When we created our first bed plan by hand, the most time-consuming part was: Who goes with whom – and when? First the research into good neighbours, then in the following year the question of crop rotation. We pored over many tables, browsed through books, and spent a great deal of time doing so.
We want to spare you that effort with the filters in grove – or at least make it much easier.
Neighbours
Finding a good neighbour in a classic companion planting table is usually not that difficult. But what if there are already plants on the left and right of your bed – and you’re looking for a suitable addition right in between?
In grove you can select multiple plants in the “Good neighbours for” filter field. For example: Broccoli is planned for the left side of the bed, tomato for the right. Select both plants – and grove automatically shows you which plants would fit well between these two.
The list is clearly organised into expandable groups:
- Broccoli, Tomato: Plants that are good neighbours for both.
- Tomato: Plants that suit tomato and at least do not disturb broccoli.
- Broccoli: Plants that suit broccoli and do not disturb tomato.
- Neutral: All remaining plants that are not bad neighbours for the selected plants.
This gives you an at-a-glance overview of which plants are suitable for that specific spot in your bed.
Successors / Crop Rotation
Now it gets a little more refined: grove also takes crop rotation into account – that is, what was growing in the bed before. Suppose you had onions there last year.
Select that in the dialog and grove will only show you plants that are also good successors for onions. This usually makes the list considerably shorter. In this example, only a few suitable plants remain – for instance carrots and radicchio.
If this selection feels too restrictive, you can tick “include Neutral”. This also shows you plants that are at least not bad successors. Sometimes that is perfectly sufficient – and better than an unfavourable combination.
Gertrud Franck Method
If you garden according to the principles of Gertrud Franck or the Langerhorst family, this filter is particularly important.
Here the distinction is not only between A, B and C crops. For B crops, a further distinction is made as to whether it is an early or late crop. However, a plant can also be both – early and late.
As soon as you edit a bed in the corresponding mode, grove automatically offers you these filters in the quick selection.
Timing
The filters “Plantable until” and “Harvest possible before end of” are especially helpful when you are looking for pre- or follow-on crops within the same year.
Plantable until June means: You are looking for plants that you can sow or plant by June at the latest, because the preceding crop can be harvested by then.
Harvest possible before end of May means: You are looking for a plant that can be harvested early, because something else is planned for that spot from May onwards.
Caution: If you use these two filters in combination – for example to find a plant that can be grown as a very short catch crop between a preceding and a following crop – you must factor in the growing period yourself. Just because it is possible to plant a cucumber in June and also harvest cucumbers in June does not mean that they will grow and ripen within a month.
The filter names are deliberately kept long so that it is clear exactly what they do. They answer two very practical questions – and help you get the most out of your growing space.