Carrot seeds often germinate irregularly and in their own time. Mixed with radish seeds and sown in rows, the radishes will germinate much faster and the lines become visible. As radishes grow and ripen faster too, you automatically create more room for the carrots to grow strong and thick, when harvesting your radishes.
The following five plant varieties included in this seed kit have been selected for being ideal intercropping partners:
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Yellow Carrot 'Jaune Du Doubs' (Daucus carota)
A yellow carrot variety with a slightly tart aroma, ideal for stews and one-pots. Carrots of this variety also store well.
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Round Carrot 'Paris Market' (Daucus carota)
The carrot 'Paris Market' is a very early variety with small, round, orange carrots, which also grows well in pots.
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Purple Carrot 'Zanahoria Morada’ (Daucus carota)
A purple heirloom carrot cultivar deriving from the true wild carrot species, which has a pronounced aromatic carrot flavour.
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Radishes 'French Breakfast' (Raphanus sativus)
'French Breakfast’ is an old French radish variety with highly decorative, two-tone white and red crops, which have a rather elongated shape.
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Golden Garden Radishes 'Zlata' (Raphanus sativus)
Large, spicy radish variety with a yellow outer skin.
The seeds of each variety are packaged in a separate sachet.
Intercropping or companion planting is the implementation of a crop balance in your vegetable patch (adopted from nature itself). Although competition between plants is usually intense, as every plant strives to get the most light, water and nutrients, there are always so-called companion plants. These are 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 instead. Those companions create a good and balanced neighbourhood in your vegetable patch.
We have developed a series of intercropping and companion planting seed kits. 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.
The immediate neighbouring plants should complement each other and not disturb each other’s growth. Ideally you pair neighbours such as carrots and salad (deep roots and shallow roots) or cabbage and peas (high and low nutrient-demanding plants) or sweet corn and pumpkin (sun- and shade-loving plants).
