Companion planting sunflowers with cukes & cranberry beans

Hi Marianne,
I’ve been rotating vegs in 40 sq ft beds (4×10) for a few years and I’m getting a little bored so I want to try some “companion planting” to make my garden more interesting – maybe even add some flowers to attract pollinators, as well as the eye. My problem is there is so much “information” online, much of it conflicting, that I get confused but this is what I’m thinking…
Instead of a solid bed of squash and cucumbers sprawling over the ground, I’ve been thinking of combining them with sunflowers and cranberry beans. I’ve been reading about Three sisters gardens and I like the idea of crops helping each other – beans climbing up the sunflowers and the cukes shading the soil keeping down weeds. It being the first week of July, I hope it’s not too late for the sunflowers and beans (I usually plant cukes later as it seems to avoid the beetle problem). I’m thinking of planting the sunflowers down the center of the (north-south) beds spaced at 18″ with a bean planted at the base of each one, and 3 cuke plants on each edge spaced at 3 ft. Does this sound like too much? I amend the raised beds with compost yearly and grow a winter cover crop of rye and vetch so the soil looks pretty good.
How does that sound? Should I wait and get an earlier start next year? Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Lou

Posted by Louis Slosar on July 6, 2018