In most cases, successful plant compatibility patterns are based on someone else's growing experience or personal observations, but there is also a scientific basis for this phenomenon. The quarrelsomeness or favorable interaction of neighbors in the garden is explained by such a concept as allelopathy. Chemical reactions occurring in the soil due to the production of various enzymes by the roots, volatile substances, phytohormones secreted by the leaves - hidden from human eyes, they can play a decisive role in planning joint plantings. The choice of accompanying crops, which are more appropriate to plant next to tomatoes, directly depends on these and other factors.
Allelopathy is the mutual influence of plants on each other as a result of their release of various chemicals into the environment
Features of growing tomatoes
- For tomato bushes, set aside a sunny and protected from the wind place in the garden. The soil should be loose, fertile, with a neutral or slightly acidic reaction. The ideal option is loam or sandy loam enriched with fertilizers.
- Heavy and waterlogged soils are corrected by adding sand, perlite, and straw to improve the breathability of the substrate. Acidic soils must be limed by adding lime or chalk (wood ash), up to 300 g per 1 m².
- Tomatoes love dry air and drafts, so they try to place the bushes freely, no closer than 40 cm to each other for determinate varieties and 60 cm for tall ones. Neighbors of tomatoes in the garden should also not interfere with the circulation of fresh air.
- Tomato needs moderate humidity, sparse during the ripening phase. Excess moisture in the soil and air causes the development of fungal diseases, and at the time of ripening it deprives the fruit of its sugar content. When watering tomatoes, you should prevent moisture from getting on the tops of the plant, so many gardeners install drip irrigation in the garden bed.
- To fertilize tomatoes, organic and mineral fertilizers are used, giving preference to the latter with a predominance of phosphorus and potassium. Excess nitrogen in the soil leads to accelerated shoot growth to the detriment of flowering and fruit set. The culture responds well to the use of folk remedies: grain fertilizer, iodine and ammonia solution, “green” fertilizer.
- Choosing good neighbors in the garden. It is necessary to plant crops next to tomatoes that promote development and growth and have the same requirements for fertilizing, soil composition and lighting.
Tomatoes can be attacked by pests: aphids, spider mites, and most importantly, the Colorado potato beetle. Plants are susceptible to late blight, blight, and verticillium wilt.
What plants should not be planted next to tomatoes?
- Oddly enough, you can’t plant tomatoes and cucumbers together.
Because of their different growing needs, these plants will clash, reduce each other's yields, and make your garden more difficult to maintain. It would be much more correct to distinguish between the growing areas of tomatoes and cucumbers.
- Tomatoes and eggplants also do not make good neighbors, since both crops are susceptible to the same diseases, which means that if a disease affects a tomato, then the eggplant will also suffer.
Different temperature needs, moisture requirements and other issues will make the joint growth of two plants detrimental to both.
Be very careful when choosing companion plants for tomatoes so as not to spoil your plantings. Today we looked at both good neighbors for tomatoes and frankly unsuccessful ones. Use our recommendations, good luck!
Good neighborhood
When choosing plants for replanting with tomatoes, it is recommended to follow these rules:
- neighbors in the garden should not belong to the same family as tomatoes (Solanaceae);
- plants must have similar requirements for watering regimes, fertilizing, and soil composition;
- compact plants should be planted that do not shade the tomato bushes.
Even when planting friendly plants in one bed, it is worth observing the recommended distance between the bushes. Otherwise, the seedlings will experience a lack of nutrition and light.
Marigolds, marigolds
Flowers not only add bright colors to the garden, but also protect plants from the invasion of harmful insects: the Colorado potato beetle, cabbage cutworm and white moth. Crushed marigold tops embedded in the soil repel root nematodes.
The disadvantage of such a neighborhood is that the flowers themselves can become breeding grounds for aphids.
Typically, marigold or calendula seedlings are used to frame tomato beds, placing the flowers at a distance of 20 cm from the tomato. Low-growing varieties of flowers are selected for joint cultivation.
Radishes, spinach and lettuce
Early maturing and compact crops are often used as a compactor in vegetable beds. Their proximity to tomatoes is very successful. During the early stages of tomato development, they require a lot of moisture, which is ideal for greens and radishes. Their lush tops, in turn, shade the bed, protecting the soil from drying out.
Disadvantage: you will have to manually weed the small seedlings of radishes and lettuce in the tomato bed.
Immediately after planting tomato seedlings, rows of radishes and herbs are sown between the rows, 15-20 cm away from the seedlings. While the tomato bushes are gaining strength, the radishes have time to form a crop and leave the garden bed.
Basil, mint and parsley
Spicy herbs overpower the smell of tomatoes with their aroma, forcing harmful insects to fly around the garden bed.
Disadvantage: Seed-sown greens grow rather slowly. For replanting in the garden, it is better to use pre-grown seedlings.
Eggplants and peppers
They have similar bush sizes and the same requirements for soil structure, watering, and fertilizing. Crops are planted in the same way as tomatoes.
Disadvantages: they have the same diseases and pests as tomatoes.
Carrots, beets
These root vegetables have a neutral effect on other plants and can coexist with tomatoes in the same bed, provided they are placed on the sunny side.
Minus: the timing of sowing carrots and planting tomato seedlings in the ground does not coincide. By the time you take the tomatoes outside, the carrots are already sprouting, so you need to plant the plants extremely carefully.
The distance between the rows of carrots and beets to the tomato bushes is 20-25 cm.
Often, extra beets are added to tomatoes after thinning.
Garlic and onion
Having a pungent aroma, garlic and onions repel many harmful insects, including spider mites. The crops have similar requirements for growing conditions and can be adjacent to tomatoes.
Cons: Plants may suffer from fusarium.
Typically, sets and slices of spring garlic are planted between tomato bushes or along the edge of the bed, 15-20 cm away from neighboring plants. Winter garlic can be sown immediately with a gap of 35-50 cm between rows to accommodate a row of tomato seedlings next spring.
Nasturtium
A beautiful flower with its aroma successfully repels whiteflies and Colorado potato beetles from vegetables (if there are not very many pests).
Minus: the flower itself may suffer from aphids.
Borage (borage)
The spicy crop, which is still not very common in domestic gardens, goes well with tomatoes in the same garden bed. The plants do not interfere with each other, and the juicy cucumber smell of borage repels harmful insects. The flowers of this plant attract bees, which will also help in pollination of tomatoes.
Cons: none.
Bush beans and Russian beans
They have a beneficial effect on the condition of the soil due to the presence of a special type of bacteria on the roots. Vegetable beans and beans have a compact bush shape and do not interfere with the development of the tomato.
Cons: Even bush plants loaded with crops sometimes fall to the ground, so it is recommended to tie them up.
What is plant compatibility?
Plant compatibility is the harmony between crops planted next to each other, and it is achieved at the chemical level. The fact is that certain plants release various organic substances into the environment (air, soil): colins, phytoncides, etc. These substances can influence the growth and development of other plants, both negatively and positively. A broader and more scientific name for this phenomenon is allelopathy.
Each plant has its own strength of allelopathic activity. For example, corn and potatoes emit few volatile substances, so these crops do not poison the soil. At the same time, this makes them almost defenseless against weeds.
Let's look at the main groups of substances responsible for allelopathy:
Colin
Colins are released by plants and affect other plants, suppressing their vital functions. For example, such a colorless gas as ethylene (emitted, for example, by apple fruits) inhibits the germination of seeds, the growth and development of sprouts, and also leads to yellowing and premature falling of leaves, and even the death of neighboring plants.
This is only relevant when colins are released in high concentrations. Microdoses, on the contrary, stimulate the growth of neighboring plants. But too high a concentration of colins is dangerous even for the plants that secrete them.
It has been noticed that when located close to specimens that excessively produce colin, neighboring plants are affected: they turn out to be lethargic, stunted, with a thickened stem, short roots, and prematurely yellowed or fallen leaves. But with distance from the source of negative influence, the opposite effect is observed - growth stimulation.
In addition, the released substances accumulate in the soil and gradually create an allelopathic environment, which favorably affects some plants and inhibits others. That’s why it’s so important to observe crop rotation.
Phytoncides
Phytoncides have a detrimental effect on bacteria, protozoa and fungi. Thus, substances secreted by linden and birch trees suppress the development of harmful microorganisms and improve the growth of neighboring plants. Therefore, it is recommended to plant these types of trees along the borders of the garden plot. This will help protect the orchard from fungal diseases carried by the wind from diseased trees of neighbors in the dacha area.
As for garden plants, phytoncides of garlic, onion and horseradish kill many types of pathogenic microorganisms and fungi, and also repel insects. For example, the proximity of onions is beneficial for lettuce, because its phytoncides repel aphids.
Unwanted neighbors
This list includes plants that have different care requirements and growing conditions than tomatoes.
Cucumbers, zucchini and pumpkin
These crops may be good predecessors of tomatoes, but they are poor neighbors. Plants have completely different requirements for environmental conditions - tomatoes love dry air and drafts, infrequent watering, while cucumbers need high humidity. The powerful development of vines of pumpkin plants deprives tomato bushes of space.
Potato
It belongs to the same family as tomatoes, and therefore has common diseases and pests. The main ones are late blight and the Colorado potato beetle. If a potato plot is allowed to be treated with powerful pesticides, then such preparations cannot be used for tomatoes.
It is not recommended to plant these crops not only in one bed, but also in neighboring ones. The Colorado potato beetle easily crawls from treated potato plants to tomato plants, covering a distance of 10-15 m.
Sorrel
The culture prefers acidic soil and has a depressing effect on neighbors. It is better to plant sorrel in a separate bed or combine it with rhubarb.
Watermelon
It requires a large space for the growth of vines and dry sandy soil, which does not at all meet the requirements of a tomato for living conditions.
Cabbage (all types)
Loves frequent watering and humid air, which is completely unsuitable for tomatoes. Although ultra-early ripening varieties of the white cabbage variety can be placed at the edge of the bed with late tomatoes, so that when watering with sprinkling, the tomato leaves do not get wet. Until the fruits on the tomato bushes begin to turn red, caring for the crops does not differ much. By the time the late tomatoes ripen, the cabbage will have time to form heads and leave the garden bed.
The smell of tomato tops repels cabbage flies and cutworms, helping to produce clean heads of cabbage.
Corn
It consumes a lot of nutrients from the soil, significantly depleting it. Planted mixed with tomato bushes, it shades the latter.
Corn planted at a distance of 50-60 cm from the tomato rows can become a good curtain against strong winds.
Peas
A tomato-neutral culture. But peas, even bush peas, take up a lot of space in the garden bed, often lie on the ground, and cling to tomato branches with their tendrils, preventing it from functioning normally. If you put small trellises for it, letting the tendrils curl along them, then growing crops together is possible.
Strawberries
Garden strawberries (strawberries) suffer from the same diseases as tomatoes, so growing these plants together in the same bed is not practiced.
Dill
There is no point in specifically sowing dill in a tomato bed; the crops are not friendly with each other. But early seedlings from self-seeding need not be weeded out until they reach a height of 10 cm. Until this moment, dill will not interfere with tomato seedlings, and then the greens are removed.
Advantages of mixed plantings
This principle of combining several crops in one bed is used for several reasons. Some plants play the role of the main ones, and others – their companions. This allows you to use the space on your personal plot more efficiently, which is especially important for greenhouses and greenhouses. The care of seedlings is simplified.
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Another advantage is the creation of a favorable environment for important crops in the economy. Due to the proximity of different plant species with different needs, the soil is less depleted. Vegetables stop getting sick often thanks to reliable protectors. This symbiosis is beneficial to both tomatoes and their companions.
Important! Tomatoes need phosphorus and potassium, and nitrogen promotes the growth of green mass.
What can you plant with tomatoes in a garden bed in open ground?
The best, time-tested neighbors of tomatoes in open ground:
- marigolds, nasturtium, calendula;
- basil, mint, parsley, thyme (thyme);
- garlic and onions (onions, shallots);
- lettuce and radishes;
- beet seedlings after thinning;
- bush beans, broad beans.
Gardeners have noticed that the aroma of tomato tops repels the codling moth. It is often practiced to plant seedlings of tall tomatoes under the crowns of apple trees, using their branches to tie up the stems. In the shade of the apple tree crown, the vegetable slightly reduces the yield, but the tree receives protection from the pest.
Garden neighbors that can repel insects
There are plants that effectively fight pests, improving the quality of the crop.
List of pests in the garden and their “repellent”:
- Carrot fly. Onions, sage, garlic and radishes are suitable for destruction.
- Slugs with snails. Wormwood, parsley, mint and sage will help.
- Aphid. It will be brought out by coriander, mint, marigold flowers, mustard, nasturtium and onion.
- Colorado beetle. It helps with sage, thyme, tansy, coriander, capuchin, flax, beans and myta with thyme.
- Nematode. Prevention with chicory, marigolds and marigolds.
- Cabbage caterpillars. Mint, basil, wormwood, nasturtium and tansy.
What can you plant with tomatoes in a greenhouse?
In the same greenhouse with tomatoes you can safely plant:
- eggplant;
- peppers (sweet and hot);
- any seedlings of vegetables and flowers for the period of growing;
- radish;
- salads;
- onions on greens.
If the dimensions of the greenhouse allow, then it is also possible to plant cucumbers in the same room as tomatoes. The crops are planted at different ends of the greenhouse (tomatoes are placed closer to the door, where it is cooler) and separated by a polyethylene curtain. The curtain allows you to maintain high humidity in the cucumber compartment, leaving dry air for the tomatoes.
Cucumbers and tomatoes in one greenhouse
If there is a critical lack of space on the plot, cucumbers and tomatoes can be planted side by side, but this will significantly affect the quality and quantity of the harvest, not for the better.
Cucumbers and tomatoes are such popular vegetables that it is impossible to imagine the human diet without them. Summer residents grow them not only for fresh consumption, but also stock up for the winter by canning them. These vegetables are mainly grown in greenhouse conditions. If they are cultivated for sale in large quantities, it is necessary to make a separate shelter for each. Amateur gardeners often grow cucumbers and tomatoes in the same room.
Important! This option is quite possible provided that the microclimate of the greenhouse is adapted to each vegetable, because they have completely different requirements for ventilation, temperature and humidity of the environment.
Cucumbers prefer a humid, warm climate and do not tolerate direct sunlight on their surface. They need to be watered by sprinkling, which is strictly contraindicated for tomatoes.
On a note. It is necessary to organize the placement of these plants in such a way that they are at a sufficient distance from each other.
If the length of the greenhouse allows, it can be delimited inside with polycarbonate, plywood or boards. In this case, you have to make exits from the greenhouse on both sides. Then airing the tomatoes will in no way harm the cucumbers. In turn, the tomatoes will not suffer from excess moisture when watering the cucumbers.
The list of vegetables given in the article is not complete. It contains the most popular and well-known vegetables that can be grown by both experienced gardeners and gardeners, as well as amateur beginners.
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Culture compatibility table
| Good neighbors for tomatoes | Neutral | Bad |
| Marigolds, nasturtium, marigolds | Eggplant | Potato |
| Radish | Carrots, beets | Cucumber, pumpkin, zucchini, squash |
| Garlic and onion | Chard | Dill |
| Lettuce, parsley, spinach | Bell pepper and hot pepper | Sorrel |
| Beans and legumes | Peas | Corn |
| Basil, mint, thyme | Cabbage | |
| Watermelons |
The best neighbors of tomatoes in the garden: spicy and salad greens, onions and garlic, bush legumes, marigolds and nasturtiums. These crops repel pests, protect against certain diseases, and do not compete with tomatoes for nutrients and sun.
Flowers
The proximity of some garden flowers can affect the yield of vegetables. Flowering plants protect garden crops from pests.
Marigolds repel caterpillars, harmful worms, snails and aphids. This flower is planted next to melons, pumpkins, potatoes and cucumbers. It also protects vegetables from harmful fungi.
Chamomiles should be planted next to legumes and leafy vegetables. These flowers support plant growth and prevent fungal diseases.
Petunias are beautiful and unpretentious flowers. They protect tomatoes, peppers and beans and infestations of aphids and beetles.
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It is useful to plant nasturtiums in greenhouses. These flowers are excellent at fighting aphids, slugs and moths.
Plant lavender around your rose bed. It is not only beautiful, but also useful. Lavender will repel pests from roses.
The listed flowers are distinguished by a pronounced and rich smell, which pests are afraid of. For humans, their aroma is safe and even pleasant.
Options for the greenhouse
Let's look at what to plant tomatoes with in a greenhouse:
| Peppers The compatibility of tomatoes with this crop is almost ideal, since the growing requirements are almost the same. Therefore, both options get along well in a greenhouse. But since the plants belong to the same family, their diseases are the same . Therefore, you should pay special attention to preventive treatments and monitor the condition of both options. | |
| Watermelons and melons They grow well in a greenhouse, as they like high temperatures.. They practically do not interfere with tomatoes, if they do not block the light, they do not take nutrients from the soil. Melons help improve the microclimate in the greenhouse . Due to this, the yield of tomatoes increases | |
| Green onions You can grow onions. It usually grows in the spring and by summer, when the tomato begins to grow rapidly, it no longer takes nutrients from the soil. Plant between rows in early spring . It is not recommended to plant regular onions and garlic. | |
| Collard greens and lettuce These early crops most often have time to bear fruit before the tomatoes begin to bear fruit.. These are the options that are best suited for use in a greenhouse. The remains of the plant part can be buried in the ground . They will serve as additional fertilizer | |
| Green manure plants They can be planted in early spring. Before planting a tomato, dig up the soil; it will become much more nutritious and the structure will improve. You can sow green manure between rows . And dig during the period of rapid plant growth. This is a natural enrichment of the soil with nutrients, which has a positive effect on productivity. You choose what to plant . There are many options and they all work |
