Learn which herbs, flowers, and root vegetables make the best and worst tomato companion plants.
What Are Companion Plants?
Companion plants are two different plants that create a synergistic relationship of mutual benefit when grown nearby.
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Companion plants also can be grown in succession (staggered crop plantings).
This jot down of gardening is also known as interplanting, intercropping, or creating a polyculture.
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What Are the Benefits of Companion Planting?
Enormously scented herbs may help repel insect pests, while flowers attract pollinators.
Tomatoes are self-fertile, so even without pollinators, they can produce fruit.
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However, they make a bigger harvest when pollinators are involved.
Low-growing herbs serve as living mulch and work well planted with tomatoes in pots.
Root crops help aerate the soil, allowing healthier tomato root development, while some repel small pests.
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Certain ornamentals even attract beneficial insects that prey on insect pests.
More often, a tomato companion is also harvested and edible.
Consider what your tomatoes need most and experiment with different companion plants to learn what gives the best results.
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It produces a natural fungicide that helps prevent early blight and botrytis.
Additionally, tomatoes produce solanine, which repels asparagus beetle.
It’s a perfect symbiotic relationship.
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Carrots
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Carrotsaerate the soil around tomato roots, contributing to better root health.
Short varieties work best, as longer carrot types may not reach full size.
Either way, the carrots are also edible.
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The bright orange and yellow flowers are edible and work nicely in salads.
They also help repel rabbits, aphids, flea beetles, nematodes, and corn earworms.
When allowed to flower, they attract pollinators, including butterflies, bees, and beneficial wasps.
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These peas are prolific producers, so you’ll probably still get a harvest.
Infestations can lead to crop loss, so pairing them with tomatoes may mean sacrificing this radish crop.
Its blooms attract pollinators, including butterflies and bumblebees.
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They also deter tomato hornworms and aphids and can serve as a trap crop for other pests.
The cheerful orange and yellow flowers are edible, adding a peppery flavor to salads.
They also attract pollinators and hoverflies, which feast on aphids.
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Both leaves and flowers add peppery flavor to fresh and cooked dishes.
The seed pod can be pickled as a substitute for capers.
This cool-season herb also repels the Colorado potato beetle, which arrives early in the garden.
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Fragrant and ediblecilantro are favored ingredientsin salsa.
Note that cilantro is a cool-season crop, while tomatoes are warm season.
It also serves as a shelter for ladybugs.
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Flowers attract pollinators, and edible foliage is an excellent pairing with Mediterranean dishes.
Parsley
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Flowering parsleyattracts ladybugs, a top consumer of aphids.
They also eat hornworm eggs.
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Parsley works as a living mulch for tomatoes and is an edible herb in various dishes.
It also grows well in pots.
Like cilantro, parsley is a cool-season crop.
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Let it go to flower when used as a companion plant to warm-season tomatoes.
It can be tilled under or worked into soil to replace depleted nitrogen.
This plant is a standard in permaculture and attracts pollinators.
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Since lavender needs dry, sandy soil, unlike tomatoes, it can be grown in pots nearby.
Many varieties are also visited by small birds who feed on insect pests in the garden.
Zinnias
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Zinniasbring more color to a garden than almost any other bloom.
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Pollinators and predators flock to these flowers in pinks, oranges, reds, purples, and yellows.
Its flowers attract predators like parasitic wasps, which eatpests such as aphids.
It comes in many varieties, including citrus-scented types.
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Active compounds in its essential oils repel ants, aphids, armyworms, grasshoppers, leafhoppers, and wireworms.
Blooms attract native pollinators and parasitic wasps that feed on hornworms.
Also, consider using plants that replenish the soil with nutrients (borage).
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Remember that the worst pairing for tomatoes is putting them near another plant that competes for its resources.
Gardening: Its a Risky Business.
Mississippi State University Extension.
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Colorado State University Extension.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension.
Early Blight in Potato.North Dakota State University.
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