deanreedy

Your beans would be overwhelmed by the tomatoes, shaded, and nutrient-robbed. You'd do better to plant the tomatoes all by themselves! Pole beans and corn are good planting companions and apparently don't interfere with each other if the corn is allowed to get a couple of feet high before planting the beans.

Beans do great as a living mulch and mine are very productive and healthy inter planted in my tomatoes. They do not have a detrimental effect on each other in my experience.

I have lettuce and spinach planted between my tomatoes. Hoping to keep it from bolting as long as possible.

bryanccfshr, what was the spacing you used between the beans and tomatoes and between the bean seeds themselves?

thanks,

Dean

I was cheap and in a hurry. I used pinto beans which I enjoy Yong as string beans. I placed planted them 12-18" away from the tomato plants once they had reached a foot or two tall. I plant thickly in all the voids between the plants.

Lazy bean planting trick. I don;'t dig holes I parted mulch dropped the presoaked beans in and watered the area with Compost tea. The plants roots I have thinned had nodules so my soil has hosted Legumes before or I got the bacteria in there somehow with the composting.
They also act as a trap crop... for rabbits. But they don't mess with the toms and I have plenty of beans to share(they seem to only nibble on a leaf or two from each plant and go to another one. They also like the bean pods. )

If you plant the beans to early or if the Tomatoe plant is somehow weak or stunted, the beans will overwhelm the tomatoes. If the Tomatoes are grwong well They will shade out beans that are too close.

We grow various beens up and through our tomatoes. I see you are in zone 4 so your tomato plants won't be as thuggish as in areas where beans might not be as appropriate. anney in Geogia probably is correct if you lived in Georgia. I'm sure, however, that your tomatoes are just getting started and not harvested for another 2 to 3 months.

Alpiner...I am planting out my tomatoes this week...does that mean that I could put a pole bean seed in the ground next to my tomato plant and then just have it using the same trellis? THat would be VERY cool! And you don't feel you get less production from either one? Mary

The problem with underplanting tomatoes with beans is related to their root systems, less than their above-ground growth. Sometimes a root system is more extensive than the foliage above the ground.

Tomato Root System

Bean Root System

As you can see, the underground root systems of each plant are surprisingly extensive and spread horizontally. This doesn't mean you can't plant them close together -- you can plant anything close together. It just means that if beans are planted under the tomato foliage, neither plant will reach its optimal growth or production because of root competition for nutrients and moisture.

I've planted bush beans with tomatoes several times with great success.

Dean, here's what Rodale's Successful Organic Gardening: Companion Planting book has to say about it:

"Companion gardeners maintain that interplanting tomatoes or corn with beans improves the growth and yields of both crops. Science documents a field study in which each tomato was surrounded by several bean plants, and both beans and tomatoes yielded top crops."

In both Companion Planting by Richard Bird and The Vegetable Gardener's Bible by Ed Smith, bush beans and tomatoes are listed as "Good Companions."

Beans will do very well in partly shaded condiotions, you should have excellent crops with both plants.

The tomatoes are already 1" high, I thought since I have staked my tomatoes I would use the extra space for beans. If the beans are going to stunt my tomatoes or cause less production, I will not plant them.

Dean

I think companion planting is a great idea and practice it when I had raised beds almost like "square foot gardening" there was no wasted space. The important thing to remember is that your soil must be very furtile and well amended with manure/compost for plants closely spaced.

I have a container of (supposedly) bush beans growing next to a container of tomatoes. The beans are starting to climb up the tomatoes! (Some bush beans......) Will this harm the tomato plant? Is this behavior I should discourage?