Companion Planting
Companion planting, the growing of multiple types of plants in close proximity in order to capitalize on complementary growth patterns, offers a natural and ecologically sensitive way to increase the vitality and productivity of a garden.
As an alternative to chemical fertilizers and soil enrichments, companion planting offers a safe and effective way to optimize the yield of garden crops, a systematic approach to pest control, and a method of fostering the growth of young and tender plants. Practiced since the dawn of agriculture, partnering plants with complementary qualities and characteristics predates the use of modern, potentially harmful agricultural methods.
Companion planting schemes can function in a variety of ways. Gardeners use some plants for their physical qualities: tall stalks can provide shade for young seedlings or a bulky, dense plan can act as a decoy to prevent pests from devouring a food crop. Other plants figure into garden plans because of their helpful qualities, such as attracting desirable insect life or repelling species that can threaten vulnerable vegetables. Some inedible plants cultivated in gardens improve the soil for future use in producing foodstuffs. Charts and reference books provide time-tested pairings that can optimize the output of gardens of any size.
Developed over centuries by generations of farmers and perfected by today’s advanced farming techniques, companion planting provides a natural and effective way to maximize the output of crops by pairing plants with complementary growth patterns.
Companion planting FAQ
Common questions about companion planting answered
What is a companion planting chart?
A companion planting chart lists plants and partner plants with a variety of beneficial interactive properties. Gardeners can use these charts to create helpful pairings, which improve garden health and vitality.
Where can gardeners find information on companion plantings and companion planting charts?
Companion planting is now celebrated in many wonderful books as well as online in gardening specific websites. For free or very inexpensive resources on companion planting, consider contacting your local agricultural extension office. Often these offices have a wealth of information on companion planting and other gardening issues relevant to your community.
Where did the practice of companion planting begin?
Companion planting techniques have been developed through thousands of years of agriculture. Farmers found that certain plant combinations helped crops thrive and virtually eliminated harmful pests. These techniques, although partially lost due to the ease of chemical alternatives, made a resurgence in the 1960s and 70s.
Is companion planting just for the vegetable garden or can the technique and principles apply to the flower garden as well?
Companion planting works in any area of the garden where one would like to maximize yield, improve fertility, and discourage pests. These qualities, among others, make companion planting tactics a natural match for both vegetable and decorative gardens alike.
What is a cover crop?
A cover crop is a type of companion plant that is used primarily during a vegetable garden’s dormant season. Crops that thrive in cooler weather, like clover, will grow all fall and winter. Cover crops are tilled into garden soils just before spring planting. These plants increase the nitrogen levels in the garden as they decompose into the soil.
Can companion planting really help reduce harmful insect populations in my garden?
Companion planting is a proven technique for discouraging insects in the garden. In this age of agricultural-chemical innovations, it’s easy to forget that just 50 years ago farmers used companion planting techniques for pest control instead of toxic chemicals. Plants such as marigolds release biochemical scents both from its roots and leaves that drive off some potential garden pests. Try planting them in between garden rows for a powerful and pretty garden companion. Other plants can repel specific pests, such as beetles, nematodes, or even moles.
Does companion planting improve soil fertility?
Companion planting can absolutely improve soil fertility. Many companion plants are used for their ability to trap nitrogen. These little gems ensnare diffuse nitrogen in their roots, which can later be tilled into garden soils. This natural nitrogen enrichment is very important as vital nitrogen is constantly being leached from our garden soils by rainfall and as a result of irrigation.
What is a nurse crop?
A nurse crop is a secondary plant, which provides support to desirable garden crops. Nurse crops are a main component of good companion planting schemes. These plant materials work in several ways maximizing soil productivity, sheltering tender garden starts, and disorienting infiltrators.
What is a barrier crop?
Barrier crops are secondary plant materials used to divert insects from desirable plant materials. The gardener rarely consumes these secondary plantings. Instead they serve as decoys, protecting more attractive food sources by drawing insects and pests away from the protected crop.
How can companion plantings be used to make the most of the limited space in my small garden?
Companion plants work in tandem allowing the gardener to utilize every inch of garden space. For example, taller plantings, like sunflowers, can shelter tender fall vegetable starts like spinach. Another way to maximize space is to use tall plants as a trellis for climbing plants. Consider planting runner beans in corn to double crop yields.
Vegetable companion planting guide
Playing matchmaker in the garden
Companion planting provides gardeners with the means to naturally and effectively increase crop yields, control pests, and nurture tender seedlings. Over the last century, farmers, botanists, and horticulturists have developed a myriad of methods both chemical and procedural to make crops grow bigger, better, and cheaper than ever before. Unfortunately, many of these technological methods have hidden prices to pay. As opposed to chemical or industrial processes, companion planting provides greater efficiency without undesirable side effects, such as environmental degradation, a lowering of the nutritional value of crops, and harmful pesticide residues on the foods we eat.
Kicking it old school
Commercial techniques, such as the application of toxic insecticides and chemical fertilizers, have been powerfully beneficial in the past. Increasingly, awareness of the hidden costs of these agents has caused gardeners to take a look at the methods developed through the trial and error of the successive generations of organic farmers that came before. Companion planting figures prominently among the tools nearly lost to the rapid industrialization of farming. Vegetable companion planting is a form of polyculture, a simple combination of two or more plants to create a better microenvironment in which all vegetation can grow and thrive.
Pairing up
There are many benefits of companion planting, both in the vegetable garden and elsewhere. As in nature, companion planting creates biodiversity, avoiding the susceptibility of monoculture to both pests and disease. In its simplest application, just two crops are grown together. If one crop is at risk for disease, the second crop ensures that something will survive. This biodiversity-based concept can be used in tremendously sophisticated ways, plotting plant combinations with the aid of companion planting charts and elaborate garden plans. Vegetable companion planting can also be used in such a way that one crop physically supports another. This technique is most commonly seen with tall plants, like corn, supporting climbing vines like peas or beans. Companion planting techniques promote healthy soil, capitalize on all available space, and takes full advantage of every available day of the growing season.
Brains and beauty
Vegetable companion planting can also create a more beautiful vegetable patch. Simple, neat rows of tasty greens turn into an elegant and decorative potager when punctuated with blooming annuals and bright perennials. The classic tradition of the English cottage garden is part of this school of garden design. In these overflowing, abundant gardens every inch of space is maximized. Showy perennials are grown along equally architectural kales and wandering squash plants. For a more austere, but equally lovely kind of companion planting, turn to the French. In the French tradition vegetable gardens are planted within a ridged geometry of impeccably constructed beds. Inside these bed areas different plants live side-by-side, utilizing all the benefits of symbiotic planting.
Double down
Companion planting needn’t fall neatly into the categories of utilitarian or beautifying. Many garden favorites do double duty in the vegetable garden. For example, climbing roses growing lushly over a vegetable garden’s entrance keep hungry aphids off delicate starts. Nasturtiums are also decorative and functional plants in the ornamental vegetable garden. Their enchanting, bright blooms, made famous in the gardens of Monet, are attractive to many of the insects that also enjoy plants in the cabbage family. Since the nasturtium is notoriously prolific, it can withstand the onslaught of potentially harmful garden pests and still look great. The faithful marigold is another plant that is both charming and a powerful ally to the gardener. Marigold repels pests and attracts beneficial insects with its unusual scent.
Companion planting charts
Matches made in heaven
Companion planting charts help gardeners to plant crops that capitalize on the natural harmonies and relationships that occur between plant species. These charts, available from any number of websites, nurseries, and botanical books, provide lists of plants that grow well together. Companion planting schemes typically promise a means of pest control, the possibility of increased disease resistance for one or both plants and more abundant crop yields.
Industrial farmers and suburban gardeners alike can benefit from pairing plants with complementary growing patterns. Common techniques include the creation of green barriers between food crops and the insects that consume them; the use of helpful species to increase the nitrogen content of the soil, thereby reducing the need for chemical fertilizers; and the raising of nurse crops to protect newly sprouted plants. Certain combinations of plants allow farmers to create foodstuffs with maximum time efficiency, such as the combination of soybeans and corn common throughout the entire American Midwestern region.
Although certain plant pairings promote better growth and healthier soil, other combinations can result in unforeseen complications or undesirable competition. Most charts include information on these undesirable pairings, as well.
Vegetable medley
Many techniques and plant combinations already commonly used in gardening for aesthetic purposes could be considered forms of companion planting, although detailed charts also contain more exotic pairings. Nasturtium attracts caterpillars, so planting it alongside or around vegetables such as lettuce or cabbage protects the food crop. The nasturtium acts as a kind of decoy since the egg-laying insects will gravitate toward it and stay out of the vegetables. Crops that suffer from greenflies and other aphids may benefit from the proximity of marigolds: these flowering plants attract bugs that eat aphids, such as hoverflies.
In a similar manner, the use of plants that produce copious nectar and protein-rich pollen in a vegetable garden can support a population of beneficial insects to control pests. Some insects in the adult form are nectar or pollen feeders, while in the larval form they are voracious predators of pest insects. For this reason, roses are often grown around food plants, attracting a beneficial balance of harmful to helpful insects.
Another movement utilizing companion planting is that of the forest garden, where companion plants are intermingled to create an actual ecosystem, emulating the natural interaction of a multitude of distinct species. This system sacrifices some of the orderliness of a typical residential garden but produces a lush, wild beauty reminiscent of a true forest.
Fringe benefits
Companion plants provide many services to the plants they support, including:
- Flavor enhancement: Some plants, especially herbs, tend to subtly improve the flavor of other plants around them.
- Investment insurance: Multiple plants in the same space increase the odds of some yield being given, even if one category encounters catastrophic failure.
- Level interaction: Plants that grow on different physical levels in the same space can form ground cover or work as a trellis for another plant.
- Nitrogen fixation: Some plants naturally trap nitrogen in the soil, improving conditions for future crops.
- Pest suppression: Some plants naturally repel insects, nematodes, or fungi through chemical means, a protection that extends to other plants in close proximity.
- Positive hosting: These plants attract or house insects or other organisms that benefit plants, such as ladybugs, bees, or some desirable species of nematodes.
- Protective shelter: One plant type may serve as a windbreak, source of shade from noonday sun, or other physical aid for the growth of another.
- Trap Cropping: These plants draw insects away from plants commonly eaten by humans.