Growing Flowers and Veg Together

NewBoy2

I apologise if you have all been asked this one before

This is my 8th season and I am determined to no longer just till a bit and chuck the seeds in and hope.

Fellow allotmenteers have said that planting certain flowers in among my veg will stop pests.

This is what I am growing

Onions from seed
Carrots 
Celery
Potatoes
Celery
Melons
Courgettes
Cucumbers
Beetroot
Sweetcorn
Parsnips
Tomato   outdoor type
Broadbeans

Thanks in advance friends

raisingirl

It's a good idea to plant strongly onion smelling plants near carrots - your onions or something like garlic chives - to hide the carroty smell from root fly. Mint also works, but needs to be in a pot. I tend to grow garlic and carrots in alternate rows.

Pot marigolds - calendula officinalis - is good with the beans and tomatoes as they attract aphids away from the crop and also attract the hover-flies that eat the aphids. I have a pot of them near the greenhouse door.

Basil is a traditional companion plant for tomatoes - keeps some pests away, likes the same conditions and they taste good together. It's too cold here to grow either outside most years, so they are usually both together in the greenhouse.

Ants like to farm aphids on sunflowers - the ant equivalent of big clear fields to a wheat farmer, I assume.

French marigolds are reputed to repel whitefly - I've not tried it.

I do plant nasturtiums and borage round the edge of my veg plot - they both attract pollinators and nasturtiums especially are manna to cabbage whites, so the caterpillar load on the brassicas is reduced.

Nollie

Raisingirl has already coverd the main companion plants to attract the right predators and mask crops from the bad uns, but if you are interested in beneficial plant associations, Bob Flowerdew’s Companion Gardening is a great read (if its still in print) and explains allopathic relationships in an easy to understand way.

Obelixx

This is a simple, easy reference guide - https://www.thompson-morgan.com/companion-planting-guide