Mixed cultivation with onions: an overview
Companion planting with onions
Onions are a great addition to any vegetable garden. They are easy to grow and very healthy. Mixed cultivation with onions improves your harvest, as pests and diseases are better kept at bay. You also make more effective use of the space and nutrients in your bed. Mixed cultivation can also improve the taste of your vegetables.
Good companion plants for onions
- Lettuce (garden & lamb's lettuce, radicchio), rocket
- Garlic, carrots, beet, salsify
- Tomatoes, peppers/chilli, cucumber, zucchini
- Strawberries, physalis
- Herbs (dill, parsley, marjoram, oregano), sunflowers, camomile
These plants better not to plant next to onions:
Some plants do not get along well with onions. These include beans and peas, as well as cabbages. The essential oils that onion plants spread do not benefit the growth of cabbage. In addition, you should not grow plants with similar root growth to onions in their vicinity. These include radishes, for example.
Keeping onion flies away
Onion flies are a common problem when growing onions. A combination of good neighbors and other pesticide-free options will help keep your plants healthy:
- Plant garlic as natural protection against onion flies
- Cover onions with garden fleece or crop protection netting
- Plant at a different time of year (fall) so your plants are more resistant in the spring
- Rotate your crops to prevent onion flies from settling in the soil
Succession planting
Do not plant onions or other allium plants in succession in the same place during one season.
Pre-crops:
- Spinach, lettuce, radishes
Post-crops: - Summer onions: Winter-hardy crops such as lamb's lettuce, some types of cabbage or green manure
- Autumn onions: Pre-grown plants such as cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchinis or peppers
Crop rotation
After growing onions in one place in the bed, you should not grow onion plants or other allium plants there again the very next year. You should take a cultivation break of 3-4 years. Otherwise you will encourage the colonization of pests or diseases.
A planting plan for the bulb bed
In this planting plan you will find an example of a mixed cultivation bed in which onions are grown all year round. You can grow onions very well from spring right through to winter. This means you have onions in your garden all year round and the different onion varieties provide variety when cooking. The picture shows the plan for the main crop.
