Ginger companion plants can be planted with or next to some ginger and provide certain benefits to the plant or gain from it. Often, these plants have the exact growing requirements as the ginger plant, such as nutrient-rich, loamy soil or warm climates.
In addition, if you are trying to maximize the space in your garden, you can grow ginger with these other plants efficiently.
Below are a few examples of these plants, keep reading to know all about them.
Contents
Examples of Complementary Ginger Companion Plants
1. Chili Pepper
If you’ve once had a good barbecue dish and some red, hot chili sauce, you’ve enjoyed the by-product of chili peppers. There are over 20 types of this pepper, but you might already be used to some common types, like cayenne, habanero, jalapeno, etc. all of which are from the same family. These peppers are easy to grow but can only thrive in warm climates, making them perfect to be cultivated alongside of the ginger.
– Benefits
Chili peppers and ginger have a mutually beneficial relationship when planted next to each other.
As the pepper plant grows, it provides shade for the ginger, while the ginger helps to repel pests from and shade the ginger root.
– Growing Tips
Chilies like warm soil, so it is best to plant them when the frost has passed and the colder days are over. Since they enjoy the warmth, they should be exposed to full sunlight daily. However, they are able to thrive in partial shade too. The soil should also be moist but well-draining but avoid over watering them, or else the fruit will be weaker in the taste because the roots are growing weak.
2. Peas
Peas are annual, cool-season legumes found in most gardens worldwide. They are commonly grown for their tiny, edible seeds featured in many cuisines, especially cowpea, pigeon pea, chickpea, etc. These fast-growing crops offer many health benefits and are a perfect source of protein.
– Benefits
The pigeon pea, specifically, is one of the species of peas that make excellent companions for ginger plants. Like many other legumes, these peas produce nitrogen in the air that they feed back into the soil to help the ginger grow properly. Nitrogen in a vital source of nutrients for the soil of these plants growing together.
They also provide shade, growing mainly as shrubby trees that let light pass through and can also be used to create mulch for your ginger, keeping the soil moist for a longer time. Peas also make effective sage companion plants.
– Growing Tips
Peas require very little care, significantly once they have matured and started to vine. You should only ensure that you grow them where they will receive lots of sunlight because they enjoy the warmth from the sun. Moreover, the plant can adapt to any soil type and survive without constant watering.
3. Nasturtiums
Nasturtiums are fun, easy-care flowers to grow in your garden. The leaves, seeds, and flowers of this plant are all edible. Their bright yellow, orange, white, or red flower blooms make them perfect for companion planting as they act as trap crops, drawing common pests like aphids away from other plants. Not only that but these greens are also effective as cucumber companion plants.
– Benefits
When planting ginger with your nasturtiums, it’s a win-win, as both of them get to benefit from one another.
Nasturtiums make good ground cover trap crops because they attract aphids, allowing your ginger to grow without any attacks and harm as a result. However, these vibrant plants also attract hover flies, which are known to feed on aphids, and the vegetation stays undamaged.
– Growing Tips
Similarly to ginger, nasturtiums also love warmth and sunlight and require up to eight hours of full light daily. They can grow in any soil type but must be moist and well-draining. These plants grow fast and can take care of themselves once established.
4. Lemon Grass
Lemongrass is a fast-growing annual with long, slim, green, or gray leaves. It is very popular for its oil used to make medicine or treat skin wounds and problems, due to its healing properties. The plant is used to create delicious dishes and has great aesthetic value when growing in a garden.
– Benefits
Lemongrass is an excellent plant to grow with ginger as they have a symbiotic relationship. This grass can grow to a height of up to five feet tall, providing shade for your ginger.
On the other hand, the pungent smell that comes from your growing ginger helps repel pests that might be harmful to the lemongrass, in addition, the latter can even help keep mosquitoes away.
– Growing Tips
Just like ginger, lemongrass enjoys moist, nutrient-rich, well-draining, neutral soil and requires up to six hours of full exposure to sunlight unless it won’t grow properly. Proper watering can be done weekly when the plant begins to grow, but it is drought-resistant once established.
5. Fruit Shrubs or Trees
There are over 40 types of fruit-bearing trees that you can make good companions for ginger. Although most flowering trees or shrubs produce fruits, not all are fruit trees. Fruit shrubs or trees are ones that provide fruits that are consumable by humans.
– Benefits
Unlike fruit shrubs, the trees mostly take up overhead space, leaving you with a lot of root space for the company plant. This allows you to plant ginger with excess space while providing shade.
These shrubs are also great as they create an adequate canopy under which the ginger can thrive. In return, the pungent smell of fresh ginger repels harmful insects from the trees. Fruit shrubs or trees can also be used as pansy companion plants.
– Growing Tips
Fruit shrubs and trees generally have the exact requirements as ginger and are easy to grow. They need up to six hours of sunlight daily and must be planted in moist, well-draining soil. You can irrigate these tree weekly, but you must make sure that you don’t leave the roots soggy to avoid rot, or else they will be weakened, and will be slow in producing fruit.
6. Garlic
Garlic is a perennial flowering plant widely grown for its bulbs and has over 120 species, coming from the allium stivum family. One bulb of garlic can produce at least ten cloves. It has an onion-like smell and pungent taste, making it an excellent seasoning for food, and this is a key characteristic when harvesting. However, garlic and ginger are commonly used together to create lovely, spicy meals, so it is no wonder they can grow well together.
– Benefits
Growing garlic alongside your ginger helps enhance the product’s aroma when you are harvesting ginger, by keeping a number of unwanted pests or bugs away from the plant as the smell fills the air.
Furthermore, it also helps keep pests that can damage your ginger away and prevents fungal diseases.
Ginger plants also make excellent companion plants for garlic, so their relationship is mutually beneficial. Garlic plants are also good tomato companion plants.
– Growing Tips
Garlic should be grown in moist, neutral, nutrient-rich, well-draining soil and can be watered once a week. It is a cool-season plant but can be planted anytime before the first frost. Your garlic should also expose your garlic to at least 6 hours of full sunlight daily.
7. Turmeric
Turmeric is a perennial herbaceous plant from the ginger family. Its underground stems are commonly used as a food spice due to their pepper-like flavor, earthy aroma, and deep orange color that can be used as coloring, overall, it has different properties, and has been used for so many reasons in different cultures. Turmeric grows with thick rhizomes and dark green, oblong leaves.
– Benefits
Both ginger and turmeric grow as the spicy roots of their plants, making them perfect to be grown together.
They will enhance not only each other’s flavors but also each other’s benefits. Lastly, this root contains allelochemicals that it emits to deter harmful ginger pests.
– Growing Tips
Unlike ginger, turmeric cannot thrive in full sun but does well in partial shade. As a result, growing your ginger with other turmeric companion plants, such as fruit shrubs, is a great way to provide shade. On another note, similarly to ginger, you need moist, nutrient-rich, acidic to neutral and well-draining soil, in order to see it thrive.
8. Hibiscus
With beautiful trumpet-shaped flowers and over a hundred species, the hibiscus plant is an annual flowering plant cultivated mainly for its colorful, showy blooms. These blooms can come in various colors: yellow, orange, red, purple, or white, and can come in single or clusters.
For the majority of the hibiscus species, the flowers only last for one day before they die. Hibiscus contains antioxidants and is used in many parts of the world for teas and medicine due to their properties.
– Benefits
The hibiscus plant attracts beneficial insects and animals, such as butterflies and hummingbirds, that help pollinate when planted with your ginger. It also provides sufficient shade for it. In turn, ginger deters animals or pests that feed on hibiscus plants with its pungent smell.
– Growing Tips
Hibiscus grows well in bright light, so it should get up to 6 hours of unfiltered sunlight daily. It also thrives in moist, rich, well-draining soil with a slightly acidic pH. However, they are thirsty plants and should be watered daily in the first few weeks of their growth.
Conclusion
Ginger is a very easy plant to grow; cultivating it with other plants in your garden is an excellent way to use up excess space. Growing other plants with it also helps repel pests and provide shade, so if you’re planning to add neighboring plants to your ginger, here are some things you should note;
- Planting garlic is a very nice way of keeping the pests away, due to its very strong smell keeping the pests away.
- Although some people do it, do not try ginger and tomato companion planting as they do.
- All legumes are splendid companion plants for ginger because they improve nitrogen in the soil.
Even though you can plant different types of greens, however, if you wish to know what not to plant with ginger, they are corn, walnuts, goji berries, and eggplants.To enjoy healthier produce, consider growing some or all of these plants with ginger.
References
https://www.britannica.com/plant/chili-pepper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_tree
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92752/
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