Companion planting in the vegetable garden: natural alliances for a healthy harvest
Companion planting is an age-old technique where you deliberately put plants next to each other because they reinforce each other. It is a smart way to make your vegetable garden healthier, more productive and sustainable, mostly without artificial pesticides or fertilisers. Companion planting differs from traditional single-crop gardening because it embraces natural diversity.
What exactly is companion planting?
With companion planting, you choose to deliberately plant certain crops next to each other to promote each other's growth, ward off pests or make better use of the soil. With non-promoting combination growing, you have the opposite effect. Companion planting is a wonderful way to naturally balance your vegetable garden. It takes some planning, but the rewards are great: healthier plants, fewer pests and a richer harvest.
In companion planting you look at the interrelationships between plants. Some plants help each other by:
- Repelling pests: Planting crops too close together is pernicious because they can compete for nutrients. But they can also protect each other. By smell, for instance, one plant can scare aphids or other pests away from the other.
- Sharing nutrients: Where one plant needs and gets certain nutrients from the soil, the other will release these nutrients to the soil. Beans and peas, for example, bind nitrogen from the air and release it to the soil.
- Improving flavour: You might not expect it but companion planting can actually improve the taste of your vegetables. Your strawberries, for example, will taste sweeter if they are next to garlic.
- Attracting beneficial insects: Certain insects you would rather not have in your vegetable garden, while others you would just as well. Ladybirds, for instance, eat harmful aphids. Dill also attracts beneficial insects that repel cabbage whites, protecting cabbages.
- Making the best use of space: Through combination cultivation, you allow 'compatible' plants to literally flourish. At the same time, this allows you to make the most of often limited space.
So if you put two good neighbours next to each other, they will stimulate each other's growth. But you also have to be careful. Some crops are better not put next to each other. There is a chance that neither crop will grow well. In any case, it is not a good idea to put plants too close together. They will then compete for light, nutrients and water. It is therefore extremely important to weed regularly. After all, weeds grow at lightning speed and before you know it, weeds have made off with all the vital nutrients.
Moreover, if you dedicate your entire vegetable garden to growing 1 type of vegetable, you extract a huge amount of the same nutrients from the soil. Eventually, this will make your soil unbalanced. A large area of 1 type of vegetable is also a veritable feast for pests and susceptible to disease. By creating a 'maze', you confuse pests. In any case, it is advisable to use crop rotation as well as companion planting. In this process, you let six types of crops move up a vegetable garden bed each year. Each type of crop extracts and adds certain nutrients from the soil. Thanks to this musical chairs of crops, you prevent soil fatigue, insect pests and diseases.
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Which crops do well in companion planting?
Carrot and onion is a very good combination in the vegetable garden. These plants support each other by keeping the other away from harmful flies. The scent of onion keeps the carrot fly away while the onion fly stays away from carrots.
Radishes have quite a strong flavour. Especially the juicy radishes from your own vegetable garden! If you don't like that, you can plant your radishes next to lettuce. The presence of lettuce makes your radishes taste softer.
The distinctive fragrance of African Marigolds keeps many harmful insects at bay. So it is absolutely advisable to plant a few of these flowers in your vegetable garden.
Another well-known combination are the so-called 'three sisters': maize, beans and pumpkin. The maize supports the climbing beans, while the beans extract nitrogen from the air and add it to the soil. This benefits the pumpkin. Incidentally, the pumpkin is a weedy weed that limits the growth of pesky weeds. This technique was already used by Native Americans.
Which crops are NOT to be put together
- Strawberries and cabbages: It's best to keep strawberry plants far away from your cabbages. This is because strawberries can attract white cabbage flies. These are very harmful to several cabbages.
- Potatoes and tomatoes: Both these crops are very susceptible to phytophtora or potato blight. This is a fungal disease that occurs especially in warm, wet weather. Do not put potatoes and tomatoes near each other. If your potatoes fall prey to potato blight, you can bet your tomatoes will also suffer or vice versa.
- Tomatoes and carrots: Tomato plants secrete a substance that inhibits the growth of carrots. So if you plant carrots next to tomatoes, you can forget about hoping for big roots at harvest time.
Tips for good companion planting
- Plan ahead: Make a cultivation plan that includes combinations and rotation.
- Mind space: Combine plants of different heights and root depths.
- Consider the amount of sunlight: Create a kind of 'heat map' of your vegetable garden where you map the amount of sunlight for each plot. Don't put crops that need a lot of sunlight next to crops that need less sunlight.
- Experiment: Every garden is different - try out combinations and keep track of what works and what doesn't.
- Use flowers: Don't limit yourself to combinations of vegetables. Marigolds and nasturtiums attract beneficial insects and repel pests.
Want to know more about vegetable gardening? Be sure to read these tips!
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