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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >James; do you bother at all with the idea of companion planting, or what 
> plants 'get along' with each other? Most of my beds this year will 
> chock-a-block full of different things, 

Lynn, many of your beds are like mine.  In some salad beds I will have 
lettuce, beets, ta-tsoi, arugula, radishes, spinach, a few scallion onions 
and 
some carrots thrown in with a kiss and a prayer.  The idea is that I can come 
to the garden and harvest a whole salad from a square foot of space or so 
and then use the space for something else.

As far as companions go, I only take that into account in the case of open 
hostilities between plants - for example, no cauliflower under the tomatoes 
-  or where a crop would bring down the neighborhood.  I have much trouble 
with harlequin bugs and so I don't want the mustard anywhere near the 
brassica since the damned things are attracted first to the mustard.  (I 
often use 
mustard as a lure and when the first wave of harlequin bugs infests it, I 
cover it with a plastic tent and destroy the lot with sword and fire).

It's true as the book says "Carrots Love Tomatoes" but carrots love lots of 
open sunshine much more than they love the dapples of tomatoes.

James