Companion Planting Vegetables; Vegetable Garden Companion Planting for Mutual Benefit

The best tips for companion planting vegetables in your garden. Learn which plants grow well together, and plant combination's to avoid for best gardening results.

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Companion planting vegetables can sometimes also offer protection for other plants. For example, plants sometimes need support to stand up to drying winds, fierce sunlight, or freezing temperatures.

Follow traditional vegetable gardening methods by companion planting your garden.

Russian Comfrey as a Companion Plant

Russian comfrey is effective mulch for a number of vegetables, and even better when made into liquid fertilizer.

Companion planting vegetables such as spinach and chard with this healing herb plant is superb for encouraging the vegetables' leaf growth because comfrey is packed with nitrogen, phosphorous, and high levels of potassium.

Tests have shown planting the herb to be superior to farm manure for mulching and fertilizing.

Companion planting vegetables with Russian comfrey is known to benefit potatoes, tomatoes, and pepper plants.

Bury comfrey leaves in the trench prior to planting potatoes to aid growth.

As a liquid, the cultivar is also good for tomatoes and peppers once the flowers have set.

Avoid applying it before then, or you will only encourage lush leaves at the expense of producing fruits.

Russian comfrey is a vigorous grower and can be harvested several times a season.

Another of its benefits is that it tolerates a semi-shady position and is quite attractive.

It makes a quality ground cover in the darker corners of your vegetable garden.

Comfrey can produce an ample supply for up to 25 years. It also attracts bumblebees.

If comfrey liquid has one shortcoming, it is that it absolutely stinks!

Vegetable Garden Companion Planting

There are many different companion planting vegetables combination's of plants that when grown in close proximity to each other are known to be mutually beneficial.

They attract helpful insects or deter unwanted pests.

Companion plants offer shade, loosen the soil, or simply enjoy the same growing conditions, which make vegetable gardening tasks more enjoyable for the gardener.

Marigolds are perhaps the best plant friend of the vegetable. They are especially inviting near potatoes, asparagus, tomatoes, and cabbage.

Other Vegetable Plant Companions That Go Well Together

Horseradish (yes, it's a vegetable!) is a pleasant neighbor for potatoes, cabbage, mint, parsley, and lavender.

On the downside, plant horseradish in a pot nearby or it will rampage through your vegetable plot like there is no tomorrow!

Vegetable Gardening Tips

Cabbage maggots will happily destroy your crop, if left free to pillage. You can stop the pests in their tracks without resorting to chemicals by adding chopped up rhubarb leaves to the cabbage hole before planting.

Organic controls for maggot infestation include:

• Dispose of infested plants.

• Do not compost the effected plant debris.

• Dust the plants with diatomaceous earth.

• Add beneficial nematodes to the soil.

• Release predatory beetles into the garden.

• Cover plants with row covers.

• Solarize infected garden beds, by covering with black plastic which will heat the soil.