Jackie French’s Guide to Companion Planting (2nd Ed.) – Jackie French – Manna Press (AUS) 2013 ISBN 9780947214654 – For me, this is the primo book on companion planting, although the second edition is much better than the original. Jackie uses her no-nonsense style to cover the facts and myths of companion planting then goes on to tell you how you can develop your own comp-anion planting system. The following chapters build on this foundation and cover companion planting for soil fertility, for the lawn, for veggies, for flowers and for fruits. She finishes off with a chapter on weeds and natural herbicides. The book has quite a few colour photos.
Companion Plants and How to Use Them – Helen Philbrick & Richard B. Gregg – Floris Books (UK) 2016 ISBN 978 178250 286 9 – This small book is set out in an A to Z format. Most of it tends to be ‘this goes with that’ or ‘this doesn’t go with that’ without any underlying theory or rationale to explain why, so it seems that the information may be anecdotal in nature. Occasionally there will be a reference to the person who made the observation. They do include information on weeds as cultivated fruits, herbs and veggies. Probably not much use here in Aus. The book has no illustrations.
Companion Planting in Australia – Brenda Little – Reed Books P/L (AUS) 1986 ISBN 0 7301 0122 3 – This book is also set out in an A to Z format, and starts out with a misleading discussion of allelopathy. There appears to be some anecdotal information similarly to the above book, but there are also recommendations on pests, pest controls and beneficial insects. There are also some explanations such as “Potatoes should be kept away from tomatoes. Exudations from their roots will stop tomatoes growing well” but most recommendations do say why, just ‘this goes (or doesn’t go) with that’. The book has lots of line drawings.
Companion Planting – Richard Bird – Simon & Schuster (AUS) 1990 ISBN 0 7318 022 X – This is an interesting book! There are the usual lists of good and bad companions for veg, fruit, herbs etc without any references as to there the information came from or why it might work. There is also lots of info on garden design, maintaining soil fertility, flowers and foliage in the garden (for aesthetics), growing an integrated garden (fruit, veg, herbs and flowers together), beneficial insects and a whole heap of other stuff. While ostensibly Australian, I suspect it has been written for US and/or UK conditions and ‘Australianised’ just looking at the photos, of which there are many, colour photos and coloured line drawings are plentiful.
Lothian Successful Organic Gardening: Companion Planting – Susan McClure – Lothian (AUS) 1995 ISBN 0 85091 691 7 – This would be the best companion planting book after Jackie French’s. It starts off with a resume of the various strategies of how companion plants work, the goes on to discuss companion planting for pest control and interplanting. The next section covers how to develop your own planting plan (quite thoroughly) followed by a section called ‘caring for companions’ which is all around mulching, composting, watering, pest control and harvesting. The remainder of the book is a breakdown of over 100 plants A to Z (fruit, veg, herbs and the odd flower) listing for each entry allies (what to plant the featured plant with), companions (what to plan the featured plant with), enemies, growing guidelines and comments. While they are not referenced, some of the entries do cite the results of field trials and scientific studies. Some entries are just back to ‘grow this with this’ and no information as to why, effects etc. Lots of colour photos and colour and black and white line drawings.
