Another exercise in what not to do - I made a half hearted attempt at companion planting a few tobacco plants among some corn, cucumber, squash, and sunflower. My hopes were the tobacco plants might keep down the squash borers a little. Nothing in the cucurbit family survives the squash borers in our area for long unless they are sprayed with pesticide.
The only ground prep was laying a very thin layer of compost down (no tilling in our hard clay) and covering it with a layer of cardboard to keep the grass down. I was curious to see how our plain soil would do even though I had a pretty good idea of what would happen. The cucumbers grown in the background of the pic are growing in an open bottomed planter box filled with compost. The cucumbers have been productive, the 2 sunflowers mehh, the corn nada (as expected), the squash with nothing yet and one plant killed by borers. Summary tobacco companion planting didn't seem to deter borers and soil prep helps... I should have bet money on that outcome.
My other garden is in the top left corner (not very visible) The tomatoes produced mediocre early in the season and are starting to cut out now and get diseased (like every year by now). The bell peppers have been doing ok and the hot peppers are starting to produce. Other herbs, tomatillos, squash , carrots and the obligatory tobacco plant also inhabit the garden. The first batch of garden salsa was made last week (onions and cilantro were unfortunately store bought). We are a long way from self sufficiency, but live about a mile away from Walmart