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+--- Thread: Two for the space of one! (/showthread.php?tid=2426)
Two for the space of one! - Veggie - 07-02-2026
Last year I grew many of my vegetables in large (30l) pots and got into the habit of sowing more than one type of seed in each pot to make the most use of the compost, space and effort of watering & weeding.
My unwritten rule was to grow a root with a leaf and a fruit. Not because of my Roots/shoots/fruits and Leaves plan but because they compliment each other with their space requirements. For example, a carrot needs room to grow below ground, but its not very demanding above ground so sowing lettuce or chard with the carrots takes advantage of the same space.
All the tomatoes shared their pots with carrots or radish, and a leafy crop like lettuce or rocket. The mangetout and cucumbers that were growing on supporting canes were also undersown with roots and leaves.
I know this is all very obvious but I wondered whether those of you who grow in open ground grow "space complimentary" vegetables in this way. Maybe lettuce at the base of your beansticks or dwarf peas and radish amongst the courgettes.
Veg that take a long time to mature, like parsnips and brussels sprouts have always seemed to me to be "greedy" plants that take up too much space/time and I've stopped trying to grow them. However, if I can grow other veg in the same space it wouldn't be quite so wasteful.
I shall be experimenting with this soon, but, meanwhile, any suggestion for workable combinations that you have tried?
RE: Two for the space of one! - Small chilli - 08-02-2026
Not exactly, but I think I might try to use this method in some of my beds. When I have some. I try to do companion planting wherever possible. That’s obviously slightly different to your space saving method. space saving is probably the wrong term, it’s just maximising your space and harvest.
RE: Two for the space of one! - Bren - 08-02-2026
I plant lettuce in any available space but that's about it.
RE: Two for the space of one! - JJB - 08-02-2026
I haven't consciously tried this, for one, the only long staying plant I grow is kale. I have, as I expect everyone does, filled in gaps in my inevitable rows by anything that's available. I tried my version of three sisters with squash traipsing underneath sweetcorn, but it wasn't successful. I far i m8ght have kept the normal planting distances and therefore everything was well crowded and starved of light. I think perhaps in order, maybe erroneously, to get the most out of the space I have, I tend to cram plants too close together, so putting anything extra would be a disaster. An example, I sowed some carrots in tubs to over winter, they grew slowly and are now less than pencil thick, probably because they're sown too thickly. You would think after all these years I would have learnt
nothing I try to over winter works very well. I did sow sweetpeas to grow up the trellis outside the gh and used the same patch to grow toms, using the trellis for support, that has worked quite well for several years.