We hear a lot about companion planting, but what about with fruit trees? I don't see a whole

lot about that, although I know some people do do that.

And certainly if you're growing in a container,

a companion plant with your fruit tree

can act as a living mulch instead of using

some other kind of mulch.

And so there are a lot of different choices

and it's just a fun little idea that I've been thinking about

as I expand my fruit trees.

I've been doing a lot of citrus lately as you guys know and I've also been doing it in grow bags and so I've thought

hmm well if I put a living mulch on top of the grow bag that will help with the drainage issue or the water loss

issue that's the number one problem of grow bags.

So let's think about some things that we may want to interplant or companion plant. We have comfry.

Comfry is sort of a crazy plant. I mean it does almost everything. You can use it in

your kitchen. It is what we call it dynamic accumulator so it will go down into the subsoil and mine it for nutrients

suck those nutrients into the plant tissues and then when it dies back of course it releases those

higher up in the soil. You can, oh my gosh, you can just do so much with it.

It's absolutely amazing, but it can also out-compete weeds around your fruit trees, so maybe that's a good option.

Marigolds, we talk about all the time.

I mean, they are a pollinator, a tractor,

but they also discourage the negative nematodes, the non-beneficial nematodes in your soil and there's a couple other pests

that they seem to repel above the soil could be a good idea.

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