Companion Plants for Peppers - Pepper Geek

hey there welcome back to pepper geek in today's video i'll be discussing companion plants for peppers the idea of companion planting is to bring multiple plant varieties together into the same space and provide a benefit for at least one of those plants now this is definitely one of those topics where people sort of tend to exaggerate on the benefits of putting one plant with another i've seen all sorts of claims across the internet that this variety of plant will make your problems in the garden magically disappear and i'm here to tell you that that's really not true but i want to talk about some of the plants that we like to plant along with our peppers and other garden vegetables and some of the actual benefits that they can provide but first check out our new ebook growing perfect peppers we do talk a little bit about companion planting in the book but we also talk about growing peppers from start to finish seed to harvest and everything that we do to grow beautiful peppers every year so check out growing perfect peppers in the first link in the description below okay so on to companion planting with peppers the first thing i want to talk about are flowers now flowers are not grown for eating in most cases although many are edible but they can do a lot for your garden namely attracting beneficial insects and pollinators now peppers really don't need that many pollinators to produce fruit as they self-pollinate and wind is usually adequate to get those flowers to self-fertilize but it's still a good thing to have around you want your bees you want parasitoid wasps and to attract these beneficial insects flowers is your best bet we love using alyssum in the garden it's this low growing flower that can basically be used as a living mulch it can shade out the area below your pepper plants and around your pepper plants or you can just plant them in an arrangement of flowers in some containers and have them nearby your peppers it will attract all sorts of good insects that will eat the bad insects like aphids and thrips white flies these will attract green lace wings to your garden which are an excellent insect to have around they just devour aphids and other insects that you don't want on your peppers we'll also be growing some cosmos this year we'll be growing some marigolds which actually do attract aphids and this is sort of known as a sacrificial plant but we expect to have aphids in the garden and we'd rather them be eating something like our marigolds than on our tomatoes and peppers and other veggies we've got some zinnias and also some yarrow and some other flowers that you might want to try are asters and tansies basically anything that produces a nice fragrant flower is going to attract beneficial insects to the garden we've heard some people claim that flowers can actually deter pests but it's more likely that they're actually bringing in those beneficial insects to take care of the pests rather than deterring them through some sort of aromatic release but our next group of companion plants actually have been shown to deter pests and that is anything in the allium family such as chives or garlic onions leeks all of those plants have been shown to deter certain pests namely some types of spider mites but it's really just a great type of plant to have around because we love garlic we're growing garlic this year chives are another really great easy plant to grow that are actually perennial here in new england in zone 6a so they'll actually survive the winter and come back in the spring you'll see them sprouting up as soon as it starts to warm up so one reason we particularly like garlic is because it's so easy to interplant with peppers they don't really take up much space and you can sort of put them in between or just around your pepper plants wherever you can stick a few bulbs of garlic and it's just a great way to save a little bit of money on a very popular kitchen item one recommendation on garlic is to not use store-bought garlic it can run into disease problems and pest problems of its own so highly recommend getting some proper seed garlic i'll leave a link down below where we recommend you get your garlic from one other thing about garlic it does require a cold period so you actually tend to plant garlic in the fall allow it to overwinter with a little bit of mulch on top and then in the spring it will sprout up when it warms up so yeah grow some garlic our next recommended companion plant for peppers is corn for sunflowers and you might be wondering why i'm grouping those two together well the benefit that these can provide in our experience is a bit of a wind barrier these are both very strong tall plants that really don't have any issue with wind but young pepper plants and even older pepper plants can suffer from wind damage if you live in a very flat open place where wind can sort of gust through so having some corn or some sunflowers on the side of the garden where the wind tends to come from can dampen that wind and prevent the wind from damaging your plants corn is obviously also a great plant to have in your garden it does take up a bit of space but it can sort of be used as a living fence to provide that dampening of the wind keep in mind with sunflowers though they can become invasive they do produce a ton of seeds and they will self seed and grow up in the next spring so just be careful of that they also tend to attract squirrels to the garden which you may or may not want around next up are tomatoes we love growing tomatoes they are very similar in terms of care to peppers they do require a little bit of extra space and they can get pretty large and sprawling so keep that in mind and learn about pruning tomatoes if you haven't grown them before they're also vulnerable to blight so you really want to keep them well aerated as opposed to peppers which can be planted a lot closer together and you don't need to do as much thinning out during the year so why are tomatoes a good companion plant well they're not really beneficial to peppers they don't really provide any benefit but they work well together they don't really cause any clashing and they tend to be planted and harvested around the same time so you kind of plant your tomatoes and peppers together plant them next to each other if you want to and then harvest them around the same time and then make yourself some salsa next up is lettuce and spinach and other leafy greens these are actually cool weather crops that don't really like the intense heat of the mid-summer so you want to plant these on the shaded side of your peppers and actually use the peppers to benefit your leafy greens there are other ways that you can do this you can put your leafy greens underneath a trellis of beans or something else that can shade but essentially you want to use your peppers to shade out your cool weather crops to keep them cool and sort of elongate the season for the leafy greens these will also help use up some of that valuable space around your peppers where you would otherwise just have mulch of some sort they do need sunlight so you don't want to completely shade them out but providing a little bit of relief from that midday and afternoon sunshine can be helpful next up is basil and other herbs like rosemary and sage and thyme some of my favorites basil is one of those plants that gets a lot of respect in the companion planting world they say that this is a plant that was just born to be a companion to tomatoes well it also makes a good companion for peppers i'm not sure about the facts behind this i've heard that basil can deter some pests it is very aromatic we all know that but to me it's just a good companion plant for the same reason that lettuce and alyssum is because you can plant it around your peppers easily it will grow without much care at all and it will provide some natural living mulch to keep the soil shaded and prevent erosion and things like that and also help retain moisture in the soil it's also really satisfying to just grow rows of your favorite herbs right alongside your peppers so you can go out and grab the herbs grab some peppers whip something up right in the kitchen fresh out of the garden and finally we recommend peas and beans some people actually recommend not planting peas or beans near your peppers or any other plants in the garden but that's actually a fallacy peas and beans and other legumes will actually form a relationship with bacteria in the soil which can take nitrogen out of the air and fixate it into the soil so they're actually able to add nitrogen to the soil and sort of self-fertilize and fertilize any other plants that share the same root space so that's obviously a good thing we're all worried about fertilizing and adding nutrients and having healthy soil well these actually add nitrogen to the soil in ideal circumstances so of course why not plant peas and beans with your peppers do keep in mind though that some of these like to climb like pole beans and some peas can actually grow to be six feet tall i think sugar snap peas are actually one of those varieties that grow very tall so you're gonna want a trellis of some sort to allow these to grow vertically and save that space down below you don't want a sprawling pea plant that's going all over the place looking for something to climb so have a trellis on the north side of your peppers so that it won't shade out the peppers it will sort of grow as a wall behind your pepper plants or you can just plant bush beans which don't need a trellis of any kind so the one plant that is not recommended to grow with peppers is fennel now fennel is actually said to deter pests so in that regard it actually could potentially be a beneficial plant to have around peppers and other veggies but it is also claimed that fennel releases a substance into the soil that actually inhibits the growth of surrounding plants we haven't actually tested this ourselves we've never grown fennel i do love fennel though so i would love to do some sort of test but i'd also love to hear from you have you ever grown fennel have you seen it negatively impact your garden share in the comments below and also while you're there share your favorite companion plants for peppers what do you like growing in the garden what has worked well for you if you've done any testing please share it really love to learn from you guys as well don't forget to check out our ebook growing perfect peppers it's all about growing peppers our process from start to finish and lots of beautiful pepper pictures and helpful instructions along the way check that out in the description below and we've got some more patreon shout outs thank you aaron the puppy francesca christa w matthias lb brad m zak t jason m donny joseph b jader g zombie suit scott h diana s and jim r thank you so much for joining our patreon we hope you're enjoying it's been so fun so far to grow along with you and share our progress in video form over on patreon if you'd like to join our patreon visit the link down below where you can get access to our exclusive content and grow along with us and thanks again for joining thanks for watching peppergeek and i'll see you next time you

Channel: Pepper Geek

Views: 167,685

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Id: 8VipVMDy1vc

Length: 10min 49sec (649 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 27 2022