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Our Spring 2026 Range Is Here!
4 For 3 On ALL Seeds
Our Spring 2026 Range Is Here!
4 For 3 On ALL Seeds
Our Spring 2026 Range Is Here!
4 For 3 On ALL Seeds
Our Spring 2026 Range Is Here!
4 For 3 On ALL Seeds
Our Spring 2026 Range Is Here!
4 For 3 On ALL Seeds
Our Spring 2026 Range Is Here!
4 For 3 On ALL Seeds
Our Spring 2026 Range Is Here!
4 For 3 On ALL Seeds
Our Spring 2026 Range Is Here!
4 For 3 On ALL Seeds
Our Spring 2026 Range Is Here!
4 For 3 On ALL Seeds
Our Spring 2026 Range Is Here!
4 For 3 On ALL Seeds
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Most gardeners start their polyculture journey without even knowing it: you’ve shaken a wildflower mix across your garden soil and are wondering if you did it right, or you’ve heard about multi-sowing vegetables but don’t quite know how it works. This guide explains when growing seeds together yields something productive, and why it has not gone quite right.
This is probably one of the most common questions in polyculture, and the honest answer is “it depends on what you're planting.”
Competition: You plant two pumpkins in the same hole, or two courgettes together. That’s not companion planting, it’s a battle between the two plants on your allotment. Both are heavy feeders, wanting the same water, nutrients, and soil depth; they gradually grind each other down, leaving you with two weak plants instead of one strong one.
Symbiosis: This is when planting two different seeds works well together. Sweetcorn, for example, sends roots straight down, whilst squash sprawls just beneath the surface. Grow them together, and they won’t interfere below ground, as the squash shades out weeds above it and the corn stands tall. Plants that occupy different soil layers, reach different heights, or peak at different times are natural companions.
Sowing a wildflower meadow mix is one of the most satisfying things in gardening, but it can also go wrong. Here’s how to avoid the common mistakes.
The Sand Trick: Before you open the packet, get a bucket of dry silver sand and mix the seeds through it. Now you can see what you’re sowing as pale sand shows up against dark soil, you can spread your throw evenly, and you won’t drop the whole lot in one corner. It also dials back the seed density, which wildflower mixes need. Scatter across the soil and rake lightly. Your newly sown patch will look rough for the first four weeks. Some people call this chaos gardening and embrace it; The slower species are taking their time, and by week eight, what looks like weeds will be cornflowers and poppies.
Borage and Field Poppies will self-seed everywhere, so expect them in your paving cracks and flowerbeds next spring. Deadhead before they set seed if you’d rather keep things in check. Fothergill’s wildflower meadow mixes are blended to RHS-recommended species ratios, so they are balanced, and one plant won’t muscle out the rest, which is a common problem with cheaper mixes.
Some crops love being planted and clumped together. Onions sown four to six per module will push each other aside as they bulk up, giving a cluster of decent bulbs from a single station. Beetroot might be the best multi-sow crop. If you grow three or four together, you can twist out the biggest first and let the smaller ones carry on, giving a staggered harvest from one sowing.
Mixed salad leaves are also made for this, and you can sow several varieties together and pick outer leaves as you need them, letting the rest grow. Radishes are equally easy in a clump, pulled progressively as they size up, so you have a succession.
The crops that won’t tolerate being planted together are carrots and parsnips, which need their space. Crowd them, and the roots twist around each other, forking into shapes that are more comic than edible, so they need thinning.
The Three Sisters of sweetcorn, beans and squash are a great example. Sweetcorn gives the beans something to climb, beans fix nitrogen that feeds the corn and squash, squash shades the ground to hold moisture and suppresses weeds. Three plants, three jobs, one bed, and it works.
Another method is Nurse cropping with radish and parsnip. Parsnip is a slow, unreliable germinator, and if you sow it alone, you’ll spend weeks staring at bare soil. Mix radish seeds into the same soil drill, and they’re up within a week, marking the row and loosening the surface for the parsnips behind. Pull the radishes five weeks later, and the parsnips are established and away growing.
You can also plant seeds together as companions for pest control. Marigolds near tomatoes confuse aphids and actively deter soil nematodes. Nasturtiums lure blackflies away from beans.
Spring, from March until May, is the main window for sowing wildflower mixes directly into prepared ground. For the nurse cropping method, get your radish and parsnip seeds in together as the soil warms. You can multi-sow beetroot and onions under cover from March, transplanting outside in late April.
For the Three Sisters method, we recommend early summer, so May or June for planting. Get your corn in first, plant beans at its base a fortnight later, and squash around the edges.
Late summer and autumn, August until October, is the ideal time for green manure mixes to protect empty beds through winter.
Once you understand the logic, different seeds, different jobs, and different timings, you start seeing good combinations everywhere with successful harvests and displays. Browse our Wildflower Seeds, Salad Leaf Mixes and Vegetable Seeds and see what wants to grow alongside what.
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