Companion Planting Quiz

Companion planting is the practice of planting different crops in proximity for pest control, pollination, providing habitat for beneficial insects, maximizing use of space, and to otherwise increase crop productivity.

The modern principles of companion planting were present many centuries ago in forest gardens in Asia and thousands of years ago in Mesoamerica.

Indigenous peoples of the Americas practiced companion planting in the form of the Three Sisters agricultural technique, which involved planting maize, beans, and squash together.

Organic farming and horticulture have made frequent use of companion planting since the 1920s.

Companion planting uses a large list of companion plants that include vegetables, fruit trees, kitchen herbs, garden flowers, and fodder crops.

Companion planting can operate through a variety of mechanisms, including pest control, pollination, providing habitat for beneficial insects, and maximizing use of space.

Legumes such as clover provide nitrogen compounds to neighbouring plants such as grasses by fixing nitrogen from the air with symbiotic bacteria in their root nodules.

Trap cropping uses alternative plants to attract pests away from a main crop, and host-finding disruption disturbs flying pests by surrounding host-plants with other plants or even decoy-plants.

Some companion plants help prevent pest insects or pathogenic fungi from damaging the crop, through chemical means.

Companion plants that produce copious nectar or pollen in a vegetable garden may help encourage higher populations of beneficial insects that control pests.

Some crops are grown under the protective shelter of different kinds of plants, whether as wind breaks or for shade.