Bad companion plants for blueberries are the most important thing you should be aware of if you plan to grow blueberries or already have them in your garden.
In this guide, we’ll discuss what companionship planting is and the worst plants you can possibly grow next to blueberries.
Contents
Bad Blueberries Companion Plants List- Explaining the Hazards
Companion planting is the practice of planting different plants together in order to take advantage of their unique characteristics and benefits. This can include plants of different varieties, sizes, and even colors.
When companion planting, you should consider the characteristics and needs of each plant in order to ensure that they complement each other and do not compete for resources.
The benefits of companion planting can include increased yields, improved soil quality, pest and disease control, and even better nutrient absorption. However, it’s important to be aware of the risks associated with companion planting, as some plants may be incompatible with your blueberries and could even damage or destroy your crop.
There are several plants that should be avoided when companion planting with blueberries. These plants can cause damage to your blueberry bushes, reduce yields, and even lead to crop failure.
To ensure the success of your blueberry crop, it’s important to avoid sowing the following plants alongside your blueberries.
1. Eggplants
| Growing season | Summer and fall |
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These plants are both tasty and ornamental. Known as Aubergines and also Brinjal, these are tender perennials grown for their glossy and exotic fruit. Eggplants are incredibly easy to grow and come in various shapes and sizes. In addition to bringing a unique flavor to recipes in cuisines worldwide, these have plenty of health benefits!
These plants belong to the nightshade family of plants and are botanically classified as fruit. There are many varieties ranging in size and color, as well as climate-appropriate species. So it’s no wonder these are being grown across the world these days.
Eggplant plants grow up to four feet tall and three feet wide. They perform best in full sun, organic and acidic soils. The soil should be moist at all times and have good enough sun exposure! Eggplants usually take around 80 days to be harvest-ready from the day of sowing.
Choosing a blueberry companion implies avoiding eggplants as shallow eggplant roots are easily damaged by cultivating other species! Your blueberry bushes are likely to be damaged and stunted by having eggplants close by.
You should avoid planting blueberries in the soil where you’ve previously grown eggplants either — at least wait for a couple of years before this crop rotation decision!
Along with what’s being said, eggplants invite some pests and diseases to the board too! Keep a keen eye on aphids, beetles, flea beetles, slugs, snails, whiteflies, tobacco mosaic viruses, and others.
2. Cabbage
| Growing season | Summer, fall |
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Cabbage comes from a strong family of vegetables that include kale, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflowers, and other green, leafy sprouts. They are cool-season vegetables grown for their nutritious and edible leaves. The cabbage comes in various shapes and sizes for around-the-year harvesting regimes. This vegetable has a wide range of culinary uses and healing properties.
Cabbage plants grow anywhere up to 24 inches tall and 30 inches wide. These plants will perform best in organically rich soils that need to be constantly moist, and in full sun. The pH levels of 6.0 to 6.8 are going to be ideal for cabbages. Depending on the variety, these plants take around 100 to 120 days to be harvest-ready from the day of sowing.
These plants are generally considered to be heavy feeders and shouldn’t be planted next to other plants to avoid nutrient wars in the garden! Blueberries are no exception here.
Brassicas are like decoys to blueberry plants, and growing these together can only cause harm to both! Cabbages have plenty of nutrient requirements which means they will compete with your blueberry plant for valuable minerals and other compounds in the soil.
The Brassica family is also susceptible to a variety of pests, such as cabbage worms, aphids, loopers, maggots, flies, snails, and nematodes. There are also quite a few diseases such as root rot, leaf spot, and blisters — all of which can damage your blueberries severely, so don’t grow blueberries next to them!
3. Beets
| Growing season | Summer, fall |
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Beets are easy to grow and incredibly delicious. They are biennial vegetables grown as annuals for their sweet roots, and green parts for salads. They are a cool-season crop that is fun, quick, and easy to grow from seed.
These plants are believed to originate across the Mediterranean and were originally cultivated for their edible leaves. By the end of the 15th century, these plants were grown across Europe and used for their roots!
Beets will grow up to three feet tall and six feet wide when they are in bloom. These plants perform best in full sun and light shade. Unrelated to light sources, they should be planted in alkaline soil that’s well-fertile and drained.
Beets will grow and produce crops throughout the year, but you should store your final crop some 10 weeks before the first heavy frost. Beets are excellent companions for radishes, beans, garlic, onions, lettuce, catnips, and aromatic herbs. But you don’t want to see them near blueberries!
Beets should be avoided as neighbors for blueberries as they can stunt each other’s growth by competing for nutrients. Also, beets love their soil to be slightly alkaline, which the acid-loving blueberry won’t stand for.
Beets also can bring some pests and diseases into your vegetable garden. Some of the peskiest include aphids, flea beetles, spider mites, as well as beetroot heart rot, black leg, and leaf spot!
4. Tomatoes
| Growing season | Late spring and early summer |
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The second on our no-go list is a garden favorite — the tomato plant. These are beautiful and tender garden perennials grown all over the world. Tomatoes are prolific growers, which will accentuate any herb border and adorn every garden with their beautiful red fruits! Tomatoes are fruits (berries) but with much lower sugar levels than your regular fruit.
The erect and ascending stems are usually covered with sticky and dense hairs. The strongly scented and densely populated compound leaves are growing in an alternating fashion and each is around 10 inches long. The flowers of tomato plants are yellow with petals growing in clusters of around five to twelve blossoms.
These plants grow up to 10 feet tall and four feet wide. They perform best in fertile soils, neutral to acidic, and in full sun. Tomatoes are usually harvest-ready in around 60 to 100 days after sowing.
There is a huge number of tomato varieties you can grow in your garden. However, none of these will aid in your blueberry growth!
Tomato plants will hurt your blueberries with their tendency to share verticillium wilt and blight with them. Although some people have planted blueberries next to tomatoes with some success, tomatoes can easily kill off your other berry plants with root rot disease. Also, tomatoes can provide more shade than you need and can deprive your blueberries of that precious sunlight!
Other than previously mentioned, some pest and disease trouble include stink bugs, cutworms, hornworms, aphids, potato beetles, slugs, blights, fusarium wilt, mosaic viruses, and other bacterial and viral diseases!
5. Asparagus
| Growing season | Early Spring |
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Asparagus is a widely known plant, appreciated for its juicy and delicious young shoots known as spears. It is a long-lived perennial plant that has highly ornamental tall, and feathery foliage native to Europe and the Mediterranean. It’s widely grown as a vegetable, and it is one of the first vegetables that are crop ready every year, producing the majority of the growth in the early spring!
Asparagus plants can either be started from seed or one-year roots known as crowns. These plants grow up to five feet tall and three feet wide. They perform best in acidic and moist, but well-drained soils and in full sun! They are salt tolerant, and as such are very suitable for coastal areas. Only young Asparagus spears are eaten and if not picked on time they will turn woody and won’t be as nutritious.
The plants are a valuable addition to borders, vegetable gardens, and raised beds. They are excellent companions for dills, corianders, basil, marigolds, parsley, and tomatoes. However, they shouldn’t be planted anywhere near blueberries.
Asparagus has heavy nutrient requirements and will fight for nutrients with your blueberries. On top of that, asparagus will require pH levels of up to eight — soil alkalinity your blueberries just won’t stand living in.
Asparagus can invite a whole range of beetles ranging from aphids, fusariums, rust, and blight. Along with pests, Asparagus is very prone to fungi, wilt, and rust, along with plenty of viruses, which can influence the growth of your blueberries poorly.
6. Beans
| Growing season | Spring to early Summer |
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Beans are vining vegetables grown in almost every vegetable garden in the world! They’re producing large quantities of fleshy pods. These plants are incredibly easy to grow! You can classify these vegetable plants into two main categories — pole and bush ones.
Pole beans grow as vines and are prolific climbers and make a perfect addition to trellises and garden borders. These can grow up to 15 feet tall and take up a lot of space. This makes them problematic for other crops as they can easily block the sun from reaching them. They also require support for their growth and compared to other beans, generally yield the greatest amount of bean pods.
Bush beans are a smaller variety of the two. These grow on bushy and compact vining plants. They grow up to three feet tall and do not take up as much space as the pole variety, which makes them ideal companions when compared to them. These plants will in general produce a much lower yield of pods, but they are overall much easier growers and require less maintenance!
Blueberries have the potential to inhibit the growth of all bean plants because they are heavy feeders and will drink up all the nutrients the bean plants will crave for.
In such a state, bean plants cannot release enough nitrogen into the soil, which will affect the whole bunch of plants you grow in their vicinity. Also, they will wilt and die and leave your soil well clogged up.
As mentioned, beans are vining plants and they will seclude your blueberry plants. Beans are also prone to powdery mildew, mosaic virus, and white mold, all of which can infect blueberries.
Conclusion
Blueberry companion plants can be beneficial or detrimental to your crop, depending on the type of plant you choose to grow alongside your blueberry bushes. It’s important to be aware of the worst companions for blueberries, so let’s remind ourselves of the most important points.
- To ensure the success of your blueberry crop, it’s important to avoid the wrong companion plants alongside your blueberry bushes — these include eggplants, brassicas, tomatoes, and asparagus plants.
- Additionally, it’s important to make sure that your soil is in optimal condition for growing blueberries by testing for pH levels and adding organic matter such as compost or manure.
- Some of the best plants for blueberries include oak trees, pine trees, wildflowers, basil, thyme, dill, and strawberries as these can improve soil and nutrients for blueberries.
If you follow these tips and avoid growing the worst companion plants for blueberries, you’ll be well on your way to growing a successful and bountiful blueberry crop!
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