This year I decided to make a couple of mixed beds. Usually, I had well-defined beds with just one or two vegetable varieties, and this worked well as long as the year was good for those vegetables. I’ve been trying to combine different sized plants and flowers to give the vegetables the needed shade and wind protection so I decided to make a few mixed beds to try how they will work in my downhill garden.   

I went with an already tested combination of brassicas and tomatoes. I’ve planted the brassicas and tomatoes together before and I’ve done it before. I went with the cabbages in the middle like always and a bed of middle Brussel sprouts. They are filling the empty middle and growing nicely. 

I’ve also planted one bed of tomatoes in the middle and cabbages around them. This combination is also doing great. The only issue is with the cabbages which are on the left of the tomato plants, they are longer in the shade and plants are getting a bit leggy. I guess the middle cabbages are a better option.

I’ve used the lettuce/mint/ chickweed combination for my lettuce bed. Chickweeds keep the moisture, mint provides shade and lettuce covers the empty parts and protects chickweed from the sun. This combination has always worked well. 

One of my mixed beds was meant to contain only flowers that I was planning to leave for seeds so I could spread the flowers around the garden but due to the lack of room now it contains cabbages and corn. So far they all have enough room and grow nicely. 

I also have one mixed bed that wasn’t planned. I’ve planted broccoli on an empty bed thinking that it would stay like this and them small plants started showing up. It turned out that in the autumn I’ve used this bed to sow dill and now it started growing. Now I have broccoli and dill growing together which potentially could be a good thing. Dill will act as a sunshade for the broccoli. 

If things continue growing as they are this year I’ll be making all my beds mixed next year.