Plant Partners by Jessica Walliser

Author:Jessica Walliser
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gardening;gardener;growing;vegetable garden;Roses love Garlic;soil;Carrots love tomatoes;plant combination;weed control;pest;biodiversity;broccoli;square foot;grow better;raised bed;design;vegetable gardener's bible;companion planting;organic;plant combinations;food gardening;natural pest control;garden pests;weeds;vegetables love flowers;edible plants;interplanting;cover crops;savvy gardening;beneficial insects;pollinators;polyculture;permaculture;biocontrol;biological control;plan;garden layout
Publisher: Storey Publishing
Published: 2020-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

A new planting of Chinese cabbage is interspersed with young green onion seedlings to mask the cabbage plants from flea beetles.

Tomatoes + Basil for Thrips

Thrips are tiny, narrow insects that feed by sucking plant juices, causing discoloration and a silvering or puckering of leaf surface, flower buds, or fruits. Thrips can spread various plant diseases. On tomatoes, they’re responsible for transmitting tomato spotted wilt virus. Less than 1⁄20 inch long, thrips are a challenge to identify and control. Signs of tomato thrips include stunted growth, tiny pale spots on the fruits, and early fruit drop, along with the tiny specks of their black excrement. Often the terminal shoots of the plants are killed or stunted. Many times damage from thrips is confused with damage caused by other insects and mites.

The same species of thrips that feed on tomatoes, including western flower thrips and onion thrips, also feed on onions (they much prefer red onions to white). Because of this, if thrips are problematic in your garden, keep members of the onion family separate from tomatoes. Instead, interplant tomatoes with basil (Ocimum basilicum), which has been found to help mask tomato plants from thrips.

Though I wasn’t able to uncover research on other plant partnerships utilizing basil to deter thrips, it makes intuitive sense to interplant with peppers, eggplants, beans, celery, potatoes, or other susceptible crops, as they, too, are common food sources for thrips. It isn't certain if basil is as effective a companion plant for those crops as it is for tomatoes, but the combination will not prove harmful.

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