Biodiversity planting methods harness the forces of nature to help protect your garden as well as individual plants from pests and disease. Think of the plant populations as a team with complimentary skills all cooperating together. Balance and a strong ecosystem are achieved for the whole community of plants.
Be creative with biodiversity
Your imagination defines the limit of biodiversity in your garden. Be a creative gardener. How do you envision your garden? Experiment with many combinations of plants. Old fashioned gardening has many rules like planting in neat rows. Biodiversity gives you the freedom to co-create with nature. A biodiverse raised bed may look like chaos compared to the traditional garden layout. But actually it resembles the biodiversity found in natural systems.
As above, so below. There are tens of thousands of microbial species living in your soil. To balance that we need to preserve plant diversity above the soil. Our diversity mimics the diversity below ground. Learn more in our recently updated blog post about soil microbes and compost.
We recommend at least a dozen different plants including veggies, herbs and flowers in each bed and the large containers surrounding the bed. It can be dominated by a single veggie like tomatoes, with a dozen smaller plants scattered around. There are many ways to do this and it's up to you the gardener to decide. Smaller plants that need sun should be on the south side of the larger plant or at least not shaded by them.
Don’t try to plan your garden alone. For most gardeners, January and February are the planning months for the new gardening season. Give yourself time to explore several possibilities. Do some reading. Explore the Deep Roots blog posts. Talk to other food gardeners. Contact our support team for some phone discussions.
Take on as much as you can handle the first year. Send us questions when you run into a problem. Gardening is all about trying new things and learning from your mistakes. Learn more about our Innovative Method in our 2 recently updated posts.
Biodiversity basics and tips
A biodiverse food garden has a mixture of a dozen or more different plants growing throughout the bed and in surrounding containers including root crops, leafy greens, flowers, herbs, fruiting crops (tomatoes, eggplant and peppers), beans & peas and native plants.
The mixture of plants confuses pests who seek out a good size patch of their favorite plant.
Don’t plant the crops from the same family next to each other. A large group of the same plant has a stronger scent and attracts more pests and can more easily spread diseases.
Two raised beds is even better than one for biodiversity planting.
Plant large plants like tomatoes on opposite sides of your bed or in separate containers to discourage disease spread. Or, plant several tomatoes in one bed with basil and marigolds between them.
If you plant a tomato in a big pot strategically place basil and lettuce seedlings around the base of the tomato and watch them grow together. Prune off most of the tomato’s lower foliage to allow more sun to reach the kale and basil.
Fill empty spots with plants from a different family when you harvest a whole plant. Maximize your harvest by filling empty spots mid-season with seeds or seedlings.
Plant seeds of small plants in several spots around the bed in small clusters (6-8” diameter) or short rows. Examples of small plants are beets, carrots, radishes, onions.
If you want to grow a lot of the same crop like tomatoes, squash and cucumbers, figure out a way to plant them as far away from each other as possible. They can grow in their own large containers.
Environmental Pest Management (EPM) is a method that is used in combination with Biodiversity Planting to prevent and manage pests & diseases. But biodiversity is not a complete solution for any specific pest or disease. We also use organic pesticides and fungicides in limited quantities for pest prevention.
When you focus on a few crops because your family loves them and they are super healthy, plant lots of different flowers, herbs and small crops (lettuce, beets, radishes, strawberries, basil, marigolds, nasturtiums) at the edges of your bed and in the spaces between them.
Don’t block the sun with large plants. Place taller plants like tomatoes at the north side of a raised bed. Place the shortest plants on the south side of the bed.
Sunlight: Place your raised bed and large containers in the sunniest spot of your yard. 8 hours of sun or more is optimal. Some plants are okay with 5 to 8 hours of sun. They may be smaller and take longer to grow to maturity.
Shade a cool season plant like lettuce in mid-summer next to a tall tomato plant.
Plant small and medium size veggies that need less sun like lettuce and dill about 12” from the tomato plant’s main stem. Prune off most of the tomato’s lower foliage up to 10 inches.
Two or three tomato plants in your raised bed is fine if you prune them properly and grow them vertically on tomato cages or trellises.
Don’t plant huge plants like squash in your raised bed even if it grows up a trellis. Plant a huge plant in a large container next to the raised bed or in a separate bed. Place the container on the north side of your raised bed so it doesn’t block the sun. For example Butternut squash will sprawl all around the outside of the bed even if you have a trellis.
Often, garden centers don’t have the seedlings you want mid-season. Be prepared with fresh seedlings you grow yourself by growing a few seedlings from seed in small pots filled with the half and half mixture of our microbe-rich compost and our worm castings. Make sure they get enough sun and water them daily.
A planting calendar for your climate zone will tell you when to plant and harvest. We provide a Planting Calendar Chart for the Chicago Area since most of our gardeners are there. Ask your local state university agricultural extension for a planting calendar.
Greater plant diversity has most impact
Greater diversity of veggies, herbs & flowers has the most impact. Select plants for your bed and the surrounding containers from at least 5 of the 10 Biodiversity Plant Groups. (See list below) Ideally, select around 3 individual plants from the same plant variety to plant in one 4 x 8 raised bed. This adds up to about 10 to 15 plant small to medium-size varieties per bed and about 30 individual total plants (or clusters of tiny plants) per bed.
This list of major functional garden crop groups are not “taxonomical” classifications used by professional plant scientists. These are simplified groups organized to help you make gardening decisions. Try to plant at least five or six of these groups in each bed and you’ll achieve adequate diversity. Planting multiple cultivars within a group doesn’t contribute much to diversity. This is not a rule, rather it’s a guideline. The guideline also applies to cloth planters, on a reduced scale.
Our biodiversity plant groups
Legumes: peas, bush beans, pole beans
Herbs: (culinary & medicinal): basil, lavender, peppermint, lemon balm. sage, oregano (Used for bee attraction and repelling insects)
Flowers: marigold, nasturtium, calendula, echinacea, cosmos (Learn about each flower’s benefit in our post Environmental Pest Management.
Brassicas: cabbage, collard, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts
Fruiting veggies: eggplant, tomato, peppers
Salad Greens: lettuce, spinach, swiss chard
Root veggies: beets, carrots, onions, scallions, garlic, radish, potato, sweet potato
Grain: Corn
Cucurbits: melons, cucumbers, squash, gourds
Perennials: Asparagus, artichoke (warm zones only), strawberry, bramble berries (thorny berries like blackberry and raspberry). (Blueberries are hard to grow since they need acid soil.
Cover crops: mustard, buckwheat, cowpeas
Our online store
See our online store for details about prices, ordering and delivery of raised beds, compost, worm castings and more. Please contact our customer support team before placing an order online so we can assist you with the details and answer your gardening questions.
QUESTIONS? COMMENTS?
Contact us at (708) 655-5299 or support[at]deep-roots-project.org.
Stay in touch
Please leave your cell phone number when you sign up for our eNewsletter, if you want text message announcements now and then.
Donations help us provide organic kitchen gardening education to individuals, organizations, and entire communities. Thank you in advance for contributing to our community and for sharing our website and blog with friends and family.
