Pepper Plant Companions

Wondering what to plant with your chile peppers to help them thrive?

Flowers, chives, carrots, radishes, squash, basil, parsley, dill, marjoram, Oregano, Rosemary, cucumbers, eggplant, and onions all do well when grown in close proximity to peppers. But don't plant them too close that they will shade your pepper plants: Squash and cucumbers, for example, need ample space so we plant them at least 3-4' away from our pepper patch. You can also use trellises for your cucumbers to grow them up off the ground, just make sure to place them so they don't shade your peppers for a bulk of the day.

Spinach and lettuce are suitable pepper companions because they are low-growing with shallow roots, providing an edible ground cover that helps control weeds.

Make sure not to plant things too close to your peppers, so as not to shade or inhibit air circulation. Including lots of flowers, herbs and other vegetables in your garden will help increase your edible harvest and create a pollinator habitat and healthy ecosystem. Learn more about
Attracting beneficial insects to your vegetable garden »

Planting annual and perennial flowers near your pepper patch is a sure way to invite pollinators to your garden, which, in turn, help boost your pepper harvest.  Sunflowers, Echinacea, Lavender, and Nasturtiums are all great flowers that will attract lots of pollinators and beneficial bugs for pest control.

Native plants are particularly helpful, so contact your native plant society in your city or state to find out what flowering plants are native to your region. Native plants are easy to grow as they thrive in each area's natural conditions without extra fertilizers or water – plus the birds, butterflies, and bees thrive on native flowers! Some of our favorite native flowers for our area in the west include Goldenrods, Coneflowers and Wild Geraniums. But it varies depending on where you are, so connect with your local native plant society to find out the best plants for your region.  Read more about growing your own Homegrown National Park »

Good flowers to grow around your vegetable garden include:
Marigolds, Nasturtiums, Goldenrod, Black-Eyed Susans, Coneflowers / Echinacea, Penstemons, Alliums, and Geraniums (Geraniums are known to repel Japanese Beetles!)

Of course, with any flowers or plants, make sure not to plant them so close to your peppers that these flowers shade your peppers, as peppers like sun! If you have them growing nearby, that will be enough. 

Attracting  Beneficial Insects:

Flowers like Lavender, Nasturtiums, and herbs like Cilantro, Oregano, Basil, Sunflowers, Echinacea or Nasturtiums are great for attracting pollinators and beneficial insects when they are in bloom.  Native plants especially attract beneficial insects like Lacewigs, Ladybugs, and Hoverflies, resulting in their incredible pest-eating larvae that devour aphids, caterpillars and other pests of your vegetables. Ask your local native plant society about what plants are best for your area.

Learn more about Plants that Attract Beneficial Insects

We like to keep a patch of Nasturtium growing (it reseeds every year if you leave the large seedpods). It's great as the leaves and flowers are edible, it self-sows, and it looks beautiful in the vegetable garden. The bees love Nasturtium, too! 


 
This slightly over-planted pepper garden (yes, we do it, too!) still provides an abundant harvest. Note the Nasturtium growing in the top of the photo. 

Basil is a wonderful herb for using in all sorts of recipes, and some people say that it boosts peppers flavor if grown nearby, and it also repels pests such as aphids and spider mites. It's beautiful too, and the pollinators love the blooms! We usually let a few basil plants bloom for the pollinators, and trim and harvest our other basil plants to keep them growing vegetation. Basil is super easy to grow from seed!

Cilantro is amazing herb that is great to grow around pepper plants. Cilantro blooms attracts beneficial insects to gardens and the plant discourages pests such as aphids. Planting cilantro in the shade of pepper plants helps cilantro grow into a lush and bushy plant. Plus, enjoy the blooms when it bolts and flowers, which is inevitable – even the so-called "slow bolting" cilantro varieties will bloom, it really likes to become a flower. But don't worry, cilantro flowers smell wonderful, look dainty and lacy, and attract pollinators and other beneficial insects. If you let the flowers ripen and go to seed, you can save the dried brown cilantro seeds, also known as coriander for use in the kitchen and for resowing. Since Cilantro is short-lived, and it does like to bloom in the heat, we like to sow cilantro seeds every 2-4 weeks for a never-ending source of cilantro leaves for your salsas and recipes.

The entire cilantro plant is edible, including the roots, stems, leaves, flowers and seeds. Direct seed into your garden or large pots or containers for best results – gently press the seeds into the soil and cover with about ¼ inch of soil. Keep watered, cilantro likes consistent moisture, but not soggy soil!

4. Chives

5. Beans!

Beans are one of our all time favorite pepper companion plants. Short growing beans such as Bush Green Beans are great to plant around your peppers, as they fix nitrogen in the soil which helps improve natural soil fertility. Plus you get green beans!

Bush beans planted among your peppers can also help prevent sun scald on the fruits. This is because they can provide side shade for your pepper plants and keep the soil cooler which provides protection from excessive heat or sun.

 

 

You can grow lettuce in small spaces as an edible living mulch. Lettuce can thrive in the shade of pepper plants in the summer. You can also plant lettuce in your garden beds long before you plant your peppers, as lettuce can withstand some frost, and grows very well in early spring when the temperatures are cooler.

Spinach is also a good low-growing plant to grow near your peppers to act as a living mulch. Also great for salads, stir fries, etc. This is also a great plant to grow in your garden beds before you're ready to plant your pepper plants, as spinach is frost tolerant grows very well in early spring when the temperatures are cooler. Give it a little cover with a frost blanket, cold frame or hoop house and you can grow it nearly all winter long.

11. Dill

Garlic is another small space plant that can be grown around pepper plants to maximize garden space. Garlic repels insect pests as well, and goes great in salsas, green chile stews and pretty much any other recipe!

Growing parsley attracts lots of beneficial insects such as hoverflies who's larvae eat aphids, thrips, and other harmful insects.

A repeat of #1 in our top 20 list, but we really love this perennial flower! Coneflowers attract bees all summer, and you only have to plant them once. You can also divide them in early fall to make more and spread their cheer throughout your landscape or garden. Birds and pollinators also love Echinacea, as it provides nectar in the summer and the flowers' seed heads provide seeds for birds in the fall and winter months – so we like to leave stalks standing to bring in feathered friends like Goldfinches and dark eyed Juncos to the fall and winter garden.

Which companion plants affect the performance of green peach aphid on host plants? French researchers tested 12 candidate plants under laboratory conditions, and found Rosemary to be one of the best deterrants! Did you know it's super-easy to propogate Rosemary? Just take a snipping of a young stem and put in water, and it will grow roots within a week or two, then plant in soil! Easy peasy. Read more about their study below: 

Want to deter aphids? Plant some rosemary throughout the garden, African and French marigolds work well too. A group of French researchers designed an experiment that tested how effective 12 different companion plants were at deterring aphids from infesting a garden. The researchers set up two rows of pepper plants inside 13 individual growing chambers (there were 12 companion plants treatments and one control treatment with no companion plant), and then placed adult female aphids on each plant. Then, the various companion plants were set in between the two rows of pepper plants and allowed to grow alongside each other. Each day, the scientists would count the number of adult females remaining on the pepper plants, and also the number of neonate nymphs (baby aphids) that were produced by the adult female.

You can also plant flowering trees to help the pollinators, early spring-blooming fruit trees are a wonderful first meal for hungry bees when not much else is blooming yet. Native shrubs and trees are best, so ask your local garden center or nursery what native flowers, trees and shrubs would thrive in your yard. Serviceberries, oaks, and other natives can really increase the presence of beneficial insects and pest-eating birds in your yard for a well-balanced ecosystem.

You can also plant fruiting shrubs such as raspberries, elderberries, grapes, elderberries, and other flowering plants. Of course, make sure not to plant them too close to your peppers so as not to block the necessary 6+ hours of sun that peppers require to be most productive.

Rather than strip your garden and flower beds to bare soil over the winter, leave the leaves and even the perennial plant stalks and leaves. Leaving leaves and grass clippings on your garden beds helps to feed and insulate the soil during the winter months. Leaf litter can also provide shelter for hibernating bees, including bumblebees and the larvae of butterflies and moths. You'll find that the soil will be rich and moist come spring if you give it a nice thick blanket of mulched leaves and grass clippings. By spring, you'll find that most of the leaves have reduced to near nothing, and you can dig them into the soil to continue to feed for the year.

Note: we do usually clear out vegetable plant leaves and stalks at the end of the season, leaving the root balls to decay in the soil. If there is any powdery mildew or other diseases or pests, it is wise to remove the problem plants entirely from the garden.

Use Companion Plants to grow more Peppers
Growing companion plants with Chile Peppers ensures a great harvest! The more different types of plants and flowers you have growing in and around your vegetable and pepper garden, the better your garden will be! While peppers can self-pollinate with wind, having bumblebees, honeybees and other native pollinators give them an extra "buzz" boosts the likelihood of pollination. 

 

Sandia Seed specializes in unusual and rare pepper seed varieties, so check out our website seed collections for super hot pepper seeds, hot pepper seeds, Hatch chile seeds, and sweet pepper seeds. We also sell Heirloom Tomato seeds which go great with chiles. :)  Happy growing!