Agree. The gardening fad called "companion planting" is just that - a fad with little regard for the needs of the plants. Which is why it has its own forum.

It in no way means anything other than normal spacing for the plants even if they are so-called "companions". Any benefits peppers and/or basil might have for tomato plants is minimal (if any) but they can definitely cause problems for each other when over-crowded. Peppers and tomatoes and basil all three have very different nutrient and water needs so planting them all mixed together can affect all three negatively.

Dave

I am going to put basil in my garden, some for eating others for pest management, I don't particularly care if they are close to my tomato or peppers I will try to keep it at least 6 inches away if they happen to be closer oh well. In another area I am planting sugar snap peas on the edge and they will be close to Brussel sprouts and those sprouts will have lettuce growing near them to later provide shade to keep them cooler so they don't bolt as it gets warmer. This is just how I am doing it and it's the first time for me companion planting. I am also incorporating flowers and plants to bring in benificial bugs and some will be planted in between the veggie plants.

Let me add that while animals and insects are social and like companions, and plants even like insects as companions (bees!), I've never been able to wrap my head around the idea that plants like companion plants. As Dave said, certainly there are plants that need the same soil conditions, so they grow well together, but they aren't necessarily helping each other out. Now, I suppose one kind of plant could repel or trap pests that affect another plant. Perhaps nitrogen fixing plants are beneficial next to plants that need nitrogen. Also some plants could act as living mulch for others. But that rationale has always struck me as being thin. In particular, those arguments certainly don't apply to tomatoes, basil, and peppers. Not at all clear those strategies are used much for commercial agriculture, which is exquisitely sensitive to value. Certainly there are a few good examples of allelopathy, where plants really don't like being near certain other plants, but I'm not aware of any allelopathic vegetables.

Yes, there are loads of lists of optimal and non-optimal companion plants, but they don't point to any biochemical explanation, or real comparative studies. A lot of it looks like one-off "this worked for me!" kind of stuff. I should say that I routinely plant things together that I am told should not be planted together (did you know that peppers and beans are alleged to dislike each other?), and have never had any problems.

Now I have an open mind, so I welcome any credible explanations about how this works that is based on real comparative data.

those companion list also don't include separation for plant that are antagonistic to each other. there are also issues such as people giving beneficial effect such certain plant repelling pest when original info totally different or in case of all marigold repelling nematodes when it is only french and Mexican types that have that effect.

also some varieties of sunflowers retard certain crops were as other varieties don't

Or plants become antagonistic in when they go into different growing stages.

Some companion like onion and carrot being beneficial in certain region where a pest is present. Such carrot confuse onion fly and onions confuse carrot fly but since the pest are mostly a European problem for the most part the effect is useless where neither pest is present.

Such dill is friendly tomatoes in early stages but retards growth later stages.

there are none vegetable plant in mix such black walnut being antagonistic many plants in tomato ,pepper and potatoes family.

Also there confusion when it come to trap crop being beneficial but only because they are planted away from the plant that trap crop pulls bad insects to it and away from benefiting crop.

some companion charts on net list good,bad and indifferent companion but without listing the benefit plus or minus of interaction are useless.

some benefits are do shade other factors of companion relationship.

most of books i have on subject list the companions and why each benefits from each other which helps but still they don't list spacing which is important.

habjolokia - lots of us grow some flowers in amongst the vegetables. But personally I don't call that 'companion planting' because I consider it a meaningless term. It has been used to mean a multitude of different things so I prefer to avoid it altogether. Simply growing plants to attract pollinators, using nurse crops, catch cropping quick crops between slow ones or succession cropping a Legume crop with a Brassica crop is not companion planting in my book. It's just common gardening sense.

Ignoring the space requirements of plants will not help them. If you grow them too close together it will be detrimental, however much companion planters say they 'like' each other.

BTW what is the mechanism by which growing Basil is said to control pests?

lol -my basil is an aphid magnet, I wouldn't qualify that as good " pest control"

Hi Floral, I've read that basil helps with warding away tomato horn worm, I've dealt with them it the past so I am going to give basil a try, also growing lemon basil too. I will also plant flowers/herbs for parasitic wasp as a backup because they are very effective with tomato/tobacco horn worms. Thanks for all the terminology and I will look into using those instead of a blanket statement.

I read into the companion planting when I started many years ago and found that planting tomatoes and basil was meah..... the tomatoes usually overgrew the basil and I had to hunt for the plants. OTOH.....the tomatoes shaded the basil some, delaying bolting. I've had minimal troubles with tomato worms, however. Don't know if this is related?

I can't get enough basil anyway, so.......

ubro- I have never found an aphid on my basil! Crazy!

Nancy

nancyjane, I don't know why but basil and dill for me seem to be aphid trap crops lol.

I've also never found an aphid on my basil or dill, either. My artichokes and newly planted beans/peppers are another story.

The best companion plants that I know of are flowering plants that attract a lot of bees, such as monarda or buddleia for example. I've done the basil thing near tomatoes and I didn't see any appreciable benefit, if indeed there was any benefit at all.

habjolokia - I'm interested in the actual mechanism by which Basil is said to ward off pests. I don't know of any way it could but would like to see the evidence. Do you have any information on that?

Floral, as for scientific evidence that basil wards off pests, I will have to research, for now it's a trial and error type of planting, but there is some scientific evidence that basil and tomato can benefit eachother so my risk is low and possible reward is greater. Though my goal is to defend against tomato/tobacco horn worm I know that parasitic (Braconid) wasps will get these guys if they show up, and I will be planting flowers that they favor as my main defense.

Back in the day i did a bit of it, the classics, when my garden was 'pretty' and i always came home with more nursery plants than i had room for...

Then i concentrated on my soil quality. More arm chair and lazy now. I do like some of the edibles like calendula and nasturtiums and borage but i just tuck in seeds as they all do well. Basil needs its own bed in my garden with lots of added sand. Peppers need room and full sun. I would not see a pepper if shaded by toms. I do a row of carrots down the middle of my main tomato bed and for some reason they always seem friendly. (that soil is never touched or walked on so it is very carrot happy).

Then again, if i had a real tough time growing something as important to me as a tomato i would try anything and everything!