Friends help friends germinate

So this week's post is on proper transplanting. Since it isn't quite ready to be posted though, I decided to share a fun piece of gardening science that just came out this week. This is from a scientific paper published by Monica Gagliano and Michael Renton in the open access (which means anyone can access it) journal BMC. In case you don't want to read the full story, here is the synopsis: some plant species promote the germination of other plant species. That's right, planting certain species together might actually improve your germination. 

Garden lore and tradition is full of tips and tricks, but isn't it nice to know there is more than tradition and lore to some of these things? In this study, the authors looked at the germination of chile peppers when planted with chile peppers and basil. Surprisingly, pepper seeds germinated better when a basil plant was planted near them. Chile peppers also germinated slightly better when adult pepper plants were nearby.

This work was all done in a controlled environment (e.g. not a garden plot), but as the authors say, this validates claims by gardeners that basil helps chile peppers grow better. It might be a little late for this year, but this gardener is definitely going to give it a shot with her basil and chiles.