I've been reading an interesting book by Suzanne Simard called Finding the Mother Tree. Suzanne was taking forestry and wanted to find a better way to plant trees on a clear cut. Suzanne's premise was that trees communicate and support one another. She created dozens of experiments and tests to show that trees do share and that nutrients pass from tree to tree. Therefore, certain trees and shrubs should be left to support the new seedlings. In other words foresters should not weed or spray other species. Foresters want trees that will grow and mature in a short time.
Foresters were not interested in Suzanne's new idea so she had a difficult time promoting her ideas.
She found that some trees need less nutrients at a certain time while others need more. She was able to prove that what was in one tree was later found in another tree. Some plants with deep roots spend the night bringing up water to the surface where other plants use the water in the day time. .
What really caught my eye is when she wandered off and used her forestry ideas to plant her vegetable garden. She made plate sized mounds and planted 5 or six different varieties of seeds in each mound thinking that the different varieties would support each other. Her garden was a series of small hills with a number of plants sown in each hill. Her garden thrived.
We can also go back to aboriginal gardens and find that they planted an number of seeds together in a hill.
It's good that we have people like Suzanne who are willing to work hard and show us new ideas,