We have our peas (sugar snap) and garlic about 6 feet apart and are growing tomatoes between them- and they are doing fine. I have stunted peas before when I stupidly didn't realize that chives were in the onion family :) I had one chive plant in the neighboring row and 4 of 6 of my neighboring pea vines were severely retarded. I've read that too much Nitrogen is very harmful to peas- they fix it in the soil- so they can be finicky and loose battles easily. That's why this year I put them at the far end of the garden. Also, this year I have had- so far- my most successful garden ever (I am a newbie- this is only my 3rd vegetable garden- so take that into consideration). The map I used to plot my garden was designed around companion planting. For every vegetable I planted, I planted a neighboring herb that promoted growth and an herb that acts as a pesticide. I placed herbs with short roots closer to long rooted vegetables, etc. For example: I have 4 tomato plants in a square 3 feet apart, bordered by marigolds on one side. Next to them (8 inches to the right) I planted camomile, to the left (8") I planted basil, and in the center I planted Borage. The borage will have to be kept under control and cut back in the summer, but it keeps tomato worms away and it has relatively short roots- while my tomatoes are all planted really deep. I know that in an intensive garden disease and pests become a problem quickly when the leaves touch so we cut our plants back when they start overlapping. We cut off the bottom stems of out tomatoes so that there is about 5-6" of space between the bottom of the plant and the ground. It's a big experiment at this point, but so far very successful. In 2 months my tomato plants are 3-4 feet tall and flowering, and the only pest we've dealt with has been cutworms eating the leaves (we corrected the problem with milk cartons around the base of the plants). This may be a little TMI :) As you can probably tell I am excited. Good luck with everything.

That's a great question. I think that since companion plants tend not to compete for nutrients or space it's ok to put them closer than you normally would, but at the same time be aware of one shading out the other. I planted tokyo cross turnips with baby bok choy. Instead of the 6 inches reccomended I spaced the turnips 3 inches apart, and put the baby bok choy in the spaces between the rows. Everything has turned out fine, although some of the more shaded plants were further behind and were harvested later. This will almost certainly not work as well with other plant types, so maybe you just need to experiment a little. My non-expert opinion is that you should fill in the gaps between rows, not individual plants in a row, but at the same time allow a little more space inbetween individual plants and rows. But once again, I'm no expert.

If I wanted to plant a mulberry where I was fearful of the damage caused by the root system, I'd keep it pruned small, either by training it to a weep or with relentless stubbing of new wood. Mulberries fruit young on this years wood so they can be controlled with some summer pruning. You have to be relentless, however. Root issues such as these are as linked to soil type as they are to species. In my soil the vigorous mulberry roots stay down.

A trough sink is also shallow, so I'd think the important thing to keep splashing down is to limit the flow of water. You can do that with a Tapmaster, while making it more convenient to use. (If you don't know it yet, it's much discussed here. You set the flow and temperature you want, then use the kickplate of the Tapmaster which has its own valves to turn it on and off at where you've set it.) Actually, the collected wisdom is that you'll also want a garbage disposal on your prep sink, and for that you might have to bring the sink away from the edge. If you're trying to save cabinet space, however, that may not be a consideration for you. If the trough doesn't work, you could also think about offsetting the 15" sink you were thinking about, instead of centering it. And you could even consider a 12" sink. That might not be big enough to clean a whole bunch of spinach, but would be fine for rinsing and peeling.