Peanut companion plants can be easily integrated into your garden if you’re looking to add beauty and function. These flowers, fruits, and vegetables are wonderful additions that work well with the peanut plant.
Let’s explore the amazing choices that await your peanut plants as their garden companions!
Contents
Easy-growing Plants That Work Well Next to Your Peanut Plant
Some plants work better when planted together since they provide nutrients or protection for one another. This is the concept of companion planting, where gardeners cultivate plants that are beneficial for each other. Let’s discover the following plants as companions to your peanut crops.
1. Cucumbers
Peanuts and cucumbers are excellent companions in the garden. These two plants can be easily planted together and allowed to trail on a trellis, wall, cage, or any structure that supports their climbing habits.
– Growing Tips
By allowing the cucumber plant to lift its large leaves and hang freely, the peanut has more space to grow below. Aside from the space, this setup allows both plants to enjoy better airflow. This can help reduce the risks of both plants developing fungal problems.
– Plant Companion Benefits
Both plants also thrive in warm temperatures, which makes them ideal companions in many garden spaces. Plus, peanuts add nitrogen to the soil, increasing the growth and yield of cucumber plants.
2. Tomatoes
Just like cucumbers, tomatoes benefit greatly when planted alongside legumes such as peanuts. Legumes are known to be nitrogen fixing plants that improve the nutrient content of the soil.
– Growing Tips
Tomatoes need at least six to eight hours of sunlight. Trained on support structures such as cages or trellises, tomatoes can help protect peanuts from harsh elements such as strong winds.
– Plant Companion Benefits
When grown in a garden bed, the combination of tomatoes and peanuts will produce greater yields for both plants. The tomatoes protect the peanuts while enjoying the rich nitrogen given off by the legume plant.
3. Potatoes
Grown together, potatoes and peanuts benefit each other. Potatoes protect from pests while peanuts improve the nutrient content of the soil, improving the growth of their plant companions.
– Growing Tips
Since potatoes have similar growing habits to legumes, both plants can be easily grown together without any concern. Plus, the height of the potato plants can help shelter peanuts from strong wind and rain.
– Plant Companion Benefits
It helps that both thrive under similar growing conditions and requirements. There are some potato varieties that are a bit shorter, which make excellent plant companions for legumes such as peanuts to allow more exposure to the sun, air, and water.
4. Lettuce
Lettuce planted with peanuts is a fantastic combination when you’re looking for beneficial plant companions. Short-season lettuce crops ensure that their production time is regularly completed well before the peanuts begin to produce flowers and start to peg in the ground.
– Growing Tips
Be sure to allocate some space for both plants to grow. Otherwise, you might end up with a tangled stretch of vegetation that can harbor some harmful pests, fungi, or bacteria.
– Plant Companion Benefits
Shorter plants are advantageous to peanuts because they allow more sun and air exposure. When exposed to high levels of these elements, peanuts tend to produce more nuts compared to those grown under plants that provide shade.
5. Carrots
Carrots enjoy the abundant nitrogen provided by peanuts in the soil. When allocating spots for your peanuts, make sure that the peanut spacing is six to eight inches apart, especially when you’re using peanut seeds.
– Growing Tips
However, you should also add some potassium when fertilizing carrots. Too much nitrogen can make carrots tough and covered with hairy roots, whereas potassium can increase their sweetness.
– Plant Companion Benefits
As with most crops, provide adequate spacing between the carrots and peanuts. This will ensure a cleaner environment with adequate exposure to the sun, air, and water.
6. Strawberries
Strawberry plants are wonderful choices if you’re looking to have plant companions for your peanut crops. Strawberries grow bigger and juicier due to the high levels of nitrogen content secreted by peanuts.
– Growing Tips
Additionally, both plants require similar growing conditions. Not only will you harvest delicious strawberries, but you also get to enjoy the peanuts once they’re ready.
– Plant Companion Benefits
When planting both crops, keep them slightly apart. This way, you eliminate the risks of pests hiding between the foliage while exposing both plants to more light, air, and water.
7. Rosemary
Herbs such as rosemary, tansy, and savory have been known to be beneficial when planted as companions to peanuts. The fragrance of these herbs has been attributed to warding off pests while attracting pollinators. These plants are known to provide protection against pests such as aphids and mealybugs while thriving in the nitrogen-rich soil made possible by peanuts.
– Growing Tips
Ensure that there is enough space between the plants to allow light, air, and water to pass through. By providing an adequate amount of sunlight, water, and airflow for these plants, they get to enjoy the protection and nutrient production from each other.
– Plant Companion Benefits
This will also keep your plants from most garden pests such as insects and slugs. Rosemary also draws in pollinating insects.
8. Cosmos
There are certain flowers that are known to protect plants from common garden pests. Marigolds, nasturtium, and cosmos are just some of them. These flowers emit a fragrance that repels pests while attracting their predators.
– Growing Tips
Keep flowers and peanuts about 6 to 8 inches from each other. This way, they are close together without becoming overcrowded.
– Plant Companion Benefits
As plant companions for your peanuts, these flowers also benefit from the nitrogen content given off by the peanuts. They tend to produce foliage and flowers more abundantly due to their mutually beneficial relationship with each other.
As a result, these plants and the beneficial insects they attract become the protectors of the peanut crops in the garden. Not only do these flowers keep pests away, but they also look and smell wonderful too.
9. Strawberries
Planting strawberries alongside a taller plant like peanuts will look very pleasing visually. Strawberries act as a groundcover but you should note they will eventually take over an area.
– Growing Tips
Take care to not let the runners of the strawberry get within 3 inches of the peanut plant. It could interrupt the pegging process. Both plants have the same soil and site parameter requirements.
– Plant Companion Benefits
Strawberries prevent many weeds by their ground cover nature. Of course this also means they help conserve soil moisture.
10. Nasturtiums
These plants are both attractive and useful. They are also fully edible and may lure aphids from other plants.
– Growing Tips
These are very low-care plants. In fact, they thrive on neglect!
– Plant Companion Benefits
These flowers have both pest repellent properties and pollinator attraction during their flowering period. The peanuts, in turn, provide them with nitrogen.
Conclusion
If you’re looking to grow peanuts, then you should also think about getting a companion plant or two.
Let’s recap why plant companions are important for peanuts.
- Plant companions provide protection from pests and diseases.
- They also shelter peanuts from strong sunlight, wind, and rain.
- When placing plant companions, always provide enough space in between.
Peanuts, or Arachis hypogaea, can take advantage of any companion plant to produce a great harvest while benefiting its friendly plant neighbor. Now that you know why, try growing some for yourself!
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