Plant Herbs, Chives, and Flowers with Your Lettuce Plants

Q: What's a pest's dream home?

A: An uncovered raised bed filled with nothing but lettuce plants.

All those tender, delicious leaves are just too enticing to leave out in the open without other plants there to distract or deter the pests. I call these other plants interrupters, and you want a lot of them in your salad garden. Without interrupters, it's best to keep your lettuce bed covered with garden mesh at all times to keep those garden pests out.

If you're not interested in covering your entire lettuce bed, then your next best organic pest control option is companion planting with your lettuce. The name of the companion planting game is to add in plants that either repel pests or attract beneficial insects to your garden to prey on those pests. These plants should also like to grow in the same season as lettuce.

In return for their protection, lettuce makes a great companion for lots of different plants. It has shallow roots and doesn't grow very tall (until it's going to seed), so it won't block light from other plants trying to grow in the space. Let's look at how to companion plant with lettuce.

How Does Lettuce Grow Best?

Some lettuce varieties are hardier than others (red lettuce can handle heat a bit better than green lettuce, romaine lettuce is tougher than butterhead, etc.) But overall, lettuce plants like cooler temps and regular water. Keep these four things in mind when you're planning out your garden beds.

LETTUCE TEMPERATURE PREFERENCE

Lettuce loves cool weather (temps between 45°F and 75°F) but is sensitive to frost. Most lettuce types will bolt, or go to seed, once the weather warms. Lettuce is typically grown in the spring, around the time of your last frost date, and again in the fall.

Lettuce SUNLIGHT NEEDS

Lettuce really only needs 4 hours of sunlight a day to produce leaves for you. These tender plants prefer the shorter days of spring and fall. That makes them ideal companions for other plants that like shorter days, like spinach, radishes, and carrots.

Lettuce NUTRIENT NEEDS

Lettuce, like so many other vegetables, does great growing in a sandy loam mix. Lettuce can actually thrive in straight compost, but compost alone isn't an ideal growing medium for the root crops and fruiting plants you might want to grow alongside your lettuce.

Lettuce WATERING PREFERENCES

Lettuce plants need a lot of water to sprout and grow. That's because they themselves are mostly just water. Once they're established, they like consistent moisture, so they're good neighbors for root crops like carrots and beets.

The 20 Best Lettuce Companion Plants

Here's a list of the 20 best plants to grow with your lettuce.

• Basil
• Beets
• Calendula
• Carrots
• Chamomile
• Chives
• Cilantro
• Dill
• Garlic
• Leeks
• Marigolds
• Onions
• Oregano
• Parsley
• Peas
• Radishes
• Rosemary
• Sage
• Strawberries
• Thyme

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

My Favorite Types of Plants to Grow with Lettuce

The cool season is my absolute favorite growing season in the garden. Lettuce plants are basically my favorite thing to grow period, but I also love all the other leafy greens, herbs, and root crops that grow alongside them.

One of your main goals for companion planting with lettuce should be to add some protection for your leaves against pests and disease. The two key plant families to boost your garden protection are alliums and herbs from the carrot family.

LETTUCE PLANTS AND ALLIUMS

Alliums, or plants in the onion family, include garlic, leeks, shallots, chives, and of course, onions. These guys all have a particular smell that deters pests that might be interested in munching on your lettuce leaves. That makes them an incredibly effective form of organic pest control. Look around my kitchen garden, and you'll see an allium tucked like a sentinel next to just about every single leafy green.

Out of all the alliums, chives are the easiest to grow in your garden. They're perennials and super low maintenance. I recommend planting chives in the corners of every raised bed.

LETTUCE PLANTS AND HERBS

Cilantro, parsley, and dill (all herbs in the carrot family) are some of the best herbs to plant near lettuce. They have the same temperature preferences as lettuce, and their leaves can be harvested and tossed into your salad bowl to add more flavor. When the weather warms up, cilantro and dill flowers will attract beneficial insects like ladybugs to your garden. Their gorgeous little flowers do a lot for the overall health of your entire garden.

You can also plant herbs from the mint plant family (think basil and then all the perennial herbs like rosemary, sage, oregano, and thyme) next to your lettuce plants. Some gardeners swear that planting basil next to lettuce makes the lettuce leaves taste even better. Even if that's not true, these herbs have strong scents that either repel lettuce pests or mask the scent of your lettuce plants.

LETTUCE PLANTS AND ROOT CROPS

What's a salad bowl without some radish and carrot slices? Roots and leaves just go hand in hand, in the kitchen and in the garden.

These plants all love the cool season. Growing radishes, carrots, and beets in the same bed as lettuce helps break up compacted soil, making it easier for those delicate lettuce roots to spread out. The leafy green tops of beets and radishes will lure pests like aphids and flea beetles away from your lettuce, and if you let a few of your carrots flower, those flowers will attract ladybugs and lacewings, which eat aphids.

Lettuce AND FRUITING PLANTS

My favorite fruiting plants to grow in the same beds as lettuce are peas and strawberries. Peas fix nitrogen into the soil, and lettuce plants need lots of nitrogen to grow healthy leaves. Peas growing up a trellis can also provide some shade for lettuce plants during warm afternoons.

Strawberries produce pretty little flowers that attract beneficial insects like predatory mites and parasitic wasps.

Other fruiting plants like cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes grow well with lettuce, but they'll typically only share gardening space while you're transitioning from your cool to warm growing season or vice versa.

LETTUCE PLANTS AND FLOWERS

It comes as no surprise by now that flowering plants are really beneficial for our little lettuce babies. Calendula, chamomile, and marigolds actually come from the same family as lettuce plants, the aster plant family. Calendula is a particularly great companion for lettuce because it acts as a trap crop and keeps aphids off your lettuce leaves.

Nasturtiums are another great flower to add to your salad garden. Nasturtiums manage to do something incredible: attract beneficial insects while repelling other pests. Their leaves and flowers are also edible and add some fun color and texture to your salad bowl.

Other great flower companions include pansies and snapdragons.

What Would a Raised Bed Filled with Lettuces & Good Companion Plants Look Like?

This is an example planting plan for a 4' x 4' raised bed. You'll notice cilantro and onions planted in each of the corners to help protect the leafy greens. There's also some white dianthus flowers to add beauty and serve as interrupters. Dianthus is a low-maintenance flower that thrives in the cool season.

Kale plants are planted in the middle of the raised bed. They'll grow nice and tall. If you have some obelisk trellises, you could swap the kale plants in the middle for two obelisks supporting sugar snap peas.

The rest of the bed is filled with spring mix lettuce.

This beautiful raised bed would give you tons of leaves!

Are There Bad Companion Plants for Lettuce?

Brassicas like cabbage, broccoli, kale, and kohlrabi don't always make great companions for lettuce. They require similar nutrients (mostly nitrogen) to grow and produce leaves, which puts them in direct competition with lettuce plants. Broccoli and mustard greens can actually inhibit the growth of other leafy greens around them by releasing certain chemicals.

As you can see from the planting plan above, I still grow lettuce with brassicas like kale and cabbage, and you can, too. Just be ready to add some more nitrogen to the soil if any of your greens are slow to grow or appear to be struggling. Like always, plant a wide diversity of plants around them. Having lots of other plants in the mix counters any negative effect from a couple of plants.

Some leafy greens that I love to grow with lettuce include Swiss chard, mizuna, and spinach.

Fill Your Garden with Leaves, Roots, & Fruit!

Now you know how to fill your garden beds with lots of delicious things that grow well with your lettuce babies. Growing your favorite herbs, root crops, fruiting plants, and flowers next to your leafy greens is the best way to keep your garden productive and interesting. There's always something to tend and something to cut for your next salad, whether that's some radish leaves or dill to mix in with all those lettuce leaves.

Thanks for being here and helping to make gardening ordinary!