Peppers are one of the more common garden vegetables, but they can suffer from damage from a wide range of pests. Companion planting peppers with certain crops can help cut back on that pest damage, enhancing pepper growth and contributing to a healthier garden. Here's how to maximize pepper yields and create healthier soil with a few well chosen companions.
Skip Ahead: Benefits of Companion Planting • The Best Companion Plants for Peppers • Bad Companions for Peppers • Pepper Pests • Growing Peppers with Tomatoes •Companion Planting Chart
Benefits of companion planting with peppers
In addition to benefiting from other herbs, vegetables, and flowers, peppers offer their own benefits for companion plants. Peppers can be ideal for repelling pests, improving soil fertility, and attracting pollinators.
Thanks to the capsaicin they produce, peppers may help repel aphids, whiteflies, and spider mites, among other veg-loving insects. Cutting back on pests can certainly improve yields, but peppers can also help to boost the production of other plants by attracting pollinators and providing shade for cool weather herbs.
The best pepper companion plants
Peppers grow well with most common garden vegetables that share their growing requirements: full sun, rich soil, and consistent watering. That said, some herbs and flowers make particularly good companion plants for peppers: those that deter pests or attract beneficial insects.
Here's what grows well with peppers and a few companion planting choices specifically for cutting back on pest damage:
- Radishes
- Bok choy
- Cucumbers
- Lettuce
- Onions
- Basil
- Chives
- Parsley
- Cilantro
- Nasturtiums
- Marigolds
- Calendula
- Sweet alyssum
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1. Radishes
Radishes can grow as trap crops for flea beetles, which prefer the quick-growing veg to peppers. If you struggle with flea beetles, sow or plant out your radishes with enough time for them to become established before you plant out the peppers.
Radishes and peppers both like full sun and consistently moist-- but not soaked-- soil. Radishes do well direct sown and can mature in as little as a month, but they can also be transplanted out as starts.
2. Bok choy
Bok choy is another handy trap crop for flea beetles. It likes fertile, well drained, and moist soil, and tend to do best in part shade. To grow it with peppers, plant bok choy in the spring and, once the soil and nighttime temperatures are consistently warm, plant out your pepper plants to cast shade on the bok choy.
3. Cucumbers
Cucumbers and peppers share soil, water, and sun requirements. Grown in the same soil, they can thrive together. Be sure to train the cucumbers up a trellis or support and plant the peppers in the front, so that they aren't shaded by the cucumbers' broad leaves.
Read More: The 15 Best Companion Plants for Cucumbers
4. Lettuce
Lettuces are quick-growing plants that can be sown and harvested while peppers set flower and begin to fruit. Though they won't repel pests or attract predatory insects, lettuces are a great cash crop to plant with main season crops like peppers, carrots, and potatoes.
5. Onions
Growing onions with peppers can benefit both plants, as onions can help protect peppers from pests and will benefit from their shared, well draining soil. This is also a great companion pairing for maximizing planting space, as the onions won't compete with peppers for nutrients in the soil. Peppers can also benefit from some onion companion plants, like parsley, cilantro, and chives.
6. Basil
Basil and peppers both thrive in heat and rich soil and require regular watering, so they grow well together. Basil oil is also known to deter thrips and could protect peppers from damage, though basil plants may be less effective than a concentrated basil oil.
Read More: 11 Best Basil Companion Plants
7. Chives
Chives enjoy rich soil and regular watering, and they can benefit from the part shade cast by bushy pepper plants. They may also mask the scent of peppers, effectively deterring aphids and other pests. Other chive companion plants-- parsley, cilantro, and radishes-- also grow well with peppers.
8. Parsley
Companion planting with parsley is a fantastic way to attract beneficial insects and keep pest populations in balance. Parsley flowers, like other umbellifers, attract parasitic wasps, ladybugs, hoverflies, and lacewings that prey on pests like aphids and pepper weevils.
Parsley is a biennial, so it will send up leafy growth in its first year and flowers in its second year. In the summer, parsley will benefit from the shade cast by peppers. But if it does bolt when the temperatures rise, it's worth keeping around just for its flowers!
9. Cilantro
Cilantro thrives in cool temperatures and is quick to bolt in the summer. In the late spring, planting peppers so that they cast shade on cilantro can help extend cilantro's growing season. Both plants will benefit from sharing rich soil that's kept moist.
Read More: The 9 Best Companion Plants for Cilantro
10. Nasturtiums
One of the most popular companion flowers, nasturtiums offer a few benefits for a vegetable garden: they can act as a trap crop for nematodes and aphids, repel whitefly, shade the soil, and suppress weeds.
11. Marigolds
French and African marigolds repel whitefly and root-knot nematodes, and they also attract beneficial predators like ladybugs, hoverflies, and parasitic wasps. Both attributes make companion planting with marigolds useful for peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and most other common garden vegetables.
12. Calendula
Calendula, also known as pot marigolds, attracts lacewings and ladybugs, which prey ontomato hornwormsand aphids. This makes calendula an excellent companion plant for many vegetables, including other fruiting vegetables and brassicas. It's also a versatile plant; calendula is fantastic for natural dyeing, and homemade calendula oil is great for the skin.
13. Sweet Alyssum
A low-growing annual flower that enjoys full sun and regular watering, sweet alyssum is another great companion flower for peppers. It attracts beneficial insects like hoverflies, pirate bugs, and parasitic wasps, helping to reduce damage from a wide variety of pests.
What not to plant with peppers
Certain plants suffer when planted next to peppers, usually because their soil, sun, and/or water requirements are too dissimilar.
Here's what not to plant near peppers, as a general rule:
- Rosemary: Rosemary likes fast draining, poor soil and infrequent watering. It won't grow well in the conditions that peppers need.
- Mint: Mint thrives in peppers' growing conditions, but it will quickly grow to dominate the soil and choke out nearby plants.
- Fennel: Fennel is allelopathic, meaning that it actively inhibits the growth of neighboring plants.
- Brassicas: Generally, brassicas (kale, cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli) don't prefer to grow near heavy feeding, fruiting vegetables like peppers. Instead, brassicas like slightly poorer soil that's compact around their roots.
Common pepper pests
The ideal companion plants for peppers will be those that attract predatory insects or deter pests. For example, green peach aphids, one of the most common pepper pests, itself has a few common predators, including lacewings, ladybugs, and some parasitic wasps. You can support these beneficial predatory insects by growing parsley, carrots, dill, and fennel. Similarly, marigold actively deters whitefly and root-knot nematodes.
Some common pepper pests to look out for include:
- Flea beetles
- Pepper weevils
- Green peach aphids
- Potato leafhoppers
- Armyworms
- Thrips
- Whitefly
- Cutworms
What can I plant with peppers and tomatoes?
If you're planting tomatoes and peppers together, consider interplanting them with companion flowers or herbs that attract beneficial insects. Both plants are nightshades and will attract the same pests, so they're not ideal companions.
Calendula, marigolds, and nasturtium are all classic companion flowers that attract predatory insects and deter pests. Basil, parsley, cilantro, and chives can also contribute to a healthy garden by increasing species richness among insects, attracting pollinators, and (in some cases) confusing or deterring pests.
Pepper companion planting chart
