10 Best Garlic Companion Plants to Grow Together

Grow garlic near vegetables, flowers, and herbs to keep pests away—naturally.

Companion planting with garlic is an eco-friendly way to keep pests out of your garden without chemical pesticides. While garlic is a delicious food that adds rich flavor to your favorite recipes, this pungent plant can also repel an assortment of common garden pests from aphids to deer. Pairing garlic with vulnerable plants in your garden can protect your produce from damage and help you harvest a blemish-free crop of veggies, herbs, and fruit right from your backyard. Here are the best garlic companion plants that have similar growing needs.

Beets

Beets and garlic have similar care requirements, so keeping them together in the garden makes sense. Beets are low-growing plants that won’t overshadow the garlic, and beet and garlic roots grow at different depths in the soil, which limits competition for soil nutrients. Plus, beets and garlic both grow well in containers because they both maintain a compact growth habit as they mature.

Related: 10 Best Companion Plants for Beets

Brassicas

Brassicas such as broccoli, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts are usually hit hard by pests, including slugs, snails, and cabbage loopers. When these pests invade, they can riddle leaves with holes and leave behind slimy trails that no one wants to touch. All these pests are deterred by garlic’s potent aroma.

Carrots

Carrots and garlic both need rich, loose soil to grow properly, but you might want to pair these plant partners together in your garden for other reasons. Like beets, carrots are low-growing plants that won’t shade garlic from the sun. Moreover, garlic’s pest-repellent properties keep the dreaded carrot root maggot away from your root veggies.

Chamomile

Companion planting with garlic usually involves using garlic to benefit other plants. However, if you want to help the garlic grow better and improve the flavor of the garlic bulbs, try planting garlic with chamomile. Both Roman and German chamomile enhance the flavor of nearby garlic plants, and chamomile and garlic have similar growing requirements.

Peppers

Peppers and garlic have similar growing needs, which makes them good companions for garden beds. More importantly, garlic is rich in sulfur, which can inhibit fungal diseases in pepper plants. Plus, aphids hate the scent of garlic, so growing garlic near your peppers can keep the pepper plants aphid-free.

Related: 10 Best Companion Plants for Peppers

Spinach

Garlic is a slow-growing and cold-hardy plant that’s usually planted in garden beds in autumn, long after the rest of the garden has been put to bed for the year. However, because spinach is also a cold-hardy vegetable, you can grow these two plants together in your autumn garden. When the garlic resprouts in spring, plant a new crop of spinach nearby to take full advantage of garlic’s pest-repelling abilities.

Strawberries

Some gardeners believe that garlic slows the growth of strawberries, but this has never been proven. What has been proven is that garlic can keep many pests off strawberry plants and help you get a larger harvest of perfect berries. As with brassicas, many pests target strawberries, but garlic’s aroma can keep rabbits, aphids, snails, and slugs at bay.

Related: The 10 Best Companion Plants for Strawberries

Tomatoes

Nothing says summer quite like picking the first ripe tomato straight from your garden. However, many pests adore tomatoes as much as we do, and if you’re not careful, aphids, slugs, and snails will spoil your harvest. The good news is that growing garlic near tomatoes can protect the harvest and keep pests from stunting the growth of your plants.

Fruit Trees

When it comes to companion planting, most gardeners think about using vegetables or flowers as companion plants, but fruit trees can also benefit from this gardening technique. Tree boreres, aphids, spider mites, and Japanese beetles frequently target apple, peach, and other fruit trees. Planting a ring of garlic around a fruit tree can inhibit these pests, and it may also prevent fungal issues from cropping up in your trees.

Roses

Keeping roses safe from garden pests takes a lot of work, but you can simplify your gardening tasks by growing garlic near your rose bushes. Aromatic garlic deters many rose pests, including aphids, spider mites, Japanese beetles, and deer. Garlic plants take up so little space, they won’t interfere with your rose bushes.

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