Garlic and Heirloom Tomato Plants.

 

A long time ago, in a land my parents owned, my dad showed me the benefits
of planting some plants with others. It's one of the few lessons that I
didn't blow off during my rebellious teenage angst. Unfortunately, due to
aging and non-use of such a wealth of free knowledge, I no longer remember
whether planting garlic with tomatoes is beneficial or disastrous. If I
planted some cloves of garlic with my new batch of heirlooms (five beef
steak and three Brandywine), will the tomatoes pick up and be dominated by
the garlic? Is it even worth planting garlic with the plants to prevent
insect predation?

Many thanks.

The Ranger

 



According to this chart on companion planting, you should be ok with the
garlic near the tomatoes.

http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/complant.html

marcella

 



Be aware that garlic is a poor competitor, so you will get undersized bulbs
if it's shaded/crowded by the tomatoes.  Unhappy garlic tends to be smaller
but stronger, so it's not _all_ bad!


Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at home.earthlink.net/~garygarlic
Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1420' elevation. NY WO G

 

Gary Woods wrote:


My garlic is by tomatoes all the time. The garlic comes to term in
June/July  so it's not an issue for me. My tomatoes are on the eastern
side of the garden and the garlic is on the west (I have a small "strip"
garden) and they both get enough sun to do well.

--
Steve

 


You might be interested in something I wrote on this very topic to another
newsgroup only yesterday; here it is:

  On a radio gardening program, an old gardener rang in with this tip for
  combatting fruit fly in tomatoes. He hammers in a sturdy stake and plants
  two tomato seedlings alongside it at Winter's end. At the same time, he
  has some garlic growing nearby. By the time the tomatoes are fruiting the
  garlic is ready so he pulls it up and hangs it on the stake. I think he
  said 4 corms per stake. He reckons that with the garlic there he has no
  trouble with fruit fly in his tomatoes. Might be worth a try.

I didn't include r.g.e in the groups originally because I don't know
whether the US or UK have the fruit fly menace. These are like small
mosquitoes that lay their eggs in the fruit and these hatch to become
grubs that destroy the fruit from the inside.
--
John Savage                   (my news address is not valid for email)