garden. A boundary of nettle will also discourage inquisitive animals. You might also make a tea of nettle and spray it on your plants as a foliar fertilizer, or pour it on the garden. The same can be done with yarrow but yarrow plants are much easier to manage and can be planted direct into the garden. Yarrow can also be used to make a lawn. Just mow or walk on and it will grow in a prostrate form. There are many plants that can be used as companions, look at companion planting guides. Alfalfa and white clover are good plants that fix nitrogen into the soil. Plant thickhead seed (crassocephallum crepidioides), when planting vegetable seed, so that they come up together. Seedlings in pots will grow faster when accompanied by thickhead. Companion plants and weeds can also behave as decoy plants, that is, some insects will prefer to feed on them rather than attacking the vegetables. Flowering weeds and companion plants also attract bees and other pollinating insects to the garden. Aromatic herbs like lemon basil and lemon grass also make good companions and may lend their flavors to other herbs. Comfrey is also a good companion plant and is known as a compost activator. Some plants are anti-companions. Rue, fennel and gotu kola are anti-companions to some plants. Gotu kola is fine growing around the bananas and taro. All you need to do to manage companion plants is bend them over and away from your vegetables and clip them down when they start getting too big. Mulch in the clippings which means scatter them under the plants left behind. Perhaps the best way of growing a garden of herbs and vegetables would be in a large, diverse and chaotic garden mixed with wild plants and ornamentals.
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