Growing vegetables without pesticides: companion planting helps add fertilizer and remove pests in the vegetable garden
We often see farmers planting several crops together, for example mixing eggplant with green onion, or planting marigolds, French marigolds and vegetables together. This is called the "companion crop" cultivation method. Planting suitable companion crops together can be used to increase the available nutrients in the soil, or to achieve natural pest and disease control, so that crops do not need to rely on chemical fertilizers or pesticides and can still achieve the goals of promoting growth and reducing pests and diseases.
"Companion crop cultivation" is a farming system that combines the "mutual promotion and mutual inhibition" effects between crops and the coordinated use of their above-ground and below-ground parts in relation to growth factors such as space, water, nutrients and sunlight, forming a cultivation system beneficial to crop growth. This is a strategy to increase "agroecosystem biodiversity."
Scientific evidence has shown that certain characteristics of plants can be used to influence the growth of other plants. These plants may shelter beneficial insects, release nutrients beneficial to the growth of another crop, or support seedlings, and so on.
Simply put, it is a cultivation method that uses farming practices such as intercropping, mixed cropping or multiple cropping to combine the various relationships produced between crops and crop growth, thereby promoting crop growth and further achieving the purpose of preventing and controlling pests and diseases.
