Planting compatible vegetables is a gardener's secret to a successful harvest.
Grow your own vegetables to add healthful and fresh produce to your menu and take advantage of compatible plants that increase each other's yield. Tall corn shades lettuce or spinach and fast-growing lettuce leaves room for slower-growing tomatoes later in the season. Compatible plants repel pests and attract beneficial ones, use your space more efficiently and reduce your workload. Does this Spark an idea?
Compatible
Asparagus produces bumper crops when planted close to basil, tomatoes and parsley. Onions and garlic grow well with beets, carrots, lettuce and parsley, while potatoes like beans, corn, eggplant and cabbage. Carrots, turnips, cabbage, corn and beans go well with peas while tomatoes like celery, asparagus, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, chives, parsley and carrots.
Grow lettuce with strawberries, radish, onions, carrots and cucumbers for best results. Beans, peas, radish and corn grow well with cucumbers. Celery, potatoes, corn and cucumber benefit bush beans while celery is compatible with onion, beans, tomatoes and the cabbage family.
Antagonists
Group compatible plants for their benefits but beware that some plants can cause damage. Brassicas (cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, kale and kohlrabi) are visibly dwarfed when grown with tomatoes, strawberries or pole beans. Tomatoes don't like corn, cabbage, potatoes or fennel. Onions, chives and garlic shouldn't be grown near peas or bush beans and keep potatoes away from cucumbers, pumpkins, squash and tomatoes.
Pest Defense
Companion plants don't just benefit each other's growth, they repel pests to keep each other healthy. Chives repel aphids and spider mites. Mix eggplants, snap beans, basil and horseradish among your potatoes to repel the Colorado potato beetle. Tomatoes and peppers also repel the potato bug.
Tomato plants keep the asparagus beetle from feasting on asparagus while asparagus plants kill the nematodes that feed on tomatoes. Plant tomatoes, onions, garlic and sage around cabbage to deter the devastation from cabbage worms in cool climate zones north of Pennsylvania. Draw potato bugs away from your spuds by attracting them to eggplants.
Flower Power
Flowers add color to your garden, help your vegetables grow and keep plants healthy by repelling pests in a process called Edible Landscaping.
Put marigolds near tomatoes to repel aphids, which would otherwise suck the life out of the tomato fruits. Marigolds, along with radishes and nasturtiums, keep squash bugs away from vine vegetables like pumpkins, cucumbers and squash. Larkspur poisons Japanese beetles that prey on corn, asparagus and rhubarb. These beetles also avoid the odor of geraniums. Put peppermint in pots around your garden to reduce aphids and repel ants, cabbage moths and spider mites. Peppermint is an invasive herb, so contain it in pots while enjoying its refreshing flavor. Nasturtiums attract aphids and flea beetles. Plant a bunch to draw these away from your tomatoes.
