Native companion planting in your veggie garden
WE love our veggie garden and when we accidentally discovered an increase in our produce after planting native plants, we started experimenting with Native companion planting.
We would like to share our knowledge with you.
Want tasty carrots ?
Planting onions with carrots is a classic combination that many gardeners swear by. The smell of onions deters carrot root fly from the carrots for carrot companion planting, while the smell of the carrots helps to deter onion fly from the onions – a highly beneficial pairing.
So last year we tried it with a native onion species - Nodding Onion. Our carrots were the healthiest and tastiest carrots we ever had! Who would have thought?!
Have you heard of the three sisters? This is a well known Native American way of companion planting. You grow corn with peas, who can climb up the long corn plants and grow squash underneath it all to create shade for the roots and protect the dirt from drying out under the summer sun!
The three sisters
Growing cucmbers?
Love tasty cucumbers? You’ll need to attract the pollinators to pollinate your cucumber flowers, like Bumble Bees, Furrow and Sweat Bees!
Try planting Leadplant, Purple Prairie Clover, Wild Bergamot, Harebells, tall Coreopsis, or Native Sunflowers. Don’t forget the ever favourite Butterfly Weed and Common Milkweed - bees love those!
Need a companion plant to repel pests like cucumber beetles? Plant some radish! Same for onions, which will deter most pests!
Zucchini
Zucchinis also love medium to large bees, like bumblebees and squash bees - guess that’s why they have such big flowers!
Wonderful native companion plants are similar to the cucumbers, native Sunflowers, Smooth Oxeye, Wild Bergamot, Purple Prairie Clover, Leadplant, Germander, native thistles, as well as Butterfly Weed and Common Milkweed.
Growing Peppers
Attract Furrow Bees, Sweat Bees, Bumblebees and Longhorn Bees - they all love peppers!
Native companion plants include Foxglove Beardtongue, Pale Purple Coneflowers, Blue Wild Indigo, Purple Prairie Clover, Wild Bergamot, Obedient Plant, Lancelet Coreopsis, Germander and Smooth Oxeye.
Be aware Beans, Broccoli and Cauliflower are plants you should not grow next to Peppers.
Tomatoes
Tomatoes love medium to large bees, like bumblebees and sweat and mining bees.
Native companion plants are Foxglove Beardtongue, Pale Blue Coneflowers, Blue Wild Indigo, Wild Bergamot, Purple Prairie Clover, Obedient Plant, Joe Pie Weed, Germander, Leadplant, Tall Coreopsis and Goldenrod.
Did you know Goldenrod is also a very important late summer/fall flower for migrating Monarch butterflies?
Blueberries
Lots of bees love our blueberries! Mining Bees, Bumblebees, Plasterer Bees, Sweat Bees, Mason Bees, Small Carpenter Bees, Blueberry Bees and Long-Horned Bees. We have lots of fun watching them.
Native companion plants include Redbud Tree, Virginia Bluebells, Wild Geranium, St Johns Wort, Harebells, Blue Verain, Purple Coneflower, Wild Bergamot, Horsemint, Wild Hyacinth, Blue-Eyed Mary and Culvers’s Root.