Gardening Companions
Updated: Jan. 18, 2011Are your tomatoes and cucumbers hanging out with the wrong crowd? Improve your garden with companion planting, the art of pairing up plants.
For those without a green thumb, companion planting is basically a method of growing plants together so that they will help each other in some way–be it by enhancing flavour, nourishing the soil, attracting beneficial insects or repelling pests and disease.
However, it’s more than just planting things that “like” each other close together, it’s also about learning basic guidelines for your garden.
| PLANT | FRIEND | FOE |
| Bush Beans/Pole Beans | carrots, celery, corn, cucumber, lettuce, radish peas | onions, sunflowers, tomatoes cabbage |
| Cabbage | Clover and beans give cabbage a nitrogen boost while nasturtiums help repel aphids. Mint repels cabbage butterflies. | tomatoes, peppers strawberries, pole beans runner beans |
| Carrots | Best Friend: Onions. They make carrots sweet and repel the carrot fly. Other friends: Pole/bush beans, lettuce, peas, radish, tomato and sage | dill, parsnip, radish |
| Corn | sunflowers, beans, peas, soybeans, squash, cucumbers, parsley, potato | tomato, celery |
| Cucumbers | pole/bush beans, corn, lettuce, onions, peas, radish, marigold, nasturtium, savory | garlic, tomato, sage |
| Lettuce | radish, kohlrabi, beans, carrots | celery, cabbage, cress, parsley |
| Onions | beets, cabbage, carrots, celery, cucumber, lettuce, pepper, squash, strawberries, tomato, savory | bush/pole beans, peas, soybeans |
| Peas | bush/pole beans, carrots, corn cucumber, radish, turnips | onions |
| Peppers | tomatoes, geraniums, petunias | beans, kale, cabbage, brussels sprouts |
| Tomato | Best Friend: Basil Other Friends: oregano, parsley, carrots, marigold, onions, celery, geraniums, petunias, nasturtiums | corn, fennel, peas, dill, potatoes, beetroot, cabbages, rosemary |
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