Plant Herbs, Leafy Greens, & Garlic with Your Beets

Instead of planting an entire bed of just beets, companion plant these low-maintenance roots alongside herbs and other veggies to maximize your harvest.

The idea of companion planting is to grow things that thrive in the same season and work together in terms of their size and duration. My goal each season is to fill my raised beds with small, medium, and large plants that all prefer the same growing conditions. These plants, diverse though they may be, work together in harmony. Each plant does something to create a healthier ecosystem inside of the garden space.

So if you're planning on growing beets this spring or fall, check out these 18 companion plants to grow alongside them.

How Beets Grow Best

Keep these things in mind when you're planning out your garden beds so that you can grow plants with similar preferences as beets.

Beets Season

Beets love cool weather, so they're typically grown in the early spring and fall when temperatures range between 45 and 85°F (or over winter in warmer climates). I start sowing beet seeds as soon as my soil is workable in the spring and then again in the fall about 6 to 8 weeks before my first frost date. Beets can handle some frost.

Beets Sunlight Needs

Beets like shorter days, but they still need at least 6 hours of sunlight per day to form their bulbous roots. Make sure you're giving beets a spot in the garden bed where they won't be shaded by taller plants. If you cast too much shade on your beets, you might still get some leafy growth, but you won't get much by way of the actual root. (And while those leaves are edible and nutritious, I'm guessing it's the root part you're most excited about.)

Beets Nutrient Needs

Beets mostly need potassium and phosphorus to grow. Avoid adding nitrogen-heavy fertilizers to the spots in your garden where you're growing beets. Too much nitrogen will encourage lots of leaf growth above the soil and not enough root growth below.

Beet Watering Preferences

Root crops need lots of water in the early stages, and beets are no exception. They also need pretty consistent moisture thereafter, which makes them great neighbors for leafy greens.

Beet Space Requirements

Depending on the variety you're growing, beets need about 3 to 6 inches of space to themselves so their roots can develop. Picture the size of a mature beet you might buy from the grocery store, and then make sure you're leaving at least that much space between your growing beet and another plant.

The 16 Best Beets Companion Plants

Here's a list of the best plants to grow with your beets this cool season.

• Arugula
• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Chives
• Cilantro
• Dill
• Garlic
• Kale
• Lettuce
• Marigolds
• Nasturtiums
• Onions
• Peas
• Sage
• Spinach
• Swiss chard

Now, let's look at how these plants make great companions.

The Best Herbs to Grow with Beets

Aromatic herbs are the first tool in our companion planting toolbox. If you plan to plant something that pests might find appetizing (which, unfortunately, is every vegetable ever grown, beets included), it's a good idea to plant a couple herbs nearby.

These herbs are effective companion plants because their strong scents outright repel certain pests. Other pests, the types that use smell to locate their next meal, are thrown off by the scents, making it harder for them to locate your root crops.

Companion planting can also be beneficial in your kitchen. I mean, what good is a roasted beet if you don't have some homegrown herbs to season it with?

Sage

I recommend planting perennial herbs from the Lamiaceae family (like oregano, rosemary, sage, and thyme) around the border of your raised beds. I like to think of these herbs as little guards at the entrance to your vegetable garden. They can handle some frost, so they'll be present for most, if not all, of your beets' time in the garden to protect them from pests like aphids, flea beetles, and slugs.

While all these herbs can be helpful to beets, sage is the standout because it can protect your beets from rabbits, which really don't like the smell. Since mama rabbits seem to love having their babies in my raised beds, I make sure to plant some sage near the root crops and leafy greens I don't want them to touch.

Beets need much more water than these perennial herbs, but growing them together works if you put the herbs near the edge of the raised bed, where the soil will dry out much faster.

Cilantro & Dill

Cilantro and dill are annual herbs in the Apiaceae family, and they thrive in the same cool temps as beets. These herbs also have strong scents that either repel pests or help to camouflage your beets from pests.

As you pass the end of your cool season, cilantro and dill will bolt, or start flowering in preparation for seed production. Beneficial insects like parasitic wasps and hoverflies love these umbel-shaped flowers and will swarm to your garden. These insects are great for the health and productivity of your entire garden space.

The Best Leafy Greens to Grow with Beets

Leafy greens are great to grow with your root crops because they take up space in complementary ways: your root crops expand underground while the leafy greens fan out above. Most leafy greens have shallow roots that won't get in the way of your swelling beetroots.

Leafy greens love cool temps, so consider beet season your prime time to grow as many delicious greens for your salad bowl as possible.

Lettuce

Lettuce isn't quite as frost hardy as beets, so you'll wait a little bit to sow your lettuce seeds in the spring. As soon as it's time, you can sprinkle lettuce seeds anywhere there's a bare spot in your raised beds. Your beets will have already broken up the compacted soil, so it'll be nice and loose for the delicate roots of your lettuces. And as your lettuce plants grow, they'll appreciate some shade cast by your beet greens. In turn, the lettuce will shade the soil and suppress weeds, which might compete with your beets.

Spinach

Spinach and beets come from the same plant family (the Amaranthaceae family). They prefer the same growing conditions but don't necessarily compete for the same resources. In other words, they grow really well together. Spinach is every bit as frost-tolerant as beets, so you could have a beets and spinach bed growing well before your last frost in the spring.

The spinach leaves will cover the soil, repressing weeds and retaining soil moisture, which your beets will certainly appreciate.

Kale

I love growing beets and kale together in the cool season. They're both super cold-tolerant veggies, perfect for early spring or late fall. Each kale plant will grow up like a little tree, so you can tuck some beets around the base. Just make sure to harvest those lower kale leaves often so that they don't cast too much shade on your beets.

In addition to kale, you can grow other cruciferous vegetables like cabbage, arugula, and broccoli near your beets. These plants are all brassicas, and because they're not in the same family as beets, they typically won't attract the same pests (except for aphids). Arugula can be direct sown with your beets, but kale, cabbage, and broccoli are best transplanted into your space.

Swiss chard

Swiss chard comes from the same family as beets and spinach. You can probably see the family resemblance in the stems and leaves. These plants don't really seem to compete with each other for nutrients, and Swiss chard isn't prone to pest issues. Like kale, Swiss chard is a biennial plant that'll grow much taller than your beets, so you can pack smaller plants around the base. Even though you'll direct sow beet seeds, it's best to bring chard in as a transplant.

The Best Alliums to Grow with Beets

Alliums are the next tool in my companion planting toolbox when it comes to organic pest control during the cool growing season. Plant chives, garlic, onions, leeks, or shallots next to all your root crops and leafy greens.

Garlic

Garlic deters common beet pests like aphids, slugs, and armyworms with its strong scent. Garlic extract has been shown to be an effective control measure for fall armyworms in research studies. Some gardeners even swear that growing garlic near your beets enhances both their growth and their flavor.

Since garlic bulbs also do most of their growth underground, I recommend planting some staggered rows of each. Just make sure you're giving each root and bulb plenty of space.

Onions

One whiff of onions growing is enough to repel common beet pests like aphids, flea beetles, and cutworms. Other pests will have a harder time locating your beets. Like with garlic, be careful to space your onions and beets apart so that each crop has enough room to grow to its fullest potential.

If you don't care about growing a full onion bulb, try planting green onions (scallions).

Chives

Chives are a hardy perennial herb with all the same benefits as garlic and onion, just minus the large bulb. I love to add chives all down the border of my raised beds for pest control. You'll be able to harvest a ton of leaves to use in your kitchen. Bonus: chives blossoms attract tons of beneficial insects to your garden in the spring.

The Best Fruiting Plants to Grow with Beets

Most annual fruiting plants grow well with beets as long as they don't cast too much shade on the beet greens. The majority of our fruiting plants grow in the warm season, so they'll really only overlap with your beets as you transition your garden from the cool season to the warm and vice versa.

Peas

Legumes like snow peas and sugar snap peas are excellent companions for beets. They have similar temperature preferences, so you can plant seeds for your peas and beets as soon as your soil is workable in the spring. If you're growing a pole pea, just make sure to give it a sturdy structure to climb so that it doesn't try to spread over your garden bed.

The Best Flowers to Grow with Beets

Flowers are the final tool in any companion planting toolbox. When it comes to growing beets, we don't really have to worry about attracting pollinators, but we should try to attract as many beneficial insects as possible. Specifically, we want predators and parasitoids to take care of pests on beets for us. I love to tuck flowers in between the perennial herbs around the border of my garden beds.

Frost-tolerant flowers to plant with beets include calendula, dianthus, chamomile, snapdragons, pansies, and violas. Once you've passed your last frost in the spring, you can add marigolds and nasturtiums.

Marigolds

Marigolds are popular companion plants for just about every veggie you may want to grow. Their scent repels aphids and whiteflies, but the cheerful little blooms also attract tons of beneficial insects. Marigolds also keep the type of nematodes that might attack the roots of your beets at bay. Even though you can find varieties of marigolds with huge, gorgeous flowers, I recommend sticking with a smaller type, like French marigolds, for your raised beds.

Nasturtiums

Nasturtiums attract beneficial insects like ladybugs and hoverflies, which can help control pests on your beet leaves. They also deter aphids and whiteflies. I love to grow trailing nasturtium plants over the side of a bed. That way, they take up very little room in your actual raised bed.

What Would a Raised Bed Filled with Beets and Good Companion Plants Look Like?

Here is a sample cool season planting plan for a 4' x 4' raised bed. I put dill in each of the corners of the bed and then added some pink dianthus for color. Low-growing arugula fills the rest of the border around the raised bed.

The center of the bed is taken up by two obelisk trellises supporting sugar snap peas. Between the trellises and the border of the bed, I added rows of beets.

This raised bed would be super productive and beautiful. Just picture the pink of the flowers with the magenta stems of the beets—so pretty!

Beet Companion Planting FAQs

Do Beets and Radishes Grow Well Together?

Many gardeners swear by planting radishes in the same rows as their beets. Radishes sprout and grow quickly, they say, marking the space for the slower-to-sprout beets. The radish roots will then loosen the soil before the beetroots begin to take up space. By the time the beets are really developing, the radishes are ready to harvest.

I personally prefer to keep my root crops separate. I don't want the leaves of my fast-growing radish plants blocking sunlight from the beets and slowing their growth during the critical time for them to develop.

Do Beets and Carrots Grow Well Together?

Again, my preference is to keep my root crops separate. Carrots will pull lots of phosphorus and potassium from the planting area and can potentially compete with your beets.

Fill Your Garden with Leaves, Roots, and Fruit!

I hope this helps you fill your garden beds with lots of things that grow well with beets. Growing root crops like beets with your favorite herbs, leafy greens, and fruiting plants keeps your garden productive and interesting because there's always something to harvest and tend.

Thanks for being here and helping to make gardening ordinary!

Sources

• Farmer's Almanac
• Science Heritage Journal