Weeds are often specialists and doctors in the plant
community. They take very well to sick soil that needs to
be built up and almost seem to seek it out. Where
cultivated garden plants cannot manage, weeds are able
to draw phosphorus, potash, calcium, trace minerals, and
other nutrients out of the soil and subsoil and
concentrate them in their bodies. Plants seem to have
uncanny instincts.
Weeds can be used to concentrate nutrients for future
fertilization or to withdraw noxious elements, such as
unwanted salts, from the growing area. A decient soil is
often enriched by adding weeds to man-made compost
or by returning their dead bodies to the soil as nature
does.
Companion planting is the constructive use of plant
relationships by gardeners, horticulturists, and farmers. A
scientic denition of companion planting is “The
placing together of plants having complementary
physical demands.” A more accurate, living, and spiritual
description is “The growing together of all those
elements and beings that encourage life and growth; the
creation of a microcosm that includes vegetables, fruits,
trees, bushes, wheat, 'owers, weeds, birds, soil,
microorganisms, water, nutrients, insects, toads, spiders,
and chickens.”
Companion planting is still an experimental eld in
which much more research needs to be performed. The
age of the plants involved and the percentage of each of
the types of plants grown together can be critical, as can
brent
(Brent)
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