The cultivation of mixed cultures has a very positive effect on the garden bed and often also on the crop yield. Find out here why you should grow mixed crops and which neighbors pole beans get along well with and which ones you shouldn’t mix garden beans with.

Pole beans get along well with heavy consumers such as corn or cabbage

The advantages of a mixed culture

Mixed cultures are used in private gardens as well as in organic gardening, permaculture and other farming methods that do not use chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Because properly planted mixed beds are significantly less affected by pests and diseases. Here are the advantages at a glance:

  • Diseases and pests are kept away
  • Tall plants give low-growing shade and protection from the wind
  • Neighboring plants provide nutrients to others
  • Groundcovers retain moisture in the soil and thus protect taller growing plants from drying out
  • The beds look more colorful and beautiful

The only disadvantage of mixed cultures is the somewhat more difficult harvesting process. Since the different plants are ready to be harvested at different times, harvesting has to be done several times and with great care in order not to damage the other plants.

Pole beans in mixed culture

Pole beans are ideal for a mixed culture, as they have a number of beneficial effects on their plant neighbors:

  • They provide shade.
  • They enrich the soil with nitrogen through bacteria on their bulbous roots, which is why nitrogen fertilization is not necessary.
  • Pole beans can cope with poor soil and can therefore be combined with both hungry and less hungry plants.

Good neighbors for pole beans

Runner beans, like most plants - and people - do not get along with all. With some they get along less well than with others and with a few they even form a kind of symbiosis. Heavy consumers such as corn, cucumbers, zucchini or courgettes benefit from the nitrogen provided by the runner beans. The climbing beans, in turn, benefit from strong-growing corn on which they can climb. Low-growing vegetables such as lettuce or tubers can be grown well at the base of the beans. Here is a selection of good planting neighbors for pole beans:

  • savory
  • endive
  • cucumbers
  • Nasturtium
  • cabbage
  • Kohlrabi
  • Corn:
  • radish
  • radish
  • Beetroot
  • salad
  • sage
  • celery
  • spinach
  • zucchini

Bad neighbors for pole beans

However, some vegetables have a negative effect on the growth of runner beans or vice versa. Runner beans should therefore not be grown together with the following plants:

  • bush beans
  • peas
  • fennel
  • garlic
  • paprika
  • leek
  • chives
  • onions

tips

Interculture doesn't mean that you have to mix up all the plants at random. Plant a row of runner beans and a row of lettuce or another good planting neighbor next to them. order must be.

Category:

Vegetable garden