What Veggies NOT to Grow Next to Each Other
Just like some vegetables pair well together and can help each other grow more effectively, there are many combinations of plants that are simply just not compatible with each other for a variety of reasons.
One such factor that can make plants incompatible with each other is size. If one plant, say tomatoes, which grows very tall, is next to a shorter growing plant like beans, it will block out the sun from the beans and hinder their growth. This is why it’s common practice to plant shorter growing veggies in their own row at the edges of your garden or grow them on the borders near the walking paths in your garden where they can get proper sunlight.
Another key factor in choosing which plants can or cannot be grown next to each other is their watering and nutritional needs. For instance, veggies that need a lot of watering such as carrots, peppers, squash, and cucumbers, should not be neighbors with drought tolerant vegetables like swiss chard, okra, zucchini, and tomatoes. The same idea goes for the amount and specific type of fertilizer a certain vegetable’s soil needs. The three main nutrients that plants need in fertilizer are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, and every plant needs a different amount of each. Thankfully, you can get specific fertilizer that has each nutrient in it and use that to fertilize different sections of your garden that have different nutritional needs. For instance, most flowering vegetables such as tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers, need extra phosphorus so these plants should only be grown in the same soil as plants that also need a lot of phosphorus.
We hope that knowing a little bit more about what makes plants good neighbors will help you better plan your vegetable garden and make your homegrown organic produce as tasty as possible!