10 Best Companion Plants for Peppers + What NOT to Plant with Peppers
Growing peppers? Don’t just grow them alone. You could use some great companion plants for peppers to maximize the space in your garden or containers. Companion planting can also help deter pests and control weeds in your pepper garden. You can pair peppers with herbs, vegetables, and flowers (all listed below).
The best companion plants for peppers include carrots, eggplant, petunias, tomatoes, dill, and carrots. The benefits of pairing these plants with peppers include providing them with shade, a wind barrier, pest control, moisture retention, and support as they act as a trellis.
Whether it is jalapenos, bell peppers, chili peppers, or cayenne pepper, I’ve got a great list of plants you can pair with your peppers on this page. Remember that some plants may have a neutral companionship with your primary crop.
Best Companion Plants for Peppers
There are many plants that suit the growth cycle and style of peppers. They include herbs like basil, parsley, and dill; vegetables like tomatoes, carrots, and eggplant; and flowers like nasturtiums, geraniums, and petunias. Avoid plants in the Brassica family, fennel and apricots.
Here are the 10 best companion plants for peppers:
1. Basil
Basil is a popular summer herb that can do well on its own. However, combining it with pepper has many benefits, especially for peppers. One of the main benefits is that basil boosts the flavor of peppers.
Basil also deters most garden pests, including flies, mosquitoes, thrips, aphids, and spider mites. Pairing these plants with peppers helps get the most out of your garden.
READ MORE: Best Companion Plants for Cucumbers
2. Carrots
Besides being tasty together on your plate, carrots can also be combined with your peppers in the garden to provide a living mulch for the peppers.
Even better, they are great at controlling weeds in the garden to give your peppers a good chance to grow vigorously. Lastly, they help in spacing out the peppers in the right way.
3. Chard
Swiss chard has many benefits when combined with peppers in the garden. One such benefit is that they offer protection from the winds and shade from too much sunlight. They also keep weeds at bay. Chards also add great color to your garden.
4. Spinach
When combined with peppers in the garden, spinach offers benefits such as weed control by reducing empty spaces in your garden. They also help with spacing the peppers while not competing with the peppers for sunlight or water.
Spinach has a low growth habit, making it a great plant to pair with varieties of pepper that grow into large plants.
READ MORE: What are the Best Companion Plants for Dill?
5. Leeks
Leeks belong to a family of plants whose other members are onions and garlic. Leeks are good companions for peppers since they take up very little space and repel insects such as carrot flies. They have a small stature and thus great at spacing out the garden.
6. Radishes
Combining radishes with peppers is a great way of maximizing the space in your garden. While they don’t offer direct benefits like the other plants on this list, they’re good with space utilization as they grow fast and, in about 4 weeks, give you a crop as you wait for the peppers to mature.
7. Okra
Okra helps peppers grow better by providing partial shade and protecting them against strong winds. They’re also known to deter pests such as aphids from infesting the garden. They’re thus a great companion for your peppers in the summer.
8. Lettuce
Lettuce is of small stature compared to other companion plants for pepper, making it among the best options to use the space between pepper plants. Lettuce does a great job crowding out weeds from infesting your garden.
9. Onions
Besides being among the few plants whose leaves and roots are edible, onions do a great job as companion plants for pepper and other plants. They also help keep off pests such as cabbage worms, slugs, aphids, and many others from the garden.
10. Chives
Chives are among the best companion plants for peppers as they improve the yields and flavor of your peppers. They also deter pests such as most insects and aphids.
Other plants that do well as companion plants to peppers include beets, corn, beans, tomatoes, asparagus, garlic, squash, oregano, dill, parsley, marjoram, buckwheat, cucumbers, rosemary, eggplant, peas, geraniums, marigolds, lovage, petunia and nasturtium.
What can I plant next to jalapeno peppers?
For jalapeno papers, the best companion plants include the following:
- Carrots
- Marjoram
- Parsley
- Chives
- Oregano
- Coriander
- Dill
- Garlic
- Asparagus
- Eggplants
- Cucumbers
Many plants to pair with other peppers are also available for companion planting jalapenos.
What not to plant with peppers
The plants to never plant close to all types of peppers are as follows:
- Beans (for jalapenos)
- Peas (for jalapenos)
- Cauliflower
- Kohlrabi
- Broccoli
- Cabbage
- Kale
- Brussels sprouts
- Fennel
- Apricots
These plants are harmful to peppers in different ways. Some compete with the peppers for similar soil nutrients, while others attract pests and diseases which may affect the peppers.
References
- University of New Hampshire: What is the best way to start growing my own hot peppers?
- Utah State University: Spacing Plants in Your Home Garden
