought it. It really works to work with nature!