Vegetable garden · time · space
Vegetable Garden Companion Planner.
Design a garden bed by season, climate, water and goal. Receive a companion-planting hypothesis with lines, reference spacing, succession and points to confirm in the field.
How to use it
Drawing is the start.
The site decides.
The profiles summarise climatic contrasts in mainland Portugal; they do not replace a nearby weather station or the observation of each bed. Altitude, topography, coastal influence and local frost can change the hypothesis.
Spacing is a reference range. Final density depends on cultivar, soil, irrigation, planting date, wind, shade and management.
A consortium is not a list of “companion plants”. It is a hypothesis for using space and time: the alternatives in each role are choices, not crops to add together; early crops must be harvested or thinned before they compete for light and water.
The method applies useful syntropic-garden principles — covered soil, short succession, functional stratification and opening space through harvest or thinning — but it is not, by itself, a complete syntropic system, which includes perennial succession, perennial strata and continuous biomass management.
It also does not replace permaculture-scale site design: use zones, wind and fire sectors, water source and storage, access, slope and soil must be read before establishing the garden.