Dave thank you for your help. I will do a search.

So far my low yield has been due to pests and disease in the last two years.

You make a great point about taking away nutrients

Then that should be your focus rather than companions. What pests and what diseases specifically? Learn as much about them as you can so you can catch both early and increase yield. A good pair of garden snips in the pocket can be a great tool for both pests and diseased leaves. Spraying with fungicides from day one of plant out is another Surround (kaolin clay dust) is a good way to reduce both pest and disease issues. Lots to learn.

Dave

Crop rotation is important. Try not to plant your tomatoes in the same spot every year. If the roots of your plants last year had bumps on them, you may have nematodes in the soil

Depending on where you are, rotation might do nothing against nematodes, IF nematodes are actually the problem. And it's less likely for someone in zone 6 to be dealing with nematodes (although obviously zone is limited information and it doesn't rule out anything). m_gold, I suggest you add more specific location information next to your zone info. This will help you get more targeted advice more quickly in future.

The important thing to do is identify the disease and pests which are actually a problem in your garden so you can address them effectively.

Rotation is ideal, but those of us with smaller gardens or gardens with limited areas of sufficient sunlight sometimes can't do it and have to rely on alternate strategies.

To me companion planting with tomatoes can make sense very early on when the tomatoes are just planted out. Then you can plant various things in the space between them. Those plants should also be sort of cool crops that will be finished and gone by the time tomatoes shade them. I have done this with lettuce and chard before. So in this context things like BASIL would not be a candidate, IMO., as they need to be around all summer.

sey

That's another way to interpret the phrase "companion planting". That's companioning that is good for the gardener, but not particularly helpful to tomatoes. But it's very true that making good use of space should be a high priority.

I agree that rotation is ideal, but it's not something that the residential gardener with very limited space has the luxury of doing. I've had cherry tomatoes in the same spot for 15 years, and they're going strong (though they are pretty nematode resistant).

Choosing reisitant varieties is definitely a big plus. It can save a lot of headaches.

We companion planted marigolds 2 years in a row and saw a marked decrease in pests. Obviously this is not scientific and your own results may vary, but we support it.

Depends on what your problems are. Marigolds allegedly repel certain pests, but not other pests. My main pest is leaf-footed (stink) bugs. Marigolds are supposed to be trap crops for those, which I guess means that they attract them to my bed if I companion plant with them.

M Gold,

I've had trouble for years with low production on certain heirlooms: Pineapple, Kellogg's Breakfast, Beauty King, etc. I learned how to pollinate the tomato flowers last year on youtube and it easily tripled my output. You use an electric toothbrush and jiggle the stem BELOW the flower. It makes the flower vibrate and pollinate itself. It was so satisfying to have every flower turn into a tomato!! Please try it!

I did do companion planting with my zucchini rows that was very successful. Beets and carrots grew amazing when planted under the rim of the zucchini leaves.