Dave I love this article just as much as the first time I read it. It reminds me that I need to get busy looking at what I can change in my gardens to benefit the plants I have.
Do you grow anything around your tomato plants?

Yep, we sure do. In fact, I was working at one point on an article about companion plants for tomatoes and I will one day finish and publish it.

I always grow basil around my tomatoes. I know that carrots are also excellent companions, and that borage is good around them. My article will contain detailed explanations of all that and what each plant does for each other.

I'll be watching for the new article. : )

Very good Article. Love learning new things.
Thank you for shareing. Learning is a never ending process.

i love this concept so will be watching.

Great article Dave. I will be waiting to read the rest of the articles. I have the book and it's a great one. Hope I can get it back from my brother though he wasn't finished with it last time I visited him.

I think I've read the book 5 times now. I am planning on having audio (and maybe eventually video) interviews with gardening personalities here at ATP, and I really want to have an interview with the Gaia's Garden author.

OOOOOH you get that interview you make sure I know about it in plenty of time to tell my husband and the dogs they are on their own while I check that one out.

I too am a Toby Hemenway fan and have read and re-read his book several times. I totally changed the way I was veggie gardening after the first reading. This year I surrounded one of my tomato beds with green onions and what a difference there was between that bed and the other one where I did not surround them. I am still harvesting tomatoes in July in the desert from the surrounded bed while the other is quite fried after battling insect attacks. I plan to add more guilds in the fall planting season. Looking forward to more guild articles and that interview with Toby would be great. We were honored to have him as one of the instructors for the PDC put on by the local Valley Permaculture Alliance this past spring.

That's great that we have another permaculture fan, Jayne! Maybe eventually there'll be enough of us and we can have a permaculture forum. Until then, I am planning a series of articles like this one that touch many of the innovations to come out of the permaculture "movement".

Hmmmm would garlic work the way onions did around the tomatoes? That's the kind of information I'm most interested in learning.

I've never heard about planting garlic around tomatoes. Garlic is excellent around roses (and most fruit trees, and blackberries, are roses).

I have some around an old rose that came from my grandmother's rose bush which was started from one brought over by her parents or grandparents and it works great around them.

I'll bet so!

I really appreciate your article I know so little about this and you have shared lots of great information. Can't wait to see more on this I am super interested in anything that would help repel squirrels, deer and raccoons - especially raccoons My family has never found anything that deters them other than a combined guard staff of dogs and geese.

I appreciated reading this article.
I would like to get "living mulches" growing in the flower beds.
Usually I grow borage with tomatoes.
This year I sowed watermelon in one container which has tomatoes.
Probably won't get watermelon,but the vine is pretty and covers the soil.

I look forward to future articles. I have the Gaia's Garden book.

I took your word for it Dave & just bought the book -- 2nd edition. I won't get to begin reading it until Christmas b/c it is 1 of my Christmas presents. When it arrives; I will hand it, unopened, to my hubs who will keep it sequestered away until Christmas.
I am so excited though!!!!! Just reading the info. about it as well as Dave's recommendation & that of the others on this thread makes me look forward to it so much!
Thanks everyone!

You bumped an ancient thread!

You're going to LOVE that book!

I may have bumped an ancient thread but it's an EXCELLENT thread & I'm glad I found it (thank you random idea) & thus bumped it!

Also, (nudge, nudge) wondering if you ever finished & published that article about companion plants for tomatoes?