Growing Perennials & Companion Plants: tips for organic pest-free food, medicinals & healthy soil

Learn how Tanya from @Lovelygreens has created a low-maintenance vegetable and medicinal garden on a slope, and how she uses perennials and companion plants to create healthy soil and bountiful harvests.

Tanya uses perennials and ground cover to prevent soil erosion. She spreads out plants of the same family across the plot to reduce pests moving through the whole crop and incorporates them within polycultures (cottage garden style) for multi-layered beds that are brimming with insects, and bursting with colour and food. Sacrificial plants like nasturtium, are used to reduce pest damage.

Companion plants are used to attract beneficial insects such as pollinators, and repel the unwanted ones, helping to create a balanced ecosystem.

Tanya grows hundreds of different plants, from annual vegetables to perennial fruits, herbs and medicinals. A lot of Tanya's garden produce is multifunctional, and she makes soaps and plant-based dyes from them too.

[Lovelygreens]

Thank you for inviting me to share about the garden Permaculture Magazine 😊💚

[cipriantodoran]

Lovely looking garden and surroundings

[mattkelly]

You have the life I dream of. I’m a Texas boy and I want to retire to a mountain cabin with a greenhouse twice the size of the house. You have a wonderful charmed existence. I envy you.

[boldpicturesgardeners]

Beautiful gadern and knowledge is ❤power .we grasped a lot from you

[tomeragam]

Beautiful and inspiring. Sounds like a very useful book to read and keep on the shelf !

[LifeIsMessyImLearningAsIGrow]

Thank you for sharing your garden and knowledge with us. I’m a YouTube gardener too. It’s my 3rd year and ever year I try to get better. This year I’m trying intercropping/companion planting. I found your channel in my research. This is very helpful and I and so happy I found your channel because it has so much to offer. I hope we can learn more from each other as we grow our gardens and our channels! Happy Planting!

[itsmewende]

I love Tanya's channel, been watching her for a long time now.

[arielramos]

Thank you ma'am for sharing your knowledge in permaculture

[organiccleanfoodconnection]

No snakes? Rattlesnakes will be curled up and not rattling this morning in the garden. Walk softly. I am an Irishman trying to grow in the chemical waste land called Kansas. Where chemical farmers are destroying everything. Including the topsoil. I have to pay a lady friend of mine to make soap :-) I was glued on you from the minute your video started. Absolutely love your garden. My fourth year with living soil and very interested in food forest. I have 100 foot row that is basically that. So excited to find your channel :-) They must put all the angels on Islands😊

[mking]

I like your ideas, thank you! Happy, and Safe New Year Mrs!

[RchiesART]

Hi Tanya. Just come across your channel and love the challenge you are posed with. I'm from Bolton, Lancashire in the U.K. with an allotment. I have been researching what to do with my waterlogged plot with very little success as its very wet for 7 months here. Raised beds were the solution and created a balance when the fruit trees took over. I practice hop and drop also. The paths are still wet but manageable. Our plot is very flat compared to yours. On terraced gardening like yours, I have been reading a lot about the construction of swales to stop soil erosion. I believe this to be a way forward for you. Let me know if it is allowed where you are as some places ban it! Strange but true. Rick.

[wudangmtn]

Beautiful garden. Very inspiring. I have a what do people in the UK mean when they say their allotment? I have heard people say this before. Is this just a way to say my plot or land? I live in the US, and I am just curious.

[tabethapacion]

I my self fully believe in companion planting. Everything in my garden has its purpose and place nothing is grown just anywhere.

[kathryndawes]

To stop gooseberry sawfly, mulch below with cardboard...when the caterpillar drops to the ground to pupate, it will land on this hard surface instead of the soft earth and either fry in the sun or get picked off by birds, breaking the life cycle.

[estelanunezchannel]

still trying growfrom seeds lavander and camomile calendula and no luck 🤷‍♀️ ill take any tips ❤

[duncanrobinson]

Isn't it strange Tanya? - Like you I just fell into fruit and veg growing - I was 37 years old om 2001 and suddenly got the bug and grew veg at home and then I got an allotment in 2003 which I still have. I actually had a few dreams whilst asleep - those kind of vivid dreams of tending raspberries on an allotment - I don't know why - I had no real interest in fruit and veg growing then, even though my late father used to grow fruit and veg in our back garden, I was never really interested in it. I found out from my Dad that his grandfather had an allotment from about 1935-1955 in Newton Heath, Manchester - he was called Andrew Osbourne Wilson and lived from 1874 until 1960 - 86 years old is quite an acheivement - he did half a day at school and half a day working at the cotton mill in Ancoats in Manchester in the 1880's aged 11 to 14 - he was one of those children who used to run under the spinning Jenny machines spinning cotton and he had to clear out the cotton waste off the floor before the machinery came back and would have crushed him to death! No health and safety in 1880's Manchester! but with working om his allotment he lived to 86 - he had no shoes on his feet as a child.

[jackstone]

Caucasian Spinach. Highly recommend. Easy to grow. Tolerant of many soil types and sun or part sun or shade. Climbs quickly but not invasive. And young leaves taste good raw or older leaves hood cooked just like spinach.

[marisasanchez]

She needs to learn how to say ‘medicinal’ 😬