There are bad companion plants for Okra, and sometimes you’re probably growing them pretty close to your prized crop. The right companion plants can help you achieve a successful Okra crop and avoid common pests. However, there are more than a few plants you definitely wouldn’t want to plant near Okra!
We’ll cover all of the common plants that are bad for your Okra and how to achieve natural pest control with planting companions in the garden.
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Bad Okra Companion Plants List- Keep an Eye Out for These Plants
Companion planting is a form of intercropping, which is the practice of planting two or more different crops close to each other. This practice has been around for centuries and is still used today.
The benefits of companion planting include increased crop yields, improved soil fertility, and reduced pest and disease damage. Additionally, companion planting can also help to improve the appearance of your garden. The main benefit of companion planting is that it can help improve your crop yield and quality. By planting different types of plants close together, they can benefit from each other’s presence.
For example, plants such as legumes and beans can fix nitrogen in the soil, which can help improve soil fertility. Additionally, some plants can help to repel pests, while others can attract beneficial insects such as ladybugs and lacewings.
When it comes to Okra, you’d want to stay off plants that will attract caterpillars, aphids, cabbage loopers, whiteflies, and mites. Okra is also vulnerable to a few diseases like fusarium wilt, powdery mildew, and mosaic virus, so let’s see what the worst companion plants for Okra are. In general, Okra won’t do so well with nightshade plants.
1. Tomatoes
| Growing Season | April to July |
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Tomato is a berry fruit, considered a tender perennial. In temperate climates, the tomato is grown as an annual plant. There are thousands of cultivars of this plant, and you can grow them in almost every garden. Today, tomatoes are grown in vegetable gardens worldwide for their diversity and nutritious properties.
The erect stems of tomatoes are covered in sticky and dense hairs. The plant has compound and densely populated leaves with strong scents. The flowers of tomato plants are often yellow and star-shaped, with curved petals growing in clusters of anywhere around five to 12 blooms!
Tomato plants grow up to ten feet tall and are grown best in fertile, neutral, and moist soils under the full sun!
Tomatoes are usually considered a good companion plant for most garden cultures, but being a nightshade plant (much like pepper plants), they can create some trouble with the Okra plant. Tomatoes attract many unwanted pests that can decimate your Okra.
Alongside these, tomatoes are also prone to diseases such as wilt, mosaic virus, and other bacterial diseases, which will happily spread onto your Okra.
2. Chinese Box Thorn
| Growing Season | Spring to Summer |
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This is a scrambling deciduous shrubby plant that’s covered with narrow bright green leaves. In late spring, this plant produces small, pale purple flowers that grow on the leaf axis.
These beautiful blooms later give way to the famous goji berries, which are becoming increasingly popular crops across the world! Only the fully ripe fruits of the goji tree should be eaten, and young offshoots are often used as a flavoring.
This thorny shrub grows to about eight feet tall and thrives in fertile, well-drained soils and full sun. It is a pest-free tree but can get under attack by powdery mildew!
Chinese Box thorn plants are a member of a nightshade family of plants that will suffocate your Okra and will deprive it of precious nutrients. Basically, the two will have to battle it out if you grow them together, and the weaker Okra will give way to goji berry companion plants.
Additionally, the powdery mildew can jump off the thorny tree and kill your Okra, even if they are some feet apart. You should definitely avoid planting Okra around this one!
3. Blueberries
| Growing season | Spring to fall |
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A blubbery plant is a bushy deciduous shrubby plant with small and oval bright green leaves that can turn to attractive shades of red, purple, and orange in the fall! In late spring the creamy-white flowers give way to blue blueberries that are treasured by birds, bears, and a whole heap of small mammals — we humans are fond of them too!
Winter is a period that provides a charming interest to this plant, revealing twiggy red branches and a lovely silhouette. Bees are the primary pollinators of this tree, and for optimal pollination, you should have more than a single plant at any given time.
Blueberries grow up to 12 feet tall and love partial shade and moisture-retentive, rich and acidic soils. You should have them planted in a sheltered spot and provide mulch. Oh, and keep them as far from Okra as you can!
Contrary to popular belief, blueberries are actually nightshade plants and hence, are bad companions next to your Okra. As far as the pests go, blueberries will attract the deadly nematode family, which will kill your Okra plant in a blink of an eye!
Blueberries can also attract vine weevils, mildews, and chlorosis, all of which can cause significant damage to the Okra.
4. Beans
| Growing Season | Spring to early Summer |
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Beans are vining vegetables grown in gardens worldwide. Mainly because they’re producing high quantities of bean pods and for their easy-to-grow posture. You can classify beans into two main categories — bush and pole category.
Pole beans grow as twining climbers. These can grow up to 15 feet tall and are large plants that can create some shade over other cultures limiting the crops you can grow next to them. They require some support for their growth and generally yield the greatest amount of beans in their whole family.
Bush beans are a smaller variety of beans growing on compact and bushy plants. The plant grows up to three feet tall and does not require much space, making them ideal companions to their pole variety counterparts. These bean plants produce a much lower yield but are overall much easier to grow and require less amount of maintenance!
Okra won’t have a pleasant time being planted next to vining plants, and beans are no exception. Your Okra will like a generous amount of sun to grow, which the beans won’t allow, so you’re going to want to go with a bushier variety of beans if your garden is too small.
However, bushy beans are disease prone. Much like blueberries, they can invite some unwanted diseases which will readily spread over to your Okra plant. Most notably, beans are prone to powdery mildew, mosaic virus, and white mold.
5. Pumpkins
| Growing Season | Late Summer to Fall |
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Pumpkin vine plants are sprawling vines with yellow flowers. These flowers often give way to large squash fruits, most commonly referred to as pumpkins! The fruits of squash plants have a mild flavor and have a large number of applications in the kitchen.
To maximize their growth you can add some compost in the fall and look to maximize soil moisture in the next growing season. Almost all of the squash family are easily grown from seeds and are quick and vigorous growers.
Just like with beans, Okra won’t have a pleasant time next to vining plants, especially pumpkins. Your Okra needs plenty of sunlight to grow properly and vigorously, which the big leaves and vines of pumpkin plants won’t give them access to.
Pumpkins are also disease and pest bearers for the Okra — squash bugs, vine borers, beetles, worms, whiteflies, aphids, and spider mites will all have a go at your Okra. One thing you can do to prevent these pests is to plant your pumpkins later in the season. However, both Okra and pumpkin won’t be able to handle diseases such as powdery mildew, leaf spots, or root rot.
6. Eggplants
| Growing Season | Late Summer and Fall |
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This delicious and ornamental plant is a tender perennial grown for its’ glossy and exotic-like fruits. These are incredibly easy to grow and come in various shapes and sizes and are used in cuisines worldwide for a plethora of dishes.
Eggplants belong to the nightshade family of plants and are closely related to tomatoes, potatoes, and even tobacco. Similar to tomato, eggplant is a nightshade plant, and therefore, planting Okra next to it may cause more harm than good.
Okra plants are highly susceptible to verticillium wilt and blight, which eggplants attract. These purple fruits even call for various pests such as armyworms, melon thrips, and whiteflies, all of which will happily migrate to Okras, causing destruction.
7. Carrots
| Growing Season | Summer |
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Here’s the one you actually wouldn’t hope to find on this list. Carrots are usually a good neighboring plant to most garden cultures. They are crunchy and tasty cool-season vegetables grown for their nutritious orange roots. They can be chopped, grated, cooked, eaten raw, fried, steamed, or any other way you can imagine.
Carrots typically grow up to 36 inches tall and perform best under full sun, in worked, fertile, and slightly acidic soils. Before planting carrots, you should make sure there are no heavy clumps of clay that can stunt their growth.
Depending on the variety, carrots usually take around 80 days to be harvest-ready from the day you sow them. If you sow them repeatedly, carrots can be enjoyed from spring all the way to fall!
Carrots aren’t vining plants; however, they will pose a threat to your Okra being planted close to them. And the answer lies in two categories — pests and viruses.
Carrots are susceptible to various pests, including aphids, bugs, wireworms, rust flies, nematodes, beetles, and leafhoppers. You should probably be most scared of the nematodes, which are especially bad for Okra plants.
Carrots also bear various diseases, which will gladly transition to Okra. Leaf blight, powdery mildew, and aster yellows are all diseases that will severely damage your Okra too!
Conclusion
Companion planting is a centuries-old practice helping us improve the yield and the quality of our crops. When it comes to companion planting for Okra, there are some plants you’d want to avoid!
- Plants like tomatoes, blueberries, beans, pepper plants, and pumpkins are all bad for your Okra as they share pests and diseases with it.
- In general, stay away from the nightshade and vining plants as they will prevent the sunlight from reaching your Okra plants!
- If you’re looking to grow your Okras healthy, you should rely on flowering herbs, crop rotation with plants from the Brassica family, and flowers that can attract beneficial insects!
Additionally, be sure to give each plant enough space to grow, and rotate your crops each year. Following these tips, you’ll be sure to have a successful Okra crop!
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