Companion planting- to do or not to do?

In my garden planning for this year, I'm trying to integrate the concept of Companion Planting. The organizer in me likes the idea of clean, straight row of plants, in beds organized by type, but the gardener side of me knows that companion planting can be beneficial to my plants, and is more in line with the concepts of permaculture. I'm currently reading a book on permaculture called, "Gaia's Garden", as well as "Carrots Love Tomatoes". Both of these have been really helpful places, and let's be honest- I'm probably going to make some stuff up anyway, regardless of what the books say.

There also is a concept out there called inter-planting, or inter-cropping, which is planting placement based on spacing efficiency- planting things with shallow roots next to deeply-rooted things, and making better use of you garden space. I think in the end, I'll probably come out with a combination of both. I haven't made much use of staggered planting dates in the past either, so I'll probably try some of that as well. It's hard, for some reason, to hold back and not start all of the tomatoes or onions at one time.

The in mean time, our seedlings are looking quite good! Most of the herbs are up, the Speckles lettuce is cute and speckled with purple flecks already, and we just potted up the kale today!