Cucumber Companion Planting: 7 Cucumber Companion Plants

Companion planting is a time-tested gardening method that enriches and protects vulnerable crops. Farmers and gardeners plant specific crops near each other in order to deter pests, attract beneficial insects, and stimulate growth.

Companion plants will either help a specific crop grow or will grow better beside a specific crop, and can do many support jobs in the garden:

1. 1. Repel insect pests. Cabbage worms, Mexican bean beetles, carrot flies, squash bugs, cabbage moths—all kinds of pests can plague vegetable gardens. Many companion plants (like marigold flowers, catnip, chives, and rue) repel specific pests and should be planted near certain crops to handle pest control naturally. Other companion plants (like calendula and nasturtiums) attract certain pests and can be planted a short distance away from your garden to lure those pests away from your vegetables.
2. 2. Attract beneficial insects. Pollinators like bees and ladybugs can use a little encouragement to visit vegetable gardens and pollinate the crops. Gardeners often plant attractive plants (like borage flowers) to encourage pollinators to visit.
3. 3. Improve soil nutrients. When crops grow, they take up valuable nutrients from the soil—leaving the gardener to do a lot of work at the end of the season to renew the soil’s nutrients. However, there are many companion plants (like bush beans and pole beans) that add nutrients like nitrogen back into the soil, helping keep other plants healthy.
4. 4. Encourage faster growth and better taste. Many companion plants (like marjoram, chamomile, and summer savory) release specific chemicals that encourage faster growth or better taste in the plants around them.
5. 5. Provide ground cover. Plants that spread low across the ground (like oregano) serve as a blanket over the soil, protecting it from the sun and keeping it cooler for plants that benefit from lower temperatures.
6. 6. Provide necessary shade. Plants that grow tall and leafy (like zucchini and asparagus) can provide welcome shade for sun-sensitive plants (like lettuce and cabbage) beneath them.
7. 7. Serve as markers. When growing slow-growing plants, it can be difficult to tell where the rows will be while you’re waiting for the seeds to sprout. Gardeners often use fast-growing plants (like radishes) interspersed with the slow growers in their rows to delineate where the slow growers will be.

Here’s a quick companion planting guide to help you decide what to plant alongside cucumbers—from veggies to herbs to flowers:

1. 1. Corn. You can use corn stalks as natural trellises for vining cucumbers, which is a great way to save space and maximize garden efficiency. Just make sure you’re using a cucumber variety that stays small and light, like pickling cucumbers—otherwise your corn stalks won’t be able to support them. In return for the support, cucumber vines will serve as a natural mulch beneath your corn stalks, retaining moisture and keeping out weeds.
2. 2. Dill. Dill is a popular aromatic herb to plant in a home garden because it attracts beneficial insects like pollinators and parasitic wasps, which will help pollinate your cucumbers and keep other garden pest levels down. Many gardeners believe that dill improves the flavor of mature cucumbers, as well. Be careful with other aromatic herbs, however—other herbs like sage and mint have a very strong scent and flavor and may affect the flavor of your cucumbers.
3. 3. Legumes. From sugar snap peas to green beans, legumes are a great choice to grow with cucumbers because they provide much-needed nitrogen in the soil.
4. 4. Marigolds. Marigolds are one of the most popular companion plants because they repel a wide variety of pests, including aphids—a common pest on cucumber leaves.
5. 5. Nasturtiums. Nasturtiums are pretty flowers that attract aphids. While this may seem counterintuitive, many gardeners plant nasturtiums a short distance away from their vegetable garden to attract aphids away from their crops.
6. 6. Root vegetables. Cucumber plants send down one big taproot, while the rest of their roots remain thin and shallow, only extending six to twelve inches in any direction. This means that cucumbers won’t interfere with the growing of root vegetables like carrots, parsnips, radishes, and turnips if you plant them nearby since root vegetables grow primarily beneath the soil and will make use of space that the cucumbers don’t need. Radishes also may deter cucumber beetles—the worst enemy of a cucumber patch.
7. 7. Sunflowers. Similar to corn stalks, you can use sunflower stalks as natural trellises for vining cucumbers, which is a great way to save space and maximize garden efficiency. Just make sure you’re using a cucumber variety that stays small and light, like pickling cucumbers—otherwise your sunflowers won’t be able to support them.

Just as there are good companion plants to grow beside cucumbers, there are also plants that will inhibit your plants from growing properly. Cucumbers don’t grow well near:

• Brassicas. Plants in the brassica family (like brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, and kohlrabi) have a mixed relationship with cucumbers. While many gardeners believe that brassicas will improve the growth of cucumber plants, brassicas are generally very water-thirsty plants, and, if planted near cucumbers, they compete for the water in the soil and may ultimately inhibit their growth.
• Melons. Cucumber plants and melon plants are both vining produce that sprawl out across the ground, and they both suffer from many of the same pests. Planting cucumbers and melons next to one another can attract pests in even greater numbers.
  
• Potatoes. Potatoes are heavy feeders that take up a lot of water, so if planted right next to cucumbers they will compete viciously for the same nutrients. In addition, cucumbers may increase the chances that your potatoes become diseased with blight. If you want to plant both cucumbers and potatoes in your garden, plant them far away from one another. (Other members of the nightshade family, like tomato plants and eggplants, are fine to plant with cucumbers.)
• Sage. Apart from dill, many aromatic herbs interfere with cucumber plants in the garden—and sage is perhaps the worst offender. Since cucumbers have such a delicate flavor (they’re 95 percent water, after all), overly powerful aromatic herbs like sage, mint, and hyssop, when planted too near cucumbers, may affect the flavor profile of your cucumbers.
• Fennel. Fennel is a garden crop that doesn’t play well with most other vegetable garden plants, so it’s not recommended for most home gardeners. While it can attract beneficial insects, it can actually serve as an inhibitor to the growth of most other plants—stunting them or even killing them completely.

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