By grouping compatible plants together in your garden, you can take advantage of how each plant helps another. Plants can be grouped together for improved flavor, better utilization of resources, better growth or pest deterrence. This practice is called companion planting.
Companions That Deter Pests
Some plants exhibit properties that repel pests. While several repel a single pest, some repel several. Nasturtium is said to repel whiteflies, aphids, cabbage moths, and squash bugs. Marigolds repel whiteflies, tomato hornworms, nematodes and Mexican bean beetles. Garlic helps with mites, Japanese beetles and aphids. Others act as a trap for pests. Dill seems to attract tomato hornworms from tomatoes, while white or pale colored flowers draw Japanese beetles like a magnet.
Crop Rotation
Another way companion planting helps in the garden is by planting crops in a different section of the garden each year. By growing the same crops in the same areas year after year, pests begin to establish themselves in that section of the garden. Corn grown in the same place each year will have growing problems with corn borers and earworms. By rotating crops, light feeders, such as legumes and root crops are planted in sections that grew heavy feeders, such as corn, squash and tomatoes.
Plants that Utilize Different Growth Zones
By planting low growing plants alongside tall growing plants, space can be better utilized. By growing cucumbers on a fence or trellis and planting bush beans on the sunny side of the cucumbers, each can be planted closer to each other. The beans only grow about a foot tall, while the cucumbers are growing tall on the fence. By planting chives around the base of fruit trees, the onion odor of chives deters insects from climbing the trunk of the tree. Different varieties of marigolds can be planted throughout your garden, since they range from a few inches to well over a foot tall.
Variety is the Objective
Be it folklore or fact, companion planting comes down to diversity. A garden that has more variety in the plants that are grown will fare far better than a one or two crop garden. Smaller amounts of a single crop provide less food for pests. Larger plantings of any one crop can be divided into smaller plantings so that pests have a harder time getting established.
Companion planting may do nothing more that give you a reason to be more observant of what is happening in your garden. By looking for tomato hornworms in your dill, you may find them before they can damage your tomatoes. Did the dill protect the tomatoes or did the dill cause you to be more observant?
Finally, remember that what works in your garden may not work in your neighbor’s.
Until next time, In Bocca Al Lupo!
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