Polycultures

I’d like to continue my permaculture series this winter while there's not a lot to forage for. I think that foraging, gardening, and homesteading go hand-in-hand with permaculture and earth stewardship, so this is important to know.

You may have heard phrases like “plant guild”, or “companion plant” thrown around before and wondered what they mean.

Today we’ll explore those and other related concepts to clear up any confusion!

Firstly, I want to explain the problem: Monocultures.

A monoculture is when only one thing is grown in a given area (typically referring to larger areas). This is unhealthy for a few reasons:

• It causes uneven nutrient distribution. Plants deplete all of one nutrient, and only return certain kinds to the soil causing an imbalance. This is why corn fields constantly need chemical fertilizers for example.

• It attracts pests. This may sound obvious when I say it, but having a buffet for an insect pest all in one place is going to attract pests, not repel them!

• It degrades soil. If you’ve ever been out in a corn field before, you know it’s mostly hard, dry, dirt. (For reference, healthy soil is dark, soft, and cakey in texture) This is because monocrops fail to replenish key nutrients and the amount of tilling, spraying, and intense fertilization kills off key soil bacteria that would otherwise farm healthy nutrients back into the soil.

• It causes runoff and erosion. When you destroy the soil quality, you end up with a dirt that won’t hold water anymore. This means any fertilizers you use will run mostly into the waterways (demanding more fertilizer) and eroding what little topsoil may be left.

• It contributes to disease. If you have only one crop in an area, they become very susceptible to disease. The “immune system” of an ecosystem comes from its biodiversity.

Polyculture

In agriculture, a “polyculture” is a space where multiple crops and animals are planted and raised.

We touched on this idea in the food forest article. The concept is to grow more than one type of thing in an area to create a resilient ecosystem.

It is important to note that the ideal polyculture will be more than just plants. Animals, insects, fungi, and microbes are all part of a healthy ecosystem!

This is the opposite of a monoculture.

Companion Planting

Companion planting is a gardening technique where multiple types of plants are grown near each other (typically within a few feet or so of each other) to form a mutually beneficial relationship.

This could be as simple as planting peas near lettuce to enhance soil nitrogen (which lettuce uses to grow leaves). This tends to make the most sense in a smaller garden area that can be managed on a small scale.

One of the oldest examples of this that we have is called the “Three Sisters” method that the native Americans used.

The Three Sisters are corn, beans, and squash. They would grow the corn, then grow squash around it to shade out any competitor species and allow the beans to use the corn as a trellis. The corn and beans also act as nutrient sources for the squash!

Some people get really technical with what plants they put next to which, and others take a more relaxed approach.

There are several books on companion planting, and I highly recommend checking some out!

Intercropping

Intercropping is similar to companion planting in many ways, but it focuses less on specific benefits from plant-to-plant, and more on bringing general biodiversity to an area.

A common way I see this done is by growing multiple vegetables in alternating rows near each other. This is appropriate for most market garden farms or larger scale vegetable production.

Intercropping is often used to maximize the efficiency of the land by growing multiple crops in the same general area (rather than having several acres of one thing).

An example of this would be growing lettuces in one row, basil in the next, then lettuces, then beans.

This tends to solve a lot of the issues that large scale monocultures have while still maintaining some efficiency in the work it takes to manage it.

Alley Cropping

Alley cropping is very similar in some respects to intercropping, but the focus is on planting annual crops in between rows of perennial shrubs and trees.

This has the added benefit of lowering the overall maintenance over time of a given acre, as well as providing weather protection to the annuals, and habitat to pest-controlling wildlife.

This is probably the closest you’ll get to a practical food forest on a commercial scale. (For all intents and purposes, it is a food forest).

My favorite example of this tends to be New Forest Farm in Wisconsin. Owner Mark Shepard has laid out his farm so that there are rows of tree crops with either annual or small perennial crops grown in between, and animals are run through the rows.

His book Restoration Agriculture is a good read and I highly recommend it!

Guilds

Finally, we have guilds.

The phrase “plant guild” tends to be specific to permaculture sites and usually refers to a way of companion planting that supports one specific plant’s production.

There are a few different elements of a plant guild. Although they vary depending on who you ask, the basic roles are:

• Nitrogen Fixers. These plants take atmospheric nitrogen and put it back into the soil. This would be plants like beans, peas, clover, legume shrubs, or nitrogen fixing perennials.

• Pollinators. These plants attract beneficial insects and pollinators. These would be flowers that bees or butterflies enjoy (alyssum, echinacea, yarrow, milkweeds).

• Dynamic Accumulators. These are the plants that break up soil and keep it loose to allow for air flow and water absorption. Plants like this would include yarrow, comfrey, borage, or dandelion.

• Repellers/Trap Plants. This refers to plants who either repel pests or lure them away from your other plants. Good examples include nasturtium, dill, fennel, and coriander.

• Mulchers. This category is for plants (generally perennials) that drop a regular supply of compostable material onto the surface of the soil. This provides nutrients, water retention, insect habitat, and microbe fodder. Examples include comfrey, artichoke, rhubarb, and borage (although that one is an annual).

• Suppressors. Suppressors keep down the growth of plants like grass and aggressive weeds who would take up precious water and nutrients. Examples of these would be garlic, chives, daffodils, and leeks.

Plant guilds are especially popular for fruit tree production.

An example of a fruit tree guild might be:

Main Crop: Apples

Secondary Crops: Raspberries, Strawberries, Rhubarb

Supporting Species: Comfrey, nasturtium, chamomile, yarrow, garlic

Depending on your situation, you may choose any of these methods to grow your food.

Hopefully this clears up any confusion between the types of polyculture systems!

If you would like me to make a spreadsheet with different fruiting plants and compatible guild plants, let me know by replying to this email!

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