The Ins and Outs of Intercropping with Denise Richter

The No-Till Flowers Podcast

Joining host Jennie Love on today's show is Denise Richter from Pistil & Stamen in New Orleans. On her small urban flower farm, Denise has had to get very clever over the years with intercropping to maximize the number of harvestable stems. In this conversation, we dive deep into intercropping as well as urban farming, managing super wet soils, and being a farmer florist.

Intercropping is the practice of planting two or more crops at the same time or in quick succession in the same bed space so they are growing together for at least part of their life cycles. This diversifies the types of roots down in the soil and maximizes space and photosynthesis above ground. Intercropping is a key practice to regenerative farming. It’s talked about a lot in the grazing and vegetable farming communities. But it really hasn’t caught on much yet in flower farming. Hopefully today's show will help change that!

Some of the intercropping pairings mentioned in this episode include:

- sunflowers + dahlias - stock + flowering cabbage + candy tuft - calendula + snapdragons - cardoons + iris - edible peas + dormant perennials - lisianthus + radishes - celosia + dormant ranunculus/anemones

Some seed sources mentioned were Baker Creek Seeds for purple-pod peas and Johnny's Selected Seeds for cover crop peas.

Denise also mentioned Floral Genius pin cups as her favorite design mechanic.

This show is brought to you by the Regenerative Flower Farmers Network (RFFN). Your membership in RFFN will go to support the making of more podcasts here on No-Till Flowers. Join RFFN today to read dozens of great articles on regenerative practices as they specifically relate to flower farming. On RFFN, you'll find more conversations about intercropping.

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