Interplanting Vegetables: Root Depth, Plant Height

Interplanting is a growing method that will allow you to fit more vegetable plants in a single planting bed. It is a way to increase your crop yield. Interplanting is also called intercropping.

Interplanting is often used in intensive vegetable gardening where an effort is made to use all available space in the growing area–the counter point to single row planting which requires the most cropping space since the space between rows goes unplanted. (In intensive gardening you can space plants individually equidistance apart or in wide rows–several plants across a row to as much as 4 feet wide.)

There are several ways to interplant your crops. You can grow fast-maturing plants, such as radishes, between slower growing ones, say chard. The radishes will be ready for harvest before the chard begins to mature and requires more space to spread out. This way of interplanting borders on succession cropping–bringing one crop to harvest after another keeping the planting bed productive all season.

You can also interplant crops with different growing habits, tall crops near short ones, or deep-rooted with shallow-rooted. Crops interplanted by growing habit can be set equidistant according to their size (height and breadth or root depth) at maturity; or they can be planted in their own alternate rows in a wide bed.

Interplanting requires planning. You need to know the days to maturity for each crop and its height and breadth at maturity or its root depth at maturity. Do some planning on paper once you have decided on the crops you will be growing this season.

To assist your planning here are two charts that might help: one for plant height at maturity, one for rooting depth:

Root Depth

Shallow Rooting (18 to 36 inches)	Medium Rooting (36 to 48 inches)	Deep Rooting (more than 48 inches)
Broccoli	Beans, snap	Artichokes
Brussels sprouts	Beets	Asparagus
Cabbage	Carrots	Beans, lima
Cauliflower	Chard	Parsnips
Celery	Cucumbers	Pumpkins
Chinese cabbage	Eggplant	Squash, winter
Corn	Peas	Sweet potatoes
Endive	Peppers	Tomatoes
Garlic	Rutabagas
Leeks	Squash, summer
Lettuce	Turnips
Onions
Potatoes
Radishes
Spinach

Plant Height

Tall	Medium	Short
Beans, pole	Anise	Basil
Broccoli	Artichokes	Beets
Corn, sweet	Broccoli	Borage
Fennel	Brussels sprouts	Cabbage
Mustard	Lemon balm	Caraway
Okra	Beans, bush	Carrots
Peas	Broccoli	Cauliflower
Sunchokes	Brussels sprouts	Celery
Tomatoes	Cardoon	Chervil
	Chard	Chives
	Chinese cabbage	Corn salad
	Collards	Dandelion
	Coriander	Endive
	Cucumber	Garlic
	Dill	Kale, dwarf
	Eggplant	Kohlrabi
	Hyssop	Leeks
	Kale, curled	Lettuce
	Lavender	Onions
	Marjoram	Parsley
	Peas, dwarf	Parsnips
	Peppers	Radishes
	Potatoes	Rutabaga
	Pumpkins	Savory
	Rhubarb	Thyme
	Sage	Turnips
	Spinach
	Squash
	Sweet potatoes