What follows bulbs
Jane McGary (Sat, 14 Aug 2004 15:33:15 PDT)

This is a new topic that we've probably had some time ago, but I was
inspired to reintroduce it by Jim McKenney's suggestion that there is a
polarity in gardening with rare bulbs at one end and tomatoes at the other.

I have a large crescent-shaped border by my driveway that is packed with
winter-to-spring bulbs, and I'm always looking for things that will follow
the bulbs and flower through summer without needing supplemental water that
would harm the bulbs. The past couple of years I've been direct-sowing
various annuals there to see what will happen.

Some good results have been had with annual poppies (Shirley and
somniferum), Convolvulus tricolor, the new color strains of Calendula,
Campanula incurva (a sort of prostrate Canterbury bells), and Antirrhinum
braun-blanquetii (no doubt other Antirrhinum species would also do well).
This year I sowed a bunch of seed that had been stored in a box in the
refrigerator and for some reason dumped in a packet of tomato seed. To my
surprise, the tomatoes germinated and grew on through several frosts, and
now they're flowering and setting fruit. Although tomatoes are ordinarily
thought of as liking lots of irrigation, these must be flourishing because
of the deep sand-and-gravel mulch on the bed. And, of course, the nutrient
preferences of tomatoes and bulbs are similar: low nitrogen, high
phosphorus and potassium.

Thus, no polarization: you can grow tulips in spring and food in summer in
the same place, and you need not depend on the "Master Gardeners" among
your acquaintance for tomatoes.

I will admit that my normal tomato patch is in the vegetable garden, which
is off out of sight of the ornamental garden and is indeed a bare tilled
plot in winter, except for the leeks and other vegetables that keep in the
ground here.

What plants -- ornamental or edible -- do others sow over their bulb beds?

Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon, USA