Companion Planting Guide | First Tunnels (2024)

Are you looking for a new method of gardening? If so, then companion planting is one direction that you should look into. As the home gardening sector continues to grow, different green-thumbed individuals are coming up with all kinds of new methods, including this innovative technique. With companion planting here in the UK, you can plant different kinds of plants and harvest them together and at the right time.

This article will provide you with some of the ‘need to know’ details that you should follow to become an expert companion planting UK gardener. We’ll look at the plants that you should plant together and those that you shouldn’t. There are also several benefits that come with companion planting in the UK, some of which we’ll carefully take you through. But first, what is companion planting?

What is Companion Planting?

Companion planting is a bit more than just the general notion that some specific plants can benefit others if they are planted close to each other. It has been defined as planting two or more crop species together to achieve benefits such as higher yields and pest control.

However, scientists look at the process with more exacting minds. They have proven that companion gardening embraces various strategies that increase the plant's biodiversity in all agricultural ecosystems – and in what we like to call a simple garden! In layman’s language, it is two plants that help each other to grow.

Companion planting has a long history, but the methods of planting plants for beneficial interaction are not always well documented in texts. In many situations, they are created from oral tradition, front porch musings and family recommendations. Despite these historical traditions and the science of horticultural farming, we often practice companion planting simply because it’s a practical planting method!

It allows you to grow herbs, veggies and exotic crops to their full potential. The process also helps to keep insects away, as well as helping you to maintain healthy soil. Eventually, you’ll note that the food you grow even tastes better. To kick-start your gardening adventure, here are some important reminders:

• You should know that beans can grow with almost everything. You can plant them next to spinach and tomatoes for great results.
• To increase their resistance to diseases, you should plant your horseradish next to your potatoes.
• Summer cornfields are easily converted into fields of pumpkins in the autumn. In the past, the First Nations people of North America planted pumpkins together with pole and corn beans in a method called the ‘Three Sisters.' The corn offers a sufficient ‘pole’ for the growth of beans, while the beans trap nitrogen in the soil, which is greatly beneficial for the pumpkins. The pumpkins create a dense ground cover to stop the spread of weeds and keep away harmful pests.
• Pumpkins also function best as a row type of crop when planted together with sunflowers.
• It’s a good idea to plant some healthy nasturtium next to your squash, as it helps in keeping away those lousy squash vine borers.
• Consider using sweet marjoram in your gardens and beds to make your herbs and vegetables sweeter!

Why Is Companion Planting In The UK Significant?

There are many benefits to companion planting in the UK. 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?

It Helps in Pest Control

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.

Saves on Space

Today, many plants can be planted together. A good example is tomatoes and carrots. If you have a small garden, planting these two crops is an intelligent and nutritious gardening method.

If you want to plant potatoes, beans, and corn, then you don’t have to use up a considerable portion of your garden. It will be more straightforward and far much beneficial if you plant these three together!

Enhanced Productivity through Companion Planting

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.

Companion Planting is Viewed As God’s Natural Way of Growing Plants

How do things grow in nature? They are mixed in all manner of plant varieties. Therefore, we can say that nature knows best! Companion planting reduces and improves flavours and allows you to plant more varieties at one time.

Plants such as basil are good when planted together with different garden crops. They improve the flavour of tomatoes and lettuce and repel bugs such as mosquitoes. Who wouldn’t want a plant in their garden that keeps away mosquitoes?

What Should You Plant Together For Companion Planting UK?

Through the centuries, we’ve cultivated our gardens and noticed that certain plants grow well together. Some vegetables, flowers, and herbs are good for the soil and each other! We’ve also seen that others repel pests. All in all, companion planting offers a good blueprint for a much-improved garden yield.

Vegetables

Artichoke
Here is an architectural type of plant that offers shade and form to your vegetable plot. It’s not a delicate plant to grow, and you can plant it together with crops such as tomatoes, carrots, and beans.

Asparagus
Asparagus is a perennial crop that is perfect for companion planting. You can grow it together with parsley and tomatoes.

Beetroot
Beetroot is a crop that is best for companion planting as it does not take up too much space. You can grow it together with broccoli, beans, cabbage, lettuce, onions and brassicas, and passion fruits.

Broad Beans
Beans, like all other legumes, are perfect for adding nitrogen to the soil. They can easily be planted together with corn, potatoes, celery, cucumber, and soybeans.

Broccoli and Calabrese
One of the best things about companion planting is that you can grow brassicas at any time of the year. You can plant them together with onions, beets, cereals, and potatoes.

Brussel Sprouts
Wondering which plants with which you should grow your Brussels sprouts? We found that they go well with sage, thyme, malting barley, and clover.

Cabbage
Cabbage is a common vegetable that adds a great taste to your food and improves digestion. It’s also easy to plant, and it grows well with other vegetables such as celery and beans.

Carrots
Carrots are another beautiful vegetable that is recommended to people suffering from eyesight problems. To get the best out of your carrot plantation, you can grow them with other vegetables such as leeks, onions, tomatoes, and alliums.

Cauliflower
Grow your cauliflower together with plants such as celery, spinach, peas, and beans.

Celeriac
Celeriac, unlike other vegetables, is not an easy plant to grow. It requires rich water-retentive, fertile soils. Grow it together with other herbs such as brassicas, cucumbers and bush beans to get high yields.

Celery
We all love to add celery to our foods for its spicy flavour. Well, you only need to grow it in your polytunnel with other crops, such as bush beans, cucumbers, and brassicas.

Courgette
Your Courgette needs a lot of pollinators. As such, one of the best plants to grow together with your Courgette are the Nasturtiums.

Fennel
Fennel is merely the name given to two closely related crops. These are the herb fennel and the Florence fennel. You can grow it together with vegetables that need ample shade, such as summer salads.

Garlic
Do you enjoy cooking with garlic? You should grow it together with lettuce, celery, peas, potatoes, and cucumbers.

Kale
This is one of the most common vegetables and is extremely trendy right now. You can plant it with other vegetables and fruits such as cabbage, tomatoes, cauliflower, and passion fruit.

Mushrooms
These are some of the oldest plants on earth. They can grow almost anywhere, but you need to choose their best companion plant to get the best out of your mushrooms. They go well with vegetables such as turnips, Brussels sprouts, turnips and fruit trees, and cabbage.

Onion (bulbing)
You can plant your onions with many different kinds of vegetables. Here are good examples of broccoli, carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, peppers, passion fruit, and cabbage.

Pak Choi
This type of vegetable requires high levels of nitrogen in the soil. Therefore, you should plant it together with plants such as beans and peas. To repel pests, you could also use onions or garlic.

Parsnip
From the scientific name Pastinaca Sativa, these grow well with different fruit.

Peas and Mange Tout
They both grow well with plants such as turnip, cauliflower, garlic, and brassicas. Here, it’s important to remember the role peas plants play in adding nitrogen into the soil.

Potatoes
These plants are among the most common vegetables, famous in stews, and as either mashed potatoes or a jacket potato. They grow well together with beans, corn, passion fruit, and brassicas.

Radishes
Growing radishes is easy and ideally planted with eggplants, cucumbers, lettuce, peas, pole beans and common beans. All these companion plants help in producing high yields and adding a great taste to your crop!

Spinach and Swiss Chard
These two plants are a great addition to any garden. They both produce large green leaves that can be added to salads and a variety of tasty recipes. You can grow your spinach and Swiss chard together with passion fruit, cauliflower, and brassicas.

Runner Beans
If you are planning to grow runner beans, you should consider planting them with plants such as strawberries, radishes, and celery.

Sweet Potatoes
You can plant your sweet potatoes together with beans, corn or even peas.

Turnips
Turnips grow well with plants like broccoli and peas.

Companion Planting Chart UK Fruits

Different fruits grow well once planted together with other crops. You can learn about them by simply looking at the chartbelow:

Companion Planting Chart Exotics

Exotic plants can also make a good companion for other plants. Let’s take a look at some of the most beneficial plants in this category.

Companion Planting ChartUK Herbs and Spices

These plants are also good for companion planting with a variety of fruits and vegetables.

Companion Planting Chart UK Flowers

Do you have a flower garden, or are you thinking of starting one? If so, with the right companion plants, yours will be attractive and healthy. Start by checking out this list of good companion crops for your flowers:

What Should You Not Plant Together?

Here are some of the plants that do not go well with your vegetables, fruits, exotics, herbs and spices:

What Not To Plant With Vegetables

What Not To Plant With Fruits

What Not To Plant With Exotics

What Not To Plant With Herbs and Spices

What Not To Plant With Flowers

Why Should You Use a Polytunnel?

Companion planting is perfect for any garden, but for a more diverse companion planting UK setup, you should consider investing in a polytunnel. A polytunnel is similar to a greenhouse, only that it’s much more effective and reliable. Polytunnels come with a variety of different covers and designs.

Here are some of the reasons why you should choose a polytunnel for your garden:

Cost-Effective

You need to spend quite a bit of money just to build a small greenhouse. You can buy a polytunnel that is more than four times in size for less money and use it to plant a variety of flowers and vegetables.

Portable

You’ll also find that a polytunnel is not fixed to the ground like a greenhouse. Hence, you can move it from one point to another, depending on what suits you best. Interestingly, it’s much easier to move your polytunnel than to replace the soil in a greenhouse!

Free From Soil Diseases

Borrowing from the above point, you can avoid soil diseases that damage your crops by simply shifting your polytunnel around your garden. In a greenhouse, you’d probably have to cut down your entire crop if you find that a disease from the soil has affected it, but this is not the case with a polytunnel.

Companion Planting In The UK

Isn’t companion planting exciting and potentially very rewarding? From this article, we can draw some important conclusions. First, planting two ‘friendly’ plants together saves you on-farm space, as well as on the additional costs of gardening. For instance, the cost of buying items like fertilizers and tools will be greatly reduced. Also, it makes gardening a lot easier.

A good example is found when you need to water your plants. With companion planting, you can do it all at the same time. Another essential point is that plants are healthier when varieties are grown together. When nitrogenous plants like beans are planted together with corn, this ensures that your corn grows to higher heights, and it will be a lot tastier.

Of course, there are those plants that cannot ‘stand’ each other. Planting such crops together makes them grow poorly with stunted growth and poor nutrients. Others won’t even get the privilege of enjoying the sun.

All in all, with the growing rise in home gardening technology and new techniques, the polytunnel is arguably one of the best places to grow your crops. Here, you can grow two companion plants and harvest them within the shortest time possible. We have come a long way from traditional planting methods! As a garden farmer, you’ll definitely feel proud when you start harvesting healthy vegetables and fruits at a low cost, all from using the right resources.