Modern Master Gardener types call it companion planting, but companion planting has been with us in accidental form for thousands of years.

“Weeds caught on a long time ago,” local grower Ben Oefinger said. “They learned they could grow equally well in a flower garden or vegetable garden.”

And where a weed will grow, there’s always a chance something of actual value could grow, too.

This will surely be one of the lecture topics at the Master Gardeners’ annual Plant Sale on April 9 at Cleburne Senior Center.

Companion planting is a fancy way to describe growing flowers and vegetables in the same plot of ground.

“Most people separate flower gardens and vegetable gardens,” Oefinger said. “The vegetable garden is behind the house, something the man of the family usually fools with. The flower garden is in front and something the woman of the house usually does. As long as the garden is in full sun, gets good drainage and has an adequate supply of water and nutrition, the soil doesn’t know whether it’s growing a vegetable or flower. The environment is good for either.

“There’s no reason you can’t plant flowers and vegetables together.”

The Oefinger family can actually prove this.

“My wife [Carla] decided last year that she likes squash so much that she wanted to grow it in the front flower beds,” Oefinger said. “She put some squash seeds in the beds, spaced them out, and we had squash all summer long. Every time she’d go out to get the mail, she’d check the squash plants. If they got to looking bad, she’d replant. We had squash into the fall, and they looked very pretty ... big green leaves and golden blossoms.

“Right now, we have potatoes growing in the front flower bed right next to the street.”

There would be no law against replacing a grass lawn with pansies, daisies, okra and peppers.

“If you have that big a space,” Oefinger mused, “why would you not plant melons, okra or even sweet corn? There are some things you could do with that big a space you couldn’t do with a small flower bed.”

The only problem with growing vegetables in a flower bed would be the occasional mistake of harvesting a flower instead of a vegetable.

“You don’t want to pull up a marigold thinking it’s a potato,” Oefinger said. “But these plants are very identifiable, especially the ones that bear above ground. Okra is a member of the hibiscus family, so they have beautiful flowers. They grow in the hottest part of the summer when nothing else will grow. They produce not only beautiful stalks and flowers but pods of okra.”

Some flowers benefit from vegetables if they’re planted together.

“For example, garlic planted around rose bushes is supposed to intensify the color of the rose blooms,” Oefinger said. “Garlic is a vegetable, and a rose is a flower. Tomatoes are bothered by spider mites. If you plant marigolds in the vicinity of the tomatoes, the marigolds will draw the spider mites away from the tomato plants.”

There are edible flowers, Oefinger said.

“Several are pansies and are blooming right now. You can take little viola flowers and dip them in a simple syrup and dust them in sugar and use them as garnish on a plate. There are all kinds of herbs that we eat. There’s a whole bunch of stuff that’s edible that they don’t serve at McDonald’s.”

Oefinger, who is a Master Gardener, is a master at answering questions about recognizing edible plants.

“The best way is to go on the computer and look at the different plants and what you can and can’t eat,” he said. “A man wouldn’t just want to go out and taste-test mushrooms, unless he had a string tied to him so they could pull his body back.

“For a long time, the tomato was considered to be a poisonous fruit, until somebody did some research and realized it could be eaten. There are vegetables that are poisonous to me personally. I’d rather eat a poisonous mushroom than a beet. But a lot of people will eat just about anything.”

Poke salad comes to mind.

“Poke salad is a wonderful plant,” Oefinger said. “I guess you could call it a vegetable, but it’s kind of a free-wheeler, like a long-lost cousin who shows up at your back door. A lot of older people have fond memories of eating poke salad. Just make sure that you pick the leaves when they’re young and fresh. And make sure you know the bush is poke salad and not something else.”

At the April 9 plant sale, copies of “The Vegetable Book: A Texan’s Guide to Gardening” by Sam Cotner are expected to be for sale. Oefinger is bullish on Cotner.

“At our demonstration garden, we’ve done exactly what the book says to do, and we’ve had very good results. Whatever you’re trying to grow, that book will tell you how to grow it.”