Courgettes are good crop followers for broad beans. The beans are ready for harvesting in June, and as leguminous plants they will leave perfect conditions for courgettes, which need a lot of nutrients. They should be sown in pre-culture and in May and then allowed to take over the vegetable patch after the beans have been harvested. The following 3 plant varieties are included in this intercropping seed set:
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Fava bean 'Hangdown Grünkernig' (Vicia faba)
Fava beans taste sweet when harvested young, similar to peas. They are also good for drying.
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Broad bean 'Extra precoce a grano violetto' (Vicia faba)
Broad beans have been cultivated for thousands of years. The seeds are harvested young and have a nutty sweet taste. This old variety has violet seeds.
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Courgette/ zucchini 'Cocozelle di Tripolis' (Cucurbita pepo)
Cocozelle di Tripolis is a delicious and highly decorative Italian courgette plant variety whose crops have a lovely green stripy pattern.
The seeds of each variety are packaged in a separate sachet.
Intercropping or companion planting is the implementation of a sensible crop balance in your vegetable patch, just as nature demonstrates it. Although the competition between plants is usually intense, as every plant strives to get the most light, water and nutrient conditions, there are always so-called companion plants. This term refers to plant species that can live well side by side because they do not interfere with each other but very often actually support and strengthen each other. Those companions are sure to create a good and balanced neighbourhood in your vegetable patch.
Each set contains 3 to 6 plant varieties, which are very well suited for cultivation as companion species. In most cases, these are vegetables and herbs. It is possible to alternate the companion plants in rows, within a row or also in mixed variety as it happens with square-foot gardening.
We have developed a series of intercropping and companion planting seed sets. The immediate neighbouring plants should complement each other and not attack each other‘s basis of life. Ideally you will find neighbours such as carrot and salad (deep roots and shallow roots) or cabbage and peas (heavy and feeble demand in nutrients) or maize and pumpkin (sun- and shade-loving plants).
