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| The garlic cloves each make a new bulb. Note well the shriveled roots - the key to this chemical marvel called companion planting. |
I startled a rose-lover at lunch by mentioning how roses love garlic, why rosarians grow the garlic family members with roses. Companion planting is still new to many people, and now I understand better why it works so well.
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| Double Delight rose - for colors and fragrance. |
Double Delight Garden of Roses and Garlic
But first, a story. In New Ulm I found an area built to be a garden beside the wall, near the garage. I dug out all the weeds and planted three things there - daffodils, Double Delight roses, and garlic chives. I mulched the area heavily with wood mulch, so weeds were unknown. Daffodils pushed through the mulch, and so did garlic chives, which spread like weeds but stayed subordinate to the roses, looking like grass among the bushes.
Garlic makes roses stronger, fights diseases of the rose family, and repels insects. I experienced the repulsion when I bent over the rose garden to cut some roses on a hot, humid day. The garlic gas coming up from the chives was potent, like garlic bulbs left in a car on a hot day, windows closed. The roses were perfect and free of insect damage.
Explanation
Scientists are starting to realize the complexity of life in the soil. Two components are fungi and bacteria, but nematode worms and protozoa also contribute at the root level. Fungi are the larger actors in Creation gardening. They take nutrition from the plant roots and give back what the plants need, the plants managing the exchange.
Fungi can reach long distances and connect various plants together in a complex symbiotic relationship. That is one of the key reasons why soil should not be disturbed and compacted.
Botanists have known that plants exude root chemicals to protect themselves. Sunflowers like to keep others away from their extreme sunbathing. They turn solar energy into food even more effectively than corn does. Therefore, they exude root chemicals that make living near them unpleasant.
This explains how the roots of the garlic family connect chemically with the roots of roses in their subterranean Internet. Chemicals have to move to the plant and they have to be usable, broken down into key components. Transport and chemical break-downs are two of these tasks, but locking them in the root zone is another one. Organic improvements build up soil life, so the chemicals stay where they are need and move around where they are used, thanks to earthworms, nematodes, bacteria, protozoa, sowbugs, pillbugs, millipedes, centipedes, springtails, slugs, ants, and fungi. An earthworm pigs out on bacteria, and ants take earthworm corpses away to be used for their feast of pork - since earthworms are all muscle.
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| This Knockout rose was once a used up newspaper. |
My neighbors all have different skills. I hired one to fix the sagging doors on our Lincoln Town Car. His daughters give me their used newspapers, and I give them our Sunday paper to be used for coupons. He came over with his daughter while he looked over the car.
I cut the magenta Knockout rose for his daughter to take home, adding, "This was one of your newspapers." Her eyes lit up and she said, "Really?" I explained, "Your family gives me newspapers, which rot into the soil, and the roses use that to grow."
Complex relationships can work in the world above the soil, if we observe how God manages His Creation.
Where do we humans fit into the soil food web? We have a huge impact on it, and very often not a positive one. Most gardeners have never heard of soil food web systems, even though they exist everywhere, and have no inkling of the role of microbes and arthropods play in them. And, of course, the gardener hardly ever knows when enough is enough and almost always tips the delicate balance a soil food web maintains.
Lowenfels, Jeff (2010-09-10). Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web, Revised Edition (Kindle Locations 1514-1517). Timber Press. Kindle Edition.
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| Lincoln roses. |
