Companion planting can serve you both to boost the growth of certain plants, and to deter some pests or protect your fruits and vegetables from disease. Not all associations are equally effective, but they remain an excellent entry point for a natural garden!
Companion plants that help your potatoes
To garden pesticide-free, practicing crop association in a natural vegetable garden, also called companion planting, can be decisive. Which vegetables are good neighbors—or harmful—for potatoes?
Which vegetables to pair with potatoes to grow them faster?
The cultivation pairing of your potatoes with other plants can boost their growth just by their proximity to companion plants.
All varieties of cabbage (there’s a lingering question about cauliflower; if you’ve tried this, share in the comments!), the climbing beans and the castor bean are indeed excellent growth stimulators.
The companion plants to fight the Colorado potato beetle
The biggest enemy of potatoes because it can cause enormous damage is the Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) which is capable of devouring all the leaves of your plants in just a few days.
To limit its impact through crop associations, your strongest allies for potatoes will be flax, borage, dill, or the cilantro, whose scent repels the beetles that hate it.
To a lesser extent, peas and broad beans also seem effective in this regard, so don’t scrimp on planting them among your potato crops.
The crops your potatoes help
If potatoes can be helped by certain vegetables or aromatic plants from your garden, they can also help them in return. Garlic is, in this sense, particularly aided by the presence of potatoes just as bush beans are.
But even more interesting in terms of companion planting are the peas which are used to fight the Colorado potato beetle as noted above, and themselves grow more vigorously in the presence of potatoes. The pole beans, which, in turn, activate growth of potatoes, also grow better alongside them!
Companion planting to avoid: the enemies of potatoes
Cultivation associations, and that’s logical, can also be counterproductive. So you need to watch out not to plant or sow varieties that will penalize your potatoes or other plants.
Vegetable pairings that don’t like potatoes
Eggplants, onions, cucumbers, and zucchini don’t appreciate the presence of nearby potato plants. So plan not to pair them by mistake!
Vegetable pairings potatoes don’t like
For good companion planting in the veggie garden, you’ll also want to avoid planting tomatoes, sweet corn, radishes, and pumpkins nearby as surely as you should avoid eggplants, zucchinis, and cucumbers (the latter really do not get along).
Technique: How to pair potatoes with other crops in your garden?
To carry out your vegetable-cropping pairing to boost the growth of your potatoes, prefer planting your companion plants all around, or even directly in your rows.
You can, for example, create a two-row pattern or sow your potatoes in the middle of a raised-bed square surrounded by one or more types of companion plants.
