Kitchen Garden Forum

Morning

As the title says, I have this idea of planting nasturtiums under sweetcorn, I haven't really got enough space for them elsewhere, just wondered if you thought that would be ok?
Also is it possible to grow them up bean and pea frames? Good idea or not.

Hello Womble
Your's is a variation of the 'three sisters' method of growing sweetcorn popular in the US - corn, beans and squash. Two sisters in your case, I suppose. I've never tried it but I can't see why it wouldn't work. Try searching for this method as there's lots of info on it, mainly American.
I'd be less happy about growing them with peas and beans, mainly because everything could become very crowded and heavy. In a spell of damp weather this might lead to problems with mildew and bean rust.
Just some thoughts though I haven't tried this sort of growing.
John

Dear Womble, just one problem that you might find is, if the soil you are growing the sweetcorn in is very fertile you will get a lot of leaf and little flower on the Nasturtiums, as they do flower best in a poor soil.
You might be better going for one of the medium height growing ones as well, as the taller ones might swamp the sweetcorn.

Thankyou, gives me something to think about.
Yes the soil where the sweetcorn is to grow should be very fertile this year, I was sort of thinking along the three sisters lines, but trying to get some insect attracting flowers in there as well, maybe I would be better off sowing some poached egg plant under there instead.

What would be good growing with peas and beans then? I was thinking of sweetpeas with the beans, I didn't want to put them with the peas in case someone small mistook the inedible sweetpea cases for normal peas.

No harm in that, Womble. Sweet Peas and Runners are the same family, and you can maintain the 3 sisters idea by growing squashes as ground cover.

mike

I was under the impression that nasturtiums were in that category of plants which were supposed to be helpful in warding off bugs, blackfly etc. Is this supposed to mean that bugs don't like the smell they emit and avoid them?
On the one occasion I grew them near my climbing beans they became so riddled with blackfly that I had to pull them all up because my beans were being so badly infected. So either I've got the wrong idea about nasturtiums or the black fly in our area ignore the rules.

Hi Womble,
I feel that growing Nasturtiums within your cropping area is a bad idea. I grow them on the prevailing wind side of my plot and they collect Blackfly, as Primrose mentions, that appear on the prevailing wind, but when they get Blackfly, which strangely here is an infrequent occurrence, I simple remove the affected leaf stem or flower stem and destroy it if on the main stem simply rub them out with thumb and finger. This keeps the Blackfly away from my crop so to grow them within a crop in your productive area maybe courting trouble.
I appreciate that you are short on area, which I am not, but I would proceed with extreme caution.
JB.