Broccoli is really something, isn’t it? This healthy vegetable is as adaptable as it is delicious, and it looks stunning raw in your favorite dip or cooked with a variety of spices. You’re most likely growing this beauty at home if you’re a lover of it. Several broccoli companion plants can help your crop flourish.
There are plants that you may put alongside your gorgeous brassicas to assist them grow better than ever, whether you want to repel pests, change the sweetness of your broccoli, or just liven up the soil.
Before We Get Started
In previous posts, we’ve discussed how calcium deficiency can cause Blossom-End Rot in fruiting plants like tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini. So, it’s well known for taking a lot of calcium from the soil around it. The leaves will roll at the tip and continue to necrotize towards the stalk if it does not get enough calcium.
Before planting, test your soil for deficiencies and apply calcium if needed. Add a calcium chloride tablet to the soil near the stalk once a week if you believe your broccoli still requires a calcium boost.
Also, avoid putting calcium-hungry plants nearby. Ultimately, you don’t want your crops to fight for nutrients.
Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and other brassicas should stay in mind. It’s preferable to have warmer weather. As a consequence, growing them in the spring or fall will give you better results (and healthy plants).
But, if you reside in a warmer environment or simply have hot, sunny summers, make sure to provide them cover in the middle of the day. You’ll be less pest-attacked and get healthier, happier veggies at harvest time by interspersing at least a few of these broccoli companion plants.
Broccoli Companion Plants
Remember to plant a variety of companions when it comes to companion planting. Beneficial pollinators are attracted, pest-repelling or trapping unwelcome pests are repelled or trapped, and the primary crop benefits from nutrients. Let’s explore some of the greatest veggies, herbs, and flowers that may be found around you right now.
1. Lettuce
Lettuce is a wonderful source of nutrition and can be used in salads and sandwiches alike. The problem is that, when it’s hot outside (which it is most of the time), it bolts. As a result, consider growing your lettuce beside your broccoli.
Baby lettuces will be shaded by the big broccoli leaves, which prevent them from bolting.
2. Spinach
This is the same as the lettuce example above. Plant spinach within 6-9 inches of your broccoli plants because it bolts even more easily than lettuce does.
3. Swiss Chard
On sunny days, chard can provide your broccoli some protection and serve as a good mulch plant. Its huge lower leaves help to conserve moisture by providing footing.
4. Celery
Do you know why celery has a lovely flavor? So, it will aid to sweeten your broccoli if you place it beside it. In addition, its long stalks may assist provide shade on hot, sunny days, as well as help to remove excess bitterness from the brassica.
Just make sure to plant your seeds for excellent shadiness in the location where you notice light falling in your garden.
5. Beets
Beets aren’t calcium hogs, unlike other root vegetables like carrots and parsnips. They won’t compete for space with your broccoli, and they’ll break up thick soil to promote aeration and water movement.
6. Radishes
They are similar to the beets described above.
7. Cucumbers
Cucumbers may be grown on a trellis nearby to provide shade if you live in a hot climate. Because they’re such heavy feeders, cukes don’t rate highly on the list of broccoli companion plants.
In reality, brassicas may compete for nutrients if you don’t feed the soil well.
Cucumbers (or melons) grown vertically or overhead truly can provide crucial shade, even if broccoli may bolt in hot weather with too much sun. It’s important to cultivate cukes in pots or along the outskirts in well-fed soil.
8. Onions
Shallots and scallions are examples of plants in the onion (Allium) family. Broccoli won’t steal their nutrients, and they’ll repel pests that pose a threat to them.
The allicin, quercetin, and kaempferol found in most insects are considered repulsive by them. As a consequence, alliums may help keep your delicious veggies safe from little munching mouths by bordering them around other vegetable beds.
9. Potatoes
The only nightshade (Solanaceae) family members that may be sown with broccoli are potatoes. Fruiting nightshades, such as peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants, compete for nutrients that broccoli requires during the fruiting stage.
Potatoes, on the other hand, aid in soil disruption and nutrient delivery. Broccoli roots are able to expand out and absorb additional nutrients and minerals as a result of this.
10. Rhubarb
While it’s often served as a fruit, this is technically a vegetable. Either way, it’s a terrific plant for growing alongside your broccoli, but not in its shadow.
Cabbage whiteflies (Aleyrodes brassier) can decimate brassica crops, and Rhubarb is an ideal trap crop for them. It shouldn’t compete for nitrogen if you grow it at least 18 inches away from your broccoli.
Furthermore, since it protects your kale, cabbages, Brussels sprouts, and rapini, grow it near any other brassica beds you have.
11. Dill
Dill pulls triple duty as a broccoli companion plant, which is one of its best features. It also boosts broccoli growth and improves its flavor. Braconid wasps, hoverflies, and ladybugs will all come to visit your dill if you let it bloom. In addition to aphids, worms, and caterpillars, they also eat other species that would harm your food crops.
12. Basil
Basil, along with cabbage worms and white butterflies, is used to keep away intruders. Honeybees, wasps, and butterflies are attracted to it if it’s allowed to bloom.
13. Mint
Now, it’s a toss-up whether or not I’ll grow mint. Whiteflies, white butterflies, aphids, and flea beetles are all repelled by them on one hand. Mint, on the other hand, is nearly impossible to remove once it’s been put down.
Sinking pots of mint into the soil nearby if you want to grow it as one of your broccoli companion plants. Otherwise, in just a few years, you’ll have a mint garden.
14. Rosemary
Rosemary is absolutely despised by cabbage loopers and cabbage moths, members of the Brassicaceae family. Use it to protect your broccoli by enclosing it with a perimeter fence, or use it to supplement your flora.
It’s worth noting that if you’re in USDA Hardiness Zones 7 and up, rosemary is only perennial. Otherwise, consider it a yearly event. You’ll have to pot it up and bring it inside before frosts arrive if you want to keep it permanently.
15. Chives
Chives will help to repel pests while attracting beneficial ones, much like other alliums. For extra broccoli recipes you like, you may also clip chive leaves and flowers as needed.
16. Thyme
Several unwanted insect species would chew your broccoli to bits if thymol was not present, so this herb is an effective repellent. Its blooms will also attract and nourish a variety of bee and wasp species.
17. Chamomile
While repelling unwanted insects, this friendly little flowering herb improves broccoli’s flavor. It’ll also help to retain moisture in the soil since it’s a creeping groundcover.
18. Nasturtiums
Great broccoli companion plants not only attract beneficial pollinators but also stand out in the garden. Deep green broccoli is enhanced by bright orange nasturtiums. You can even eat the two together as a bonus.
Add a bouquet of nasturtium petals and greenery to your raw broccoli salad or slaw. The dish will be sprinkled with vibrant colors and spicy tastes.
19. Calendula
Calendula blooms are beneficial companions to just about any plant, much like nasturtiums. They help to preserve flavor, repel aphids, and attract beneficial pollinators. And, hey, having a few extra medicinal plants in the garden can’t hurt!
20. Borage
Among your brassicas, these lovely plants have lovely blue blooms that stand out. They also attract bees and butterflies while repelling cabbage hornworms.
21. Cosmos
Cosmos are beneficial companion plants for broccoli, as well as a wide range of other crops, since they repel certain pests while attracting pollinators.