Steve Yoder
I'm Steve, a 30-something urban gardener fascinated by companion planting research. Growing up surrounded by greenery sparked my passion for gardening early on. I enjoy transforming my small backyard, experimenting with companion planting techniques and eco-friendly practices. Sustainability matters—I advocate for native plants and composting.
Table of Contents
Peas are very popular members of our gardens. Every gardener wishes for healthy peas in their gardens. What if I tell you that there is a good tip to grow them faster, tastier, and healthier? It is simple. Peas love the existence of other plants in your garden. This makes it a very friendly plant. In this article, you will learn about peas companion plants and their effects on your garden.
Best Peas Companion Plants
Beans as Peas Companions
The first member of the best peas companion plants is beans. Peas and beans make excellent gardening partners1. Beans benefit from the nitrogen that peas fix in the soil. When planted together, the beans aid the peas by offering shade and ground cover. The beans help improve the soil’s nutritional content and sustain vines.
Beans also have many other great companions:
Carrot with Peas
Since they replenish nitrogen in the soil, carrots make excellent peas companion plants. Both plants profit from the other’s influence when they are planted together. If you want to make a statement visually, you may even plant them next to one other in the same bed or row!
For further information about carrot companion plants:
Corn and Peas
Corn is an excellent peas companion plant. The tall crop of corn will shade the ground as it grows, preventing weeds from sprouting there. Peas may be cultivated in between corn rows. The corn will be fed as it grows by the nitrogen that the peas fix in the soil.
To keep weeds from having access to the soil where they reside, you may also utilize the peas as a ground cover at the bottom of your corn stalks.
Cucumber & Peas
Cucumbers and peas make excellent garden neighbors and may be planted together. Both of these prefer rich soil, so be sure to stock up on compost.
Peas are trailing plants that need to be planted in rows, but cucumbers are vines that need a lot of space to flourish. It is therefore better to place them apart.
Cucumbers can be sown in their place once the peas have been harvested. Try putting your cucumber plants behind a trellis or up against a fence so they can climb vertically rather than spreading out horizontally across a space that is too large for them. Like that you avoid any additional cucumber plants to grow after your initial harvest.
Other cucumber companion plants:
Eggplant as Peas Companion
To continue our list of the best peas companion plants, we make a stop at eggplants. Peas and eggplant make excellent planting companions. Peas give nitrogen, which is beneficial to eggplant and also helps to keep them pest-free. Since both plants profit from this interaction, it is referred to as “mutualism.”
By luring helpful insects like ladybugs and lacewing larvae, peas aid eggplant plants as well. These eat aphids, which is a great benefit.
Eggplant is a very friendly plant, and it has many other companions. Have a look at them:
Marigold Planted with Peas
The next member of the best peas companion plants is marigold. This wonderful plant is effective in keeping the soil free of nematodes2. Which makes the soil more qualitative and helps your plants grow better. In addition to that, marigold repels pests. This protects your peas plants from any attacks. What a fantastic plant marigold is!
Another great news is that marigold has many other companions! Here is the list:
Mint with Peas
Peas and mint make a fantastic team. Aphids, which adore eating peas, are deterred by mint, and it also draws bees and hoverflies, which consume aphids. Additionally, mint improves soil moisture retention, which benefits plant growth.
Keep in mind that mint requires lots of suns if you want it to flourish alongside your peas. They will also benefit from well-drained soil, so make sure the area where you plant them doesn’t become damp after a downpour or watering!
Check out other mint companion plants:
Nasturtiums as Peas Companion Plants
We continue our list of the best peas companion plants with nasturtium. Nasturtiums make excellent peas companion plants. They are effective in luring beneficial insects while deterring aphids and other pests that would otherwise be drawn to your peas.
In your garden, nasturtiums will also deter whiteflies, but only if they are planted in significant numbers. When grown alongside one crop, such as peas, they perform less well. So, make sure to have more peas plants to benefit fully from this companionship.
Also, see nasturtium companion plants:
Onions and Peas
The next member is the onion plant! Since they ward off pests and promote each other’s growth, onions are excellent for peas. You may plant them with peas in the spring or the fall, but space them out enough so that they are approximately 18 inches apart.
Many gardeners misunderstood the heavy smell of onions as bad for other plants in the garden. That’s not the truth! In the article above you will learn everything about onion companion plants:
Potatoes as Peas Companions
The last member of the best peas companion plants is the potato. Since they support one another’s growth, potatoes and peas make excellent companion plants. The shade created by the potato leaves helps keep the soil under your peas moist, and the potato leaves draw pests away from the pea plants.
Peas and potatoes can both be planted at the same time or in separate holes near one another, but it’s crucial to avoid planting them too close together because potatoes require more space than most other crops.
Of course, we also prepared a big list of potato companion plants. Here is the article:
What NOT to Plant with Peas
Cauliflower
The first member of the bad peas companion plants is cauliflower. Due to the potential for growth stunting and a yield reduction of over 30%, cauliflower does not fare well when grown close to peas.
On the other hand, cauliflower makes great companions with other plants in your garden. Check them out:
Tomato
Excessive nitrogen in the soil harms tomato growth. Since tomatoes are also tall plants, especially indeterminate vines, they will compete with pea plants for sunlight. Peas can also increase the risk of root rot in tomato plants. These are a few reasons why you must avoid planting tomatoes next to your pea plants.
Turnip
We finish this article and also the members of bad peas companion plants with turnip. Turnips utilized as a companion crop for peas have been demonstrated to have a reduced yield at harvest time. Next to the turnip your peas won’t grow in a safe area and lose important nutrients to turnip.
Besides these negative turnip facts, it is also important to know how and where you plant your turnip plants. Everything you need to know about this topic:
References
- Tassoni, A., Tedeschi, T., Zurlini, C., Cigognini, I. M., Petrusan, J. I., Rodríguez, Ó., … & Corvini, P. F. (2020). State-of-the-art production chains for peas, beans and chickpeas—valorization of agro-industrial residues and applications of derived extracts. Molecules, 25(6), 1383.
- Walia, S. S., & Kaur, T. (2020). Integration of efficient farm enterprises for livelihood security of small farmers. In Long-Term Farming Systems Research (pp. 89-100). Academic Press.
