The deeper I get into growing a garden, the more I am intrigued with the idea of companion planting. Therefore, in this post I will go over a brief summary of what I have learned so far. If this is something you are really interested in, I recommend the book, Carrots Love Tomatoes by Louise Riotte. You can find it on Amazon. It has a wealth of information.
What is companion planting
Companion planting is where you place certain plants together and keep others away. As you place certain plants together they thrive and become beneficial to each other. Some even naturally repel insects and become the healthy and happy plants you are reaching for. Some plants, if placed together, can compete and will not grow as well, they can struggle to give you the harvest you were hoping for.
In this post, I will go over the vegetables and flowers we are going to be planting in 2021. You can visit my other posts about planning out our 2021 Gardens HERE.
Here is what we are planting
- BROCCOLI: Some friends of broccoli include aromatic herbs, potatoes and onions. They dislike pole beans, strawberries and tomatoes.
- CARROTS: Onions and herbs help repel certain insects that feed on carrots. As I mentioned above, carrots and pole beans get along great and are very beneficial to each other.
- Celery: Friends of celery include tomatoes, bush beans, cabbage and cauliflower.
- CORN: A family favorite in our family is sweet corn. Sweet corn does great with cucumbers, beans, potatoes, peas and squash. I plant Marigolds near our corn to help repel insects. It is important to keep your corn and your tomatoes a good distance away. With your corn, plant them close to sunflowers.
- CUCUMBERS: In general, cucumbers do well with beans, peas and sunflowers and they also thrive with radishes. Two plants that cucumbers really dislike is potatoes and aromatic herbs. I usually plant my cucumbers in a total different bed, far away from both of these.
- ONIONS: Onions like strawberries, the cabbages, tomatoes, lettuce and beets. Keep a distance from peas and beans, as they work against each other.
- PEAS: Plant peas with carrots, cucumbers, corn, beans, radishes and potatoes. Keep away from onions and garlic.
- PUMPKINS: Pumpkins and corn thrive together. Keep away from potatoes.
- TOMATOES: Keep your tomatoes away from the cabbages and potatoes. Tomatoes do well with chives, onions, garlic and carrots. Some flowers you can plant with tomatoes to help repel certain insects are Marigold and Nasturtium.
- BEANS: Pole beans and carrots thrive when planted together. With this in mind, as you draw out your garden plans, leave room by your beans for your carrots. I always plant Marigolds around the bases of my beans. It helps repel the beetles that attack the beans.
Planning our your gardens
After I have sat down and planned out our gardens on paper, I grab the book I mentioned above and see if I need to move any plants around. I want them to be healthy and happy. If they are not healthy and happy, it will affect my harvest size.
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