Don’t Plant Tomatoes Alone: 15 Companion Plants For Your Tomatoes
Companion planting is the practice of planting specific crops close to each other to enhance nutrient uptake, provide pest control, encourage pollination, and increase crop production.
What Are Companion Plants?
Companion plants are two different types of plants that, when grown in close proximity, create a synergistic relationship of mutual benefit. In some cases, one type of plant may be used as a companion to enhance the growth and health of a main crop.
Companion plants also can be grown in succession (staggered crop plantings). This type of gardening is also known as interplanting, intercropping, or creating a polyculture.
What Are the Benefits of Companion Planting?
Plenty of companion plants offer multiple benefits for tomatoes, such as repelling pests, aerating soil, and attracting beneficial insects. Before adding companion plants, make sure they flourish in the same garden conditions as tomatoes: full sun and rich, well-drained soil.
- Efficiently use available space
- Improve soil
- Organic insect and disease controls
- Living mulch as sustainable weed control
- Attract pollinators
- Improve health of one or both plants
- Provide a second edible crop
Consider what your tomatoes need most and experiment with different companion plants to learn what gives the best results.
There is 15 kinds of tomatoes companion plants we will for you!
Alyssum
This plant will be covered with white flowers that will provide a food source for parasitic wasps. These wasps are important in the control of aphids. Alyssum grows in a mound form covering the ground and providing protection for the soil from water evaporation.
Marigolds
These flowers have been grown with tomatoes for years as gardeners believed that the marigolds deterred harmful insects. Recent studies have confirmed that the gardeners were right. Marigolds are particularly good at controlling whiteflies.
Sunflowers
These plants are great for attracting pollinators. The bees will be in your garden for the sunflowers and then will also benefit the tomatoes and other vegetables.
Zinnias
Zinnias add pops of color to your garden and bring in the pollinators. Because Zinnias have such strong stems, butterflies also enjoy landing on these flowers.
Basil
Since a lot of dishes that include tomatoes also use basil for seasoning, it seems like they should be grown together in the garden as well. Many gardeners believe that basil grown as a companion plant will enhance the flavor of the tomatoes.
Oregano
This herb, when allowed to flower, will attract lots of beneficial insects and pollinators to your garden. Harvest oregano for your own supply but allow some plants to go to flower in your tomato garden to feed the beneficial insects.
Nasturtiums
These cheerful, easy to grow flowers have a reputation of attracting aphids and other pests away from your tomatoes. Nasturtiums also will attract pollinators with their flowers. Those nasturtium flowers are also edible. Simply pinch off the flowers and add to a salad or other dishes for a peppery flavor.
Calendula
Sometimes known as a Pot Marigold, this plant will attract pollinators with its daisy-like flowers in shades of oranges and yellows. Many gardeners also believe Calendula will deter pest insects while attracting desired insects.
Calendula contains powerful anti-inflammatory properties. The flower petals are used in salves to soothe minor scrapes or burns. The petals are also edible.
Borage
This is an herb that has edible leaves and purple flowers which have a mild flavor of cucumber. Many gardeners believe borage deters the tomato hornworm when they grow borage between their tomato plants.
The borage flowers are very attractive to pollinators, and you will have lots of bees to pollinate both the borage and your tomatoes.
Thyme
This is a great choice as a tomato companion plant if you have a problem with yellow striped armyworms in your garden. Studies have shown that planting thyme in and around your tomato garden will result in lowering the rate of egg laying by the adult armyworms.
Thyme also will carpet the ground providing a living mulch around the tomato plants much like the alyssum mentioned earlier. However, remember that thyme is a perennial and if you move your tomatoes each year, you will also have to dig out and move the thyme.
Radishes
If flea beetles are a problem in your garden, plant radishes right next to your tomato seedlings. Given the choice, a flea beetle will always go for the radish. You will sacrifice the radishes to protect the tomatoes.
Cilantro
This is an herb used in authentic Mexican dishes and it is especially popular in salsa. Some people have a genetic trait that causes them to taste a soap flavor from cilantro, so they avoid using cilantro in the kitchen.
Everyone should still grow cilantro and allow it to go to flower. These flowers will attract pollinators incredibly well. They will self-seed so cut the flowers before the seeds develop.
Winter Rye
This plant has long been used by farmers as a cover crop in their fields. The benefits of cover crops in the garden are just starting to be realized by gardeners.
Besides protecting the soil from erosion caused by the winds and snow of winter, the cover crop will also lessen the weed development by choking out the weed seeds that try to sprout. Then the winter rye becomes added organic matter for the soil in the spring.
When spring comes cut the cover crop to ground level and leave it on top of the soil. A mulching mower makes this an easier job. Plant your tomato transplants right through the residue and use the winter rye as a mulch for your tomatoes.
Beans
These vegetables are a great companion plant for tomatoes since beans can fix nitrogen in the soil. Tomatoes are a heavy nitrogen feeder and will leave the soil depleted of nutrients by the end of the season. If you plant the beans with your tomatoes the soil will be constantly replenished.
You can plant either pole beans or bush beans. Plant the seeds at the same time you plant the tomato transplants. Keep the bush beans south of the tomatoes so the bean plants won’t be shaded by the tomato plants.
If you are planting pole beans, keep them far enough away so they don’t become entangled with the tomato plants, and plant the beans behind the tomatoes as they will grow taller than them.
Garlic
This is an effective companion plant against red spider mites. Garlic spray applied to the tomato plant is believed by many gardeners to control late blight.
Dill
When allowed to flower, dill will provide nectar for beneficial insects like braconid wasps and ladybugs. The ladybugs will help to control aphids and the braconid wasps lay their eggs in tomato fruit worms, tomato hornworms, and other damaging pest caterpillars.
When the eggs hatch the larvae will use the caterpillar as their food source, killing the caterpillar. There should always be some dill planted with tomatoes. One caution is that a mature dill plant will start to release a chemical that can stunt the growth of the tomato.
Carrots
This vegetable and tomatoes are great companions in the garden. Carrots have their long root that will break up the soil for the tomatoes allowing more water and oxygen to reach the tomato roots.
Tomatoes will provide shade for the carrots which will extend the season of this cool weather crop. In addition, the tomato plant gives off solanine which is a chemical that deters most of the carrot’s common pests.
Asparagus
This vegetable will ward off nematodes in the soil. Asparagus is a perennial that is harvested in the spring. Don’t try to plant tomatoes in the asparagus bed, rather plant the tomatoes next to the asparagus bed to reap the benefits of this plant without damaging the asparagus plants.