Companion planting for your vegetable garden

Companion planting is a method to protect your crops in a number of different ways. It also helps attract pollination insects to ensure crops are pollinated at the flowering stage

In the GardenAdvice vegetable garden we use sweet peas, calendula and nasturtium.

Notes on companion planting

There are many benefits to companion planting. For instance, tomatoes taste better when planted together with basil. Similarly, harvesting them to make a lovely salad is easy because they are located next to each other.

What are some of the other additional benefits?

Companion planting should remove the need for chemical controls

Companion planting is a traditional art that needs a lot of planning, but this is worth it, as it will help you have a good harvest. Using the three sisters method that we’ve already mentioned, you can plant corn for trellises, and after the corn has grown to just a few inches, you can add the beans and squash.

Here, the bean seeds feed the corn with nitrogen and provide shade for the roots. The corn, on the other hand, provides them with something easy for climbing. It repels pests and encourages growth!

Companion planting supports plant diversity that is beneficial to the soil, the ecosystem, and the gardener. Plant diversity provides insect diversity and decreases the number of parasites in your garden.

Higher crop production

Companion planting assists in pollination and controlling pests and helps you make the best use of your gardening space. All of these factors eventually go a long way in increasing your crop productivity. Nowadays, most large-scale farms grow plants in a mono-crop type of system. This means that you’ll probably find large tracts of fields containing only a single crop.

Apparently, it’s easier to water and care for the plants in such a system, but you’d have to use many chemicals to control the pests. Let’s use the example of tomatoes. Here, every tomato hornworm in the area will be attracted to your farm. However, if you plant them with lettuce, you’ll experience some exciting findings. The tomato offers the right amount of shade for the salad, while the latter repels all tomato pests.