4 Companion Planting Tips For Beginners
Check out these beginner companion planting tips to help take your garden to the next level!
Whether you’re a new gardener trying to learn the basics, or you’re a seasoned green thumb looking to take you’re garden to the next level, companion planting will help you get there! It’s a concept that may seem intimidating at first (I’ve been there), but once you learn a few principles, it’s really quite simple. So my goal for this article is to give you a few quick tips to help you begin to utilize companion planting in your garden!
Check Out Our Companion Planting Video On YouTube!
But First, What is Companion Planting?
In simple terms, companion planting means planting two or more different types of plants in close proximity so they can benefit from each other in one way or another.
There are several different reasons for companion planting, for example, you may want to plant flowers with your vegetables to attract pollinators to your garden. On the other hand, you may choose to plant something that pests dislike so they stay away from your garden. Whatever the reason, it’s all about creating a symbiotic relationship among your plants. Let’s dig a little deeper with some specific companion planting examples that I like to utilize in my garden.
4 Reasons To Start Companion Planting
Here are four ways I utilize companion planting, and how they benefit my garden.
1. Companion Plant For Pest Deterrence
One of the most important reasons why I utilize companion planting in my garden is to deter pests from attacking my plants. There are a few different ways I do this.
First, I intersperse basil throughout my tomato plants because the strong aroma of basil does an excellent job of repelling tomato hornworms.
It’s also been suggested that companion planting basil with tomatoes increases the yield of tomato plants, as well as gives them a sweeter taste, though there is no real evidence to support this.
Similarly, marigolds also have pest repellent properties. I prevent cucumber beetles from attacking my squash and cucumber plants by companion planting marigolds all around them.
Finally, I plant radishes around the base of my squash plants because radishes do an excellent job of deterring squash borers. A handful of radishes in your squash bed will drastically reduce the risk of squash borers killing your squash.
2. Companion Planting Attracts Pollinators
Opposite of trying to repel garden pests, companion planting can also be utilized to attract pollinators to your garden. Marigolds serve double duty in this regard, especially varieties with open receptacles.
It’s also helpful to plant bee balm with your squash plants to reduce the risk of pollination issues. Since squash plants have incomplete blossoms, meaning they have separate male and female blossoms, it can sometimes be tricky to pollinate them. You may notice little squash fruits that grow a couple inches long, but then the blossom ends rot off and die. This is usually indicative of failure to pollinate. This is where beebalm comes in.
Attracting pollinators to your squash plants will help increase the chances of successful pollination, and improve your squash yield. Admittedly, I didn’t personally companion plant beebalm with my squash this year. Instead, I rely on hand pollinating my squash plants, which you can read more about with the link below!
How To Hand Pollinate Summer Squash
3. Companion Plant For Growing Conditions
Another way I utilize companion planting is to plant my peppers and eggplants together. Since peppers and eggplants are both members of the nightshade family, they both enjoy similar growing conditions. So it would make sense that they would grow well together in the same bed.
A word of caution though. There are times when you may want to avoid planting members of the same family together. An example of this would be the cucurbit family. The reason being is that certain diseases, like anthracnose for example, can spread from plant to plant even if they’re a different species.
So I try to put my watermelons, cucumbers, and summer squash all in different beds as a way to mitigate the spread of anthracnose, should an outbreak occur. Say my squash get hit with the fungus, hopefully it will be limited to just that bed, and my cucumbers and watermelons will remain safe and healthy.
This isn’t to say you CAN’T plant your cucurbits together, but it’s helpful to understand the risks when planning your garden layout.
4. Companion Planting Saves Space
Finally, companion planting is simply a great way to maximize the use of space in your garden. This is especially true when you have limited bed space available, like with raised beds. You may want to use the square-foot gardening method, which is essentially companion planting on steroids. This will help fit a bigger variety of vegetables into a relatively small space, so it helps to understand which fruits and vegetables grow well together and which ones you should avoid putting next to each other.
The link below is an excellent reference from Zone 3 Vegetable Gardening to help you determine what you should and should not companion plant!
Zone3 Vegetable Gardening- Companion Planting Reference Chart
Conclusion
Companion planting is one of those concepts that is actually quite easy and effective once you begin to understand why it’s beneficial. Hopefully this article gave you a little clarity on the topic. These examples are in no way comprehensive, so you can take the concepts and use them however they work best for your garden and the plants you’re growing.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email us, or reach out on Instagram.
Happy Gardening!
Cody
Thistle Downs Farm
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