AeroGarden Companion Planting

 Anyone who's grown gardens for any significant time, can tell you that where you plant things - particularly in relation to certain other plants - can make a serious difference in how well your plants grow and produce.  Some things, planted together, will not do well at all; some will simply coexist; and other combinations of plants will result in happier, more productive plants than either would have planted alone. This is known as "companion planting".

While many of the soil garden companion planting concerns are not applicable to growing in AeroGardens and other indoor hydroponics, certain factors of companion planting are still relevant.

Leggy, pitiful lettuce from too-distant light

The first and most obvious factor, is height.  Outside, you can easily plant short plants next to tall plants, as long as the shorter plant isn't completely overshaded; the light quality is the same for a two inch plant as a two foot tall plant.  Indoors, however, with a comparatively weak light source, this is not the case.  The difference in light quality within two inches of the light is substantial compared to even six inches from the light, let alone two feet.  Even with the strongest light panels in the Farm models, being more than a few inches from the light panel can result in leggy, underdeveloped plants that will never grow compactly, to say nothing of reaching their full potential.  Therefore it is very important to keep plants as close to the same size as possible.  (This is also why it is generally a bad idea to stagger planting - that is, to replace a single pod at a time, instead of the entire garden at once.)

The next factor in planting things together in an AeroGarden, is the nutrients.  Some plants need (and use) more nutrients than others.  Planting a strong heavy feeder, like fruiting plants, with other plants that don't feed as heartily can leave the lighter feeder starved entirely from the heavy feeder hogging all the nutrients, or you can end up burning them from overfeeding to compensate.

 

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With these considerations in mind, what is best to plant together, and what combinations should you avoid?

The easiest way to decide what to plant together in a single garden, is to go by the kinds of seeds AeroGarden offers in a single kit.  Herbs, salad greens, fruiting vegetables, and flowers.  Generally speaking, different plants of these similar categories can coexist well. Fruiting plants, as mentioned, are the heaviest feeders, followed by flowers, then herbs, and finally the lightest feeders, generally, are the salad greens.

Plant Wall: eight separate planting bays!

Within those categories, however, there are exceptions; kale and chard get significantly larger than regular lettuces, for instance, and so aren't the best to plant together.  Similarly, my personal preference is to plant short herbs (thyme, oregano, marjoram, etc.) and tall herbs (basil, dill, mint, tarragon, etc.) separately, with the mid-sized herbs (cilantro, parsley, savory, chives, etc.) able to fit with either. 

Needless to say, however, keeping them separated in this way means either you can't grow much variety at one time, or you end up with a Wall of Plants, with a half dozen or more separate gardens.

Of course, just as there are exceptions in what can work well together, there are exceptions to what can't.  Short or medium sized herbs can cohabit with lettuce in a pinch.  Flowers and taller herbs will get along okay.  The one category that really shouldn't be mixed with another is the fruiting plants, as they are heavy feeders who want a higher nutrient ratio than anything else, and generally get significantly larger than anything else.  Yet even there, there is an exception: basil will cohabit alright with tomatoes and peppers.  It has complementary nutrient needs - what the fruiting plants use less of, the basil likes most, and vice versa; and it grows big enough to keep up with all but the tallest of the fruiting plants.  (In fact, it will likely dwarf the fruiting plants early on!)

Another exception has to do with timing.  Although lettuce and fruiting plants are about the worst possible combination, you can start them out together.  By the time most fruiting plants would be large enough to drown out the lettuce, you'd already be able to get a good harvest or two from the lettuce.  Once they reach that point, you can either harvest the entire lettuce, or move it to either another garden or a Kratky-style container to finish out its useful lifespan. 

Another factor to consider is how much to plant together.  Just because there are a bunch of holes in the deck doesn't mean it's a good idea to fill them all, all the time.  I will post a deeper discussion of this at some point, but basically, you can grow herbs or lettuces in all holes in 3, 6, and 9 pods gardens.  In 12 pod gardens, I personally recommend only doing 8 lettuces, or 10 at most, leaving center pods open for airflow and space for the plants to grow.  However, for fruiting plants, you want no more than 1 plant for 3 holes, meaning have 2 empty holes for every plant you are growing. (As noted above, you could start other plants in those holes, but once the fruiting plants start getting large they need to be emptied.)

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So what happens if you do plant non-complementary things together?

No, the Pod Police aren't going to show up at your house and take away custody of your garden!  But, one or both of the plants in question simply won't live up to their potential, up to and including being completely useless for you.

Ultimately, the worst that will happen is you lose a few plants, so by all means, experiment with different things if it feels right to you, and above all, have fun!