Emily Hartley
Why Cumbria Rewards a Mixed Plot
Anyone who has tried to coax a crop out of a damp Cumbrian hillside knows the score. Our growing season is short, the slugs are Olympic standard, and the wind arrives sideways off the fells. But the same climate that makes life difficult for a cabbage also suits a great many flowers and herbs, and that is where companion planting earns its keep. Rather than reaching straight for the sprayer, you plant a support act alongside your vegetables: flowers and herbs that confuse pests, feed the pollinators, and quietly improve the soil around them.
Companion planting is not a magic trick, and it will not rescue a crop planted in exhausted ground. What it does is stack the odds in your favour. On a smallholding where you are already out with the hoe and the watering can, the extra work is minimal and the returns are steady. Marigolds, nasturtiums and a handful of ordinary kitchen herbs will do most of the heavy lifting.
Marigolds: The Workhorse of the Potager
French marigolds (Tagetes patula) are the ones to bother with. Their roots release compounds that suppress certain soil-dwelling nematodes, and their scent genuinely muddles whitefly and aphids. Plant them in among your tomatoes and peppers in the polytunnel, where whitefly is a constant nuisance, and along the rows of brassicas outdoors.
Two practical points. First, buy or raise a decent number, because a single marigold every ten feet will do very little. A dense ribbon of them along the edge of a bed works far better than scattered specimens. Second, deadhead them regularly or they will stop flowering and start setting seed. In a wet Cumbrian summer, watch for slugs on the young plants; a ring of grit or a nightly torch-and-bucket patrol sorts most of it.
Nasturtiums: Sacrificial and Useful
Nasturtiums are the classic trap crop. Blackfly adore them, and if you give the aphids something they prefer, they will often leave your beans and brassicas alone. Plant them near your runner beans, broad beans and kale, and accept that the leaves will end up crawling with insects. That is the point. Once a plant is heavily infested, pull it and bin it rather than composting it.
They are not only bait. The flowers are edible and peppery, lovely scattered over a salad, and the leaves make a decent substitute for watercress in a sandwich. They ramble happily over a bank or scramble up a bit of netting, which is handy on sloping ground where a tidy row is a fantasy. They do best in poor soil; too much muck and you get all leaf and no flower.
Herbs That Earn Their Bed Space
A herb bed beside the vegetable patch is worth more than it looks. Strong-scented plants mask the smell of vulnerable crops and draw in predatory insects that feed on pests.
- Basil – plant beside tomatoes in the tunnel. It is said to deter thrips and whitefly, and it certainly improves the tomatoes you carry into the kitchen.
- Borage – a bee magnet with brilliant blue flowers. It self-seeds freely, so give it a corner you do not mind it colonising. Its leaves are rich in potassium if you add them to the compost heap.
- Chives and garlic chives – a ring of them around carrots and under fruit trees discourages aphids and carrot fly. Cut them back hard after flowering for fresh regrowth.
- Dill and fennel – the flat flower heads attract hoverflies, whose larvae scoff aphids by the hundred. Keep fennel away from dill if you want to save seed, as they cross readily.
- Rosemary, thyme and sage – tough, drought-tolerant woody herbs that shrug off Cumbrian wind and shelter ground beetles that hunt slugs after dark.
Let a few herbs flower rather than pinching everything for the kitchen. The pollinators need that late-season feed, and so does your fruit set.
Pairing Up with Carrots, Brassicas and Tomatoes
Carrot fly hunts by scent, flying low over the ground. Interplanting carrots with spring onions, chives or a row of marigolds breaks up that scent trail and reduces the damage considerably. Sow in short rows rather than one long drill, and you will also confuse the fly's navigation.
Brassicas want strong-smelling neighbours. Dill, sage, rosemary and nasturtiums planted among kale, cabbages and broccoli help mask them from cabbage white butterflies and flea beetles. It is not a guarantee; you will still need to check leaf undersides for yellow eggs and squash them. But fewer butterflies means fewer caterpillars chewing your greens to lace.
Tomatoes do well with basil, marigolds and a few nasturtiums at the tunnel door. The flowers bring in pollinators for the trusses, and the scent helps keep whitefly on the back foot. Give them plenty of ventilation and water consistently at the root, as dry, stressed plants attract pests faster than anything.
Making It Work on a Working Smallholding
Start small and be honest about what you will maintain. A bed of marigolds, a packet of nasturtium seed and a herb corner is a realistic beginning for most plots. Sow marigolds in trays in April, harden them off properly, and plant out once the risk of a late frost has passed. Nasturtiums are best sown where they are to grow, as they resent root disturbance.
Keep records. Note which pairings seemed to reduce damage and which did nothing, because what works in one damp valley may behave differently two fields over. Rotate everything as normal, feed your soil with well-rotted manure or compost, and let a little wildness into the margins. A nettle patch and a few flowering weeds are not untidiness; they are habitat for the very insects that police your crops.
Above all, treat companion planting as one good tool among several. Combined with healthy soil, sensible rotation and a bit of daily watching, flowers and herbs will make your vegetables stronger, your plot livelier and your evenings in the garden far more pleasant.
