Companion Planting

[fuzzi]

Oh I didn't know that about the flavor. That's a bonus! My tomatoes do always taste great.

And sounds like you have a great setup! I actually just bought some borage seeds yesterday, so I'm going to plant that as well. I forget why I read those are good to plant in the veggie garden, but they are. At the very least, they will attract pollinators.

Good luck with your veggies! They look great.

Borage is a bee magnet.

And thanks.

 

[Sally PB]

Borage is a good companion for tomatoes and strawberries. Marigolds help to deter pests; I didn't have any soldier beetle issues after I started putting marigolds around the tomatoes.

Japanese Beetles LOVED the marigold flowers. Which is ok, because I catch JBs to feed the chickens. I stopped by the tomatoes every day and caught a bunch of "bug snack."

 

[Tahai]

Basil helps tomatoes ripen earlier. That's the main reason you plant them together. Basil gives off ethylene gas, so plant it next to anything you want to ripen faster. I'm in upstate PA and many years the frost comes before the tomatoes ripen, so any extra help is good.

All varieties of radish work to control squash and cucumber bugs, but you have to let them go to flower. The flowers attract a parasitic wasp that lays its eggs on the bugs.

For this to work, you should plant your radishes early so they are close to flowering when you put your cukes and zukes out. A radish gone to flower is a big rambling thing. One radish per 3 or 4 cukes or squash should be plenty. Keep reseeding your radishes all summer so when th first flowering one Peter's out, you'll have another one ready to take its place.

You can pull the finished radish out and compost it, or you can leave it in place to go to seed. The radish is unpalatable once it flowers.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

Basil helps tomatoes ripen earlier. That's the main reason you plant them together. Basil gives off ethylene gas, so plant it next to anything you want to ripen faster. I'm in upstate PA and many years the frost comes before the tomatoes ripen, so any extra help is good.

All varieties of radish work to control squash and cucumber bugs, but you have to let them go to flower. The flowers attract a parasitic wasp that lays its eggs on the bugs.

For this to work, you should plant your radishes early so they are close to flowering when you put your cukes and zukes out. A radish gone to flower is a big rambling thing. One radish per 3 or 4 cukes or squash should be plenty. Keep reseeding your radishes all summer so when th first flowering one Peter's out, you'll have another one ready to take its place.

You can pull the finished radish out and compost it, or you can leave it in place to go to seed. The radish is unpalatable once it flowers.

Wow good to know! Thank you!

 

[Sally PB]

Basil helps tomatoes ripen earlier. That's the main reason you plant them together. Basil gives off ethylene gas, so plant it next to anything you want to ripen faster. I'm in upstate PA and many years the frost comes before the tomatoes ripen, so any extra help is good.

Aha! I didn't know that! Very interesting. Thank you.

You can pull the finished radish out and compost it, or you can leave it in place to go to seed. The radish is unpalatable once it flowers.

The entire radish plant is edible. I've read of people pickling the seed pod before it gets tough. I ate a seed pod when I was out in the garden... not bad. Tastes like a radish.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

Aha! I didn't know that! Very interesting. Thank you.

The entire radish plant is edible. I've read of people pickling the seed pod before it gets tough. I ate a seed pod when I was out in the garden... not bad. Tastes like a radish.

People sell radish sprouts (and others) for good money! They sell them as "microgreens" to mostly upscale restaurants. They are tasty and I clean them up and add them to my salad when I thin my radishes. But I just think it's crazy how much people pay for those in the food industry. Delicious, but cost way less to produce than they are often sold for haha.

 

[PopoMyers]

Thanks for the advice everyone!
@Acre4Me , yes, as I am also in Ohio I can certainly see the importance of keeping your pepper plants completely exposed to the sunlight, in this region anyway!

OK, so Basil and Tomatoes, Tomatoes and Carrots, Icicle Radish and Cucumbers, Pinto Beans and Turtle Beans near heavy nitrogen feeders, Onions and Garlic away from Beans and Peas.
And, upon our own observation, Onions near Broccoli.

Lettuce and onions, lettuce and beets, lettuce or greens and peas, the 3 sisters (corn, pole beans, pumpkins or winter squash)

 

[GooseInGarden]

We are trying out more companion planting this year as well, and have had some sucess in the past.

Strawberries and Asparagus do well together, and since their root systems are at different depths, they don't compete. It's pretty easy to separate when thinning asparagus too.

My mom used to run a garden a couple acres big, and they would intersperse marigolds and dill through plants for pests and pollinators. I have heard that planting a border of marigolds around your garden will create a wall against pests. It's a pretty old technique.

An app that might be interesting to check out is Planter. They have beneficial plant combos and hostile plant relationships built into it, as well as explanations for them.

Seed Savers is also a good source for information. I think they have info on plant relationships, but I haven't looked for a while.

 

[MrsNorthie]

I am from Vermont, we had great soil and only add fresh cow manure from our lovely ladies, tilled it in then planted stuff and had an amazing amount of fresh veggies all summer and canned and frozen veg all winter, then I moved to Phoenix via NYC, where I lived for years, so I did not have a garden for 20 years. We bought a little property in South Carolina out in the country and we put in a garden the first year we were here, it was pretty poor the first year a lot of work and wasted money. LOL I found a lot of sites like: https://www.almanac.com/companion-planting-guide-vegetables to be really helpful.


Our soil was not the best so we started composting immediately to great effect, and we are getting older, so we built raised beds. We did "Lasagna gardening" layered cardboard, tree limbs from tree trimming, we made a vent tube with chicken wire so that we could feed additional composting material down to the bottom layer (this is meant to replenish the nutrients in your soil, then added compost, top soil, and good soil. The garden output improved but was still not great. We plant marigolds and other pollinators in and around all the beds.

Last year, we found out about companion planting and started with the 3-sisters (Sweet corn, zucchini and green beans.), this worked great, we actually had enough corn to freeze some. This year, every thing has a companion and our garden has really taken off.

 

[Birdsonghill]

Lettuce seems to thrive for me grown between a double row of onions or especially garlic! The compost I spread between the rows of garlic probably is the main reason the lettuce does so well but the rows without the garlic or onions never seem to be quite the equal. I never seem to have insect problems on that lettuce. I also use light weight row covers and that is helpful for lettuce and many other crops here year round, for both weather and insect protection.