Companion Planting: Plant This With That
What I didn’t know when I first started gardening years ago is that there are absolutely some things that should never be planted together. Like keeping cucumbers and sage. Just don’t do it. At the time, I wasn’t familiar with companion planting. Companion planting is straightforward, simple, and incredibly efficient for that improves the health of your garden drastically. It brings an immense list of benefits if done correctly. Companion planting is the idea to plant two different plants or vegetables together that are compatible with each other. They will improve the health of the soil, keep pests away, or be advantageous in some other way.
The concept might seem uncertain at first but trust me when I say there are a lot of vegetables that compliment and complement each other well.
What plant goes with what?
Did you know that planting tomatoes with basil produces increased yields and keeps pests away. Peppers with basil keep mosquitoes and spider mites away. Read more here about the best companion planting.
- Tomatoes go best with basil, marigold, onions, lettuce, and spinach. They don’t go well with cabbage, beets, peas, and rosemary.
- Okra and lettuce pair well together. Okra can grow upward to 6 feet tall and shields lettuce greens from the sun.
- Peppers make perfect companions with basil, onions, tomatoes, and spinach.
- Peppers don’t make good friends with beans.
- Green beans make amazing companions with corn, broccoli, and other cabbages too.
- Make sure you don’t pair green beans with beets or onions.
- Pair cucumbers with marigolds, beans, radishes, and lettuce.
- Keep cucumbers away from sage.
- Onions are paired best with beets, cabbage, carrots, and lettuce.
- Onions don’t appreciate beans and peas as companions.
Benefits of companion planting
There are major advantages of companion planting should you hit the sweet spot.
- Reduced reliance on pesticides
- Better yields
- Better variety in your plants
- Enriched and fertilized soil
- Increased growth quality and pace
Companion planting is a fantastic way to introduce multiple plants in your gardening that can not only peacefully coexist with each other but be friends too. By being friends, we mean that plants can appreciate each other in terms of growth, soil, water, and keeping pests away.