I'll have to look into bird netting - you're right, pollination needs to happen for the strawberries, and row cover would cook them if it was too close over them.

I grow peppers and aubergine (eggplant) here, and they're a couple of my favorite crops. Last year I grew sweet banana peppers, poblano peppers (a well-flavored mildly hot pepper, as long as you remove the seeds) and green bell peppers. I've also grown jalapeno peppers, and would like to grow the Anahiem peppers (the sort that are the Hatch chiles in New Mexico).

I always grow the Black Beauty eggplant here, but have the Japanese variety. If you grow tomatoes and eggplant, I've been told that it's best not to have them too close together, but every year my tomatoes seem to sprawl all over the eggplants before the season is finished. It might be that you're not supposed to grow them where the other was grown the year before. Any of the rest of our gardeners hear anything about that, or is it an old wive's tale?

Last year I accidentally had sunflowers as companion plants, and I noticed they attracted a few of the pests that normally bother my eggplant (lace bug, in particular). Nice discovery! The sunflowers came from seeds that sprouted from the bird feeder up over the winter.

SRS