5 Edible Ground Covers That You Should Companion Plant NOW!

In this video, I share 5 edible ground covers that you should companion plant now! Interplanting herbs and other edible ground covers underneath fruit trees and landscaping is genius, because these plants have special properties that are beneficial to your garden and yard. By companion planting these special plants, you can support your other trees, repel pests and prevent weeds, all while growing more food without using any additional space!

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0:00 Companion Planting Benefits
2:35 Edible Ground Cover #1
6:26 Edible Ground Cover #2
8:40 Edible Ground Cover #3
10:14 Edible Ground Cover #4
11:30 Edible Ground Cover #5
13:33 Bonus Edible Ground Covers!
16:12 Other Companion Planting Ideas
18:15 Adventures With Dale

If you have any questions about how to companion plant herbs and other edible ground covers in you yard and garden, want to learn more about growing fruit trees or the things I grow in my raised bed vegetable garden and edible landscaping food forest, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and garden hacks, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and “how to” garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the Comments below!

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ABOUT MY GARDEN
Location: Southeastern NC, Brunswick County (Wilmington area)
34.1°N Latitude
Zone 8B

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#gardening #garden #herbgarden #vegetablegardening #vegetablegarden

what’s growing on gardeners on today’s very special episode I’m going to share with you all five edible ground covers that you should companion plant around your fruit trees right now these edible ground covers will not only make your fruit trees healthier happier and more productive by permanently blocking weeds and also keeping their roots cooler so they’re happier when growing but you will also dramatically increase the harvests from your yard because you will be growing food underneath food this type of mentality will revolutionize the way you get your harvests if you’re new to the channel please subscribe hit the bell for notifications and check out my Amazon store and Spreadshop links in the video description for everything I use in my garden and awesome custom apparel and gear one of the most common questions that I get is “How far apart should I plant fruit trees?” or “How far apart should I plant tomato plants or pepper plants or some other annual vegetable?” Well the reason why those questions are asked so often is because we all know that if plants are planted too closely together they can compete with each other and basically fight each other and stunt their growth for example this lemon tree and this avocado tree are planted 7 ft apart that was as close as I could plant them where they could still grow to a pretty good size and give me a very large harvest if I planted them closer together they would probably fight with each other more than I wanted them to and the reason why this happens is because these plants effectively occupy the same level of the soil the roots basically occupy the top surface and they go all the way down several feet below and especially underneath the soil a few feet they can get tangled up and compete with each other and stunt each other to a degree this is what makes companion planting so exciting the idea behind companion planting is that you can have multiple different species occupy the same area and they won’t outco compete each other because the roots occupy different levels of the soil so since they aren’t directly competing and they are living in different areas of the soil they actually can be anywhere from neutral to actually beneficial where one plant can support the other and that is what we are going to cover in this video the plants featured in this video can be planted basically right up next to each other because they don’t occupy the same level of the soil and each plant has individual benefits where having themselves planted next to each other actually supports each other so you’re actually growing things in the same space and getting more productivity while having healthier plants overall edible ground cover number one that I am planting all over my yard are strawberries strawberries just may be the most amazing edible ground cover for people that deal with freezing winters in fact last year I went and visited James Perion’s yard and garden and I saw he had strawberries growing underneath all of his apple trees and I thought that was a brilliant system so I took that idea home and I doubled down on it and I’m planting strawberries all over underneath my apple trees now this doesn’t have to be done underneath an apple tree you can grow strawberries under pretty much any tree however here where I live on the southeastern coast of North Carolina we get about 30 to 40 frosts and freezes every single year so strawberries tend to do really well here and the reason why I like in my climate planting strawberries underneath deciduous fruit trees is throughout the winter these trees are bare they don’t have leaves on them and the strawberries start waking up from dormcancy about 2 months before any of the deciduous fruit trees start butddting out so what happens is the strawberries wake up early and they get full sun in the winter because they’re not blocked and shaded by any of the leaves so they’re able to absorb unencumbered sunlight and then make their leaves make their flowers and really get to take off and develop their fruit set while the sun is still gentle in the spring before any of the fruit trees start waking up but then the fruit trees start waking up in springtime and they put on all of their leaves by late spring early summer at that point strawberries don’t really like full sun in the middle of the summer it’s too hot for them they like the cooler weather so the shade of the leaves that are now on the trees actually wind up shading out the strawberries and it is the perfect symbiotic system we have the strawberries that are going to grow as a very thick ground cover that are going to prevent weeds they are going to lock in moisture they are going to keep the roots of the apple trees nice and shaded and cool and in the meantime the apple trees are going to pay back the strawberries and keep them cool during the heat of the summer here’s what’s incredible i started planting these strawberries underneath my apple trees last fall so this whole system has only been in ground for about 6 or 7 months and the strawberries have already deeply established i mean look they are starting to send runners so this is the least dense these strawberries will ever be the runners multiply like crazy they multiply like bunnies so in another year or two this whole area is going to most likely be a very very lush thick mat of strawberries similar to what you see here in my main strawberry bed that are a few years old see these strawberries are planted in such high density well they’ve multiplied I should say in such high density that they basically block out all weeds no weeds can grow in there because the strawberries have crowded them out and all I did was buy 25 strawberry plants and I let them multiply over a few years and boom they fill out an entire giant row like that so impressed have I been with this system that I also started planting strawberries this spring underneath my peach tree and amazingly enough this is what you can expect from strawberries that you plant after only about 2 to 3 months and I’m planting even more strawberries underneath this pawpaw tree right here here are some strawberries that I planted only about a month and a half two months ago and they are already that far along so within only a year or two I will be harvesting buckets of strawberries down low and then only a few months later I will be harvesting buckets of apples and peaches above the strawberries are strawberries the best edible ground cover for most people well I think if you are in zones 4 through 9 they very well just may be edible companion plant number two that you should plant underneath your fruit trees is one that is very important to me culturally and that is oregano as an Italian American that grew up in New Jersey I go through a lot of oregano we all have to have an Italian oregano plant now this specific oregano plant I have been growing in containers for six or seven years i started growing it when I was renting a house before I had my current home built and I started thinking to myself why am I still growing this in a container why don’t I just put it in ground this thing makes an incredible cold hearty mat that is going to grow underneath my fruit trees all year round suppress the weeds and as an added bonus because of the strong scent of oregano it actually has some natural pest repellent properties so just like my strawberry plants I planted my oregano plant underneath my apple trees and this is going to have the same similar symbiotic relationship now your Italian oregano is hardy somewhere around to the zone 78 line i’ve never gotten colder than 14° on this property and the oregano has never taken any damage in any of those temperatures so you’re probably never going to see dieback if you never see temperatures underneath about 10° Fahrenheit but even if you do see some dieback it is going to grow back quickly these can tolerate temperatures well below zero and still come back from the roots so this is a cold hearty perennial that just about everybody can grow for the most part directly in ground and just like before the oregano well they really appreciate the full sun throughout the cool season in the fall the winter and the spring and then they actually don’t like being blasted in full sun they tend to flower and bolt and that’s when you really have to prune them back while having the shade from the apple trees that will be fully leafed out during the season is going to protect that oregano plant so again we have that really beneficial relationship and again the smell of the oregano actually has some pest repellent properties that I’m sure the apple tree will not complain about oregano is quite spreading over a long period of time so eventually after several years I expect this entire area right here that you see basically to be one giant sprawling oregano bush edible ground cover number three that you should plant underneath your trees is another culinary delight and that is thyme what you see right here is a thyme plant that’s only about six months old i bought it in a grocery store i plopped it in ground probably last October or November it took all of our cold we got like 40 freezes we had an ice storm we got down into the teens five times last year and it didn’t even die back even a little bit this is German time this stuff is cold hearty i think until about zone 5 so this is going to be evergreen in the vast majority of climates out there so you’ll be able to harvest this all winter long in many cases as well as obviously throughout the rest of the year i’ve found time to be more heat sensitive than cold sensitive over the years so again it’s really going to appreciate the shade from this Asian pear tree right here during the summer so again we have that symbiotic relationship and again the odor of thyme is a natural pest repellent so fresh thyme is a wonderful slowspreading plant eventually this whole open area that you see right here will be a low carpet of thyme that will only be a few inches long that’s what’s so nice about it it’s very low and it’s very spreading but because it stays so low it’s not particularly invasive and it’s very easy to control its spread if you want you can let it take over this entire area but you can also regularly prune it and cut it back if you want to keep it in a smaller more compact form edible ground cover number four that you should plant underneath your trees is a must-have if you love poultry and that is sage believe it or not this sage plant right here is only a year old and look at this beautiful bush that it has formed this is another very cold hearty plant here in zone 8 it has no chance of taking any damage throughout the winter it is evergreen all year and I suspect in zone 7 maybe even colder you will be able to grow this as a perennial it may die back in some colder zones but it should come right back when things warm up in the spring and of course it is absolutely delicious woo that’s strong sage will grow as a very low bush like you see right here so because of the way it is occupying the area there’s no chance of any weeds ever growing i mean look how thick and lush and gorgeous this bush is so I have developed quite the system here i have the German thyme on the left side of my Asian pair followed by the sage followed by the strawberries and then all of my peaches and apples that the strawberries are underneath so this whole area right here is going to be edible from top to bottom with minimal to no weeds at all and edible ground cover number five that you should plant underneath your fruit trees is one that is going to shock you i know it shocked me and that is kale come on kale as a ground cover believe it this kale right here came up on its own it must have been spread either by birds or by wind when I let my old kale go to seed at the end of last summer it deposited all around my yard and a lot of the kale that came up on its own out in the open actually is being overwhelmed by caterpillar pressure for whatever reason caterpillars just love the red Russian kale variety but the kale that is protected underneath the shade of this precimant tree is thriving with relatively minor caterpillar and worm damage by comparison some of the random kale plants that came up at the exact same time that were selfseeded are already starting to bolt because they are sitting out in the open sun and we’ve already had some days close to 90° here in miday but this kale by comparison shows no stress at all this is not going to bolt anytime soon because it is protected by the shade of this pcimmen tree and as a result this kale is better looking than any of the red Russian kale that is growing out in my open garden the tree canopy for protection is really doing wonders for it i mean just look at how big and beautiful those leaves are and they are overwhelmingly unharmed from the worms is this kale going to provide any real benefit to this pimant tree probably not but it doesn’t need to the point is that we can grow twice as much food in the same amount of space not only can I harvest pcimmens off this tree but I can harvest kale underneath the tree and clearly the pcimmen tree is providing a lot of protection to that kale as for the pcmen I’m not concerned about this at all because they have virtually no issues with insect pests and diseases here on the coastal carolas the only thing that really bothers them are the possums the raccoons and the deer because they want that delicious fruit as much as you do but wait I have a bonus edible ground cover this one is highly experimental so I’m not completely confident on it just yet but so far I’m liking what I’m seeing and that is the cucumber growing cucumbers as a ground cover is a wild concept but here I am trying it out in between this pimmen and pluatt tree i have a couple infant vines back there and so far I’m liking what I’m seeing so these cucumber vines right here are a smaller vining cucumber called Isnik this probably isn’t the best choice for this area i should probably have gone with a more vigorous and spreading cucumber vine since overall the idea is to blanket the whole area as much as possible with ground cover but these are the spare plants that I had so I put them in ground and right away they are taking pretty well and the reason why I chose cucumbers is because of their fast growing nature and their wide leaves you could have grown something like a cherry tomato here but the cherry tomatoes well they don’t have great coverage because their leaves are small and they’re going to drop so many fruits that I’m going to have so many cherry tomatoes coming up for years it’s going to be a nightmare this is a parthononocarpic variety so it doesn’t make seeds it’s not going to litter the ground with any sort of seeds that are then going to germinate and create years of fighting vines growing everywhere i know a few volunteer plants are a good thing but hundreds or thousands not really a good thing in my opinion so if all goes according to plan within 4 to 6 weeks these plants should basically blanket this entire area which will provide that weed suppression that I’m looking for and also these trees in the long run should do a good job at helping to give the cucumbers a little bit of shade obviously they won’t be able to do it the first year because these are just trees that are in their infancy but in later years as these trees grow I’ll probably experiment with this system more and more but I wanted to share this with you all because it is quite an interesting concept if this cucumber experiment is successful I will probably also try the same exact system with squash and melons because they also have very large leaves that blanket the ground and provide a lot of shade they also grow very quickly with extreme vigor and the fruits are very very large so they will be easy to harvest and pick up and they’re not going to litter the ground again like a tomato would or maybe a pepper would or something like that so I will be able to easily remove all of the fruits so I don’t scatter accidentally thousands of seeds that is going to lead to an abundance of weeds in the area for all of my life and that right there are five well as many as eight edible ground covers depending on how you counted the list I just gave you that you can plant underneath your fruit trees now since I’ve been living in this house for over 7 years I’ve largely planted out the perimeter of the yard and my garden and I’ve kind of maximized a lot of the open space that I have so now over the last couple of years I’ve been hunting for ways I can squeeze more things in without negatively impacting the plants that are growing now and this companion planting growing food under food sort of like you’d find in a real forest is something that I’ve been experimenting with and I really want to share these ideas with you in hopes that I can inspire you like last year I put this raised garden bed right here in between my almond tree and my pimmen tree because I had 6 or 7 ft of open space so I figured why not throw a raised garden bed in there and I’m actually getting really good production out of it in fact let’s harvest this onion right here and look at that we have a beautiful winter grown onion growing in between two fruit trees and I mean I have plenty of other things in here i have lots of indeterminant tomatoes cherry types beef steak types i have a zucchini i have lots more onions i have hot peppers sweet peppers everything is doing great so if you get creative like this even if you think you don’t have any room left in your yard or you think you have a small yard and you can’t fit anything well thinking of little tricks like this is a great way to find space where you may have thought none existed so everybody I sure hope you found this video helpful if you did please make sure you hit that like button subscribe to the channel and please ring the notification bell so you’re notified when I release more videos like these if you’re curious about any of the products that I use in real life in my garden they are all linked in the video description in my Amazon storefront link so expand the video description click on the Amazon storefront link and you will see everything I use in real life and while you’re down there please consider checking out my spreadshop for custom merch if you want to support my channel thank you all so much for watching and I hope to see all of you again on the next video oh Dale is so excited to play with his sloth it has a squeaker in it okay come on buddy he’s so excited whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa hold on buddy and go Dale oh my Oh wow he almost got that Dale that was amazing there he goes whoa he’s running like a pup whoa he faked me out i thought he was going the other way go Dale go whoa boy somebody’s got some penup energy okay wait you’re being very good all right let’s tug very good oh he’s so strong he’s so strong dale can you drop oh that was so good all right Dale let’s see your catching skills and it was a bad throw i’m sorry buddy dad can’t throw all right let’s relax now that it’s in the evening let’s sit outside and enjoy the sunset