How To Choose Companion Plants For Your Potatoes

Potatoes are an easy crop to grow in your garden. They require very little extra attention, except for regular watering and hilling up the soil to get a bigger harvest. If you've never grown these before, you might be interested in a few tips on how to start your seed potatoes. When it comes to choosing companion plants for your tubers, remember that they'll be dug up at the end of the season, so anything you plant nearby will have its roots disturbed during this process. Nevertheless, companion planting can offer numerous benefits, but selecting the right allies is important for optimum growth.

As there's very little scientific evidence of how well companion planting works, House Digest spoke exclusively to Melanie Rekola, landscape designer, horticulturist, and outdoor living enthusiast, to get her take on choosing the right companion plants for your potatoes. "Companion planting is an exciting topic," Rekola said. "Biodiversity in general makes a garden healthier and more resilient, but there are precise planting combos that can offer higher yields, pest protection, and sometimes better flavors, too!" Good partner species usually include aromatic herbs, other beneficial vegetable crops, and even flowers. To make choosing great companions even easier, Rekola said that "If companion planting gets confusing, you could also include these generally beneficial flowering plants that add beauty, repel pests, and attract pollinators, too. Echinacea, Monarda, and Yarrow all fit this category and offer medicinal qualities."

Herbs have long been used by savvy gardeners as companions for a variety of different vegetables. Often, their pungent aromas can deter certain pests to keep your edibles safe from being demolished before you have a chance to harvest them. Flowering herbs can also attract beneficial insects, such as pollinators, which can help your fruiting plants to produce more and larger harvests.

To find out which herbs can be grown with potatoes, House Digest spoke exclusively to Melanie Rekola. "Companion herbs for potatoes specifically include cilantro (protects potato plants from aphid and spider mite harm), Calendula (repels damaging potato beetles), and any plant in the onion (Allium) family, including chives and garlic," Rekola explained. "Alliums generally help a veggie garden by deterring a host of pest flying and crawling insects." As you can see from her comments, edible herbs can be highly useful in helping potatoes to thrive and keep them free from damaging pests. Luckily, there are plenty of other companion herbs that can protect potato plants from pests.

While herbs are widely used as companions, there are other plants that you might like to grow alongside your spuds. And, just like there are good allies, there are also species that really don't appreciate growing together. To get her views on this, House Digest spoke exclusively to Melanie Rekola. "Companion plants for potatoes don't have to be herbs," she said. "For example, peas/beans make excellent potato companions and fix nitrogen in the soil offering potatoes natural fertilization. But certain plants can harm or stunt other plants –- don't plant carrots, asparagus, or brassica near potatoes."

Another crucial point to remember is to rotate your plants from year to year to avoid problems with subsequent harvests. "When planting a veggie garden with companion plants or not, it's important to rotate planting sites –- don't plant potatoes or any other veggie in the same spot every year," Rekola said. "Each plant takes up different soil nutrients, so by rotating crops, you'll have the best chance for high yields." Now that you know how to choose the right companion plant for your potatoes, you may also want to familiarize yourself with how and when to fertilize growing potatoes.