Chives Love Raspberries

If there's one thing I've learned about living in the country, it's to pay close attention to what nature does. Just because I want to plant something in a certain place doesn't mean it's going to stay there, let alone thrive. Thus, my lesson in chive placement. I had a perennial garden where the asparagus, grapes, strawberries and raspberries (all purchased from Stark Brothers www.starkbros.com ) graced the back half. The row-grown herbs headed up the front part. Sage, chives (regular and garlic), fennel, celery (grown for the leaves only), nodding onions, etc., had their places. Everything did very well- except for the chives. They always looked limp no matter how much I watered and weeded. In the fall of their first year, they sent up very large, healthy flower heads. Since I was working an ungodly amount of hours at the office, I let them be. I figured that since those plants weren't producing enough of the leaves to harvest, to heck with them! Let them do SOMETHING! When spring arrived, the previous row of chives decided not to show up. Not one blade broke the warmed, tilled ground around the former row that May. So, I tilled up the row up and planted another variety of sage. As the early spring turned into near summer, the June strawberries begin to be attention with their bright red offerings. As I picked them one dew-free morning, grass-like blades from beneath the nearby raspberry canes beckoned me. This confused me because I'd never had to weed grass out from under those mature brambles! Upon closer inspection later that day, I discovered where my chives had taken up residence- under the raspberries! Clump upon clump of the darkest green, fat threads of the onion herb greeted me. That was the very first year that my raspberry plants hadn't suffered any insect problems, too. Yes, I knew to leave well enough alone. During the following years, I never ran out of chives to fill my dehydrator for winter use and had the biggest, juiciest red raspberries I had ever seen. So, if any of your plants decide to grow elsewhere, why not let them take a hike and watch to see what happens? You, too, may experience something like this. But, then again, why not just go ahead and plant your chives under your berry bushes anyway? And, please let me know if your results were as good as mine! Also, should you want to learn more about companion planting, Storey Books www.storey.com offers some wonderful selections on this subject.

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