Companion Planting, Successful Organic Gardening

Companion Planting helps you keep pests out of your garden and helps you increase your yield by enhancing nutrient uptake. 

When planning your organic garden, you'll need to figure out what plants are companionable with other plants. There are a lot of reasons for this compatibility. Some plants keep bugs away from other plants. Some plants supply nutrients other plants need. And some don't use the same nutrients as their companion needs and vice versa. Some flowers work as trap plants for bugs or their aroma repels bugs. And did you know that some flowers are either edible or medicinal?

Here are some of the relationships you'll need to know when planning your garden.

Asparagus likes basil, tomatoes and parsley.

Beans like most other plants but don't grow well when adjacent to onions.

Cabbage likes celery, beets, onions, spinach, chard, Incompatible with strawberries, tomatoes and dill.

Carrots like peas, lettuce, onions and tomatoes, but don't do well near dill.

Celery likes onions, cabbage, nasturtiums, and tomatoes

Cucumber likes beans, peas and radishes, doesn't do well near herbs, or potatoes.

Lettuce likes carrots, radishes, strawberries and cucumbers.

Onions like beets, carrots, lettuce and cabbage. Onions don't like beans and peas.

Peas like carrots, radishes, turnips, cucumbers and beans. Peas dislike onions and potatoes.

Potatoes like beans, cabbage, horseradish, and marigolds. Potatoes dislike cucumber, tomato and sunflowers.

Radishes like peas, nasturtium, cucumber, and lettuce. Radishes hate hyssop.

Spinach likes strawberries.

Tomatoes love onion,  asparagus, carrot, parsley and marigold, and hate cabbage, fennel and potato.

There's more on companion planting here on wikipedia. Wikipedia also has a great chart on companion plant relationships, and another chart on repellant plants.