Accidental polyculture
While
weeding the mule garden this week, I discovered an unintentional
polyculture. I had pulled out all the seed potatoes from my fall
potato experiment because they weren't sprouting --- or so I
thought. It turns out that one potato was overlooked, and it
popped up between the leaves of a watermelon I'd planted at the end of
the bed.
Meanwhile, my primary
purpose for the bed was to plant fall carrots. I seeded three
different beds with carrots this summer, but very few seedlings
came up in two of the beds. However, in my polyculture bed, the
watermelon took off and ran across the carrot area, shading the soil
and retaining 
enough moisture for the seeds to sprout.
All three
vegetables seem to be growing quite happily together so far, though I
recently
moved the watermelon tendrils aside to give the baby carrots room to
grow.
In the interest of full
disclosure, I have to admit that the carrot seeds in the other beds may
have had shoddy germination rates because they were a different variety
than those sown in the polyculture bed. I usually have very good
luck with Jung's Sweetness hybrid carrots, but the pack this year seems
to have been a dud --- germination was low in our spring carrot bed
too. Next year, I might change my loyalties to one of the seed
companies recommended by Steve Solomon.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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i've had fantastic luck with Renee's Garden's 'Bolero' Nantes seeds. it's a company he talks about but does not outright recommend. of course our climates are very different. i'm in a zone 9. and you are in a 7? but i think you'd still do quite well with them.
all three other seeds i have purchased from them have been stunners as well. high germ. healthy, consistent plants. good/high yeilds.