Vegetables, Just like People, Have Their Friends and Foes. Some Can Grow Close Together, Others Would Rather Stay Away

It's about time to plant and seed first vegetables this year. Although the nights can be still chilly, soon we will see some first green vegetables seedlings. If you haven’t decided on what to seed and where, let us advise you on what vegetables get on well. And what should be kept far away from each other.

Louisse Riotte, the author of 'Carrots Love Tomatoes', believes that this duo really like each other. While carrots prefer shades and humid environment that tomatoes can provide, at the same time their tops protect tomatoes against pests.

Tomatoes can also grow together with parsley and celery. The early carrot can be seeded next to onion, while the maincrop one next to leech. Of course carrot can grow together with lettuce and spring onion.

Chamomile supports the growth of most vegetables in our garden, in particular all kinds of cabbage. It increases their immunity to disease. Cabbage like the company of peppermint and dwarf bean. While mint repels aphids, the bean keeps cabbage butterflies at bay. All kinds of cabbage appreciate the company of onion as it releases fungicidal substances called phytoncides.

Onion can enhance the taste of broccoli. Its leaves also offer shade. Broccolis grow well close to cauliflower, turnip, beetroot, celery, pea, lettuce and potatoes.

Pumpkins, zucchinis and watermelons need to be pollinated, so fragrant herbs may attract some useful insects. The herbs include lavender, rosemary and dill.

Radish keeps pests that can harm its leaves away from spinach.

Radish also grows well together with lettuce radish and celery.

Pumpkins, beans and corn are good friends in the garden. Beans climb the corn while the pumpkin's leaves struggle with weeds.

Garlic and onion leaves grow pretty high protecting the lettuce from too much sun exposure.

The root system of peas supports the growth of cucumbers. Cucumbers grow well together with celery, radish, onion and beetroot.

These vegetables can be affected by the same kind of disease, so they shouldn't grow close together. Once the plague attacks one of them, it will quickly spread to the other.

These two are vulnerable to the same kind of fungus so growing together they are exposed to the same risk.

Cucumbers do not tolerate fragrant herbs. Their smell can affect the taste of cucumbers. They also don’t like the company of tomatoes and potatoes.

Many plants appreciate the proximity of onion, yet cucumbers and dwarf beans do not. The root system of onion grows so much that it can take over the nutrients the beans or peas need.

Leech, growing next to beetroots, can be attacked by beet rust. Leech should never grow close to carrots as its root may not develop properly.

Do you know any other rules concerning seeding vegetables?