Chives are a popular herb in the onion family — also known as the Allium family — and are versatile both in the kitchen and the garden. They are a perennial that can keep coming back year after year if you provide them with the right environment. Chives can also be an excellent companion to many popular garden plants. Companion planting is an ancient farming technique that you can use to enhance the health of the plants in your garden. Plants can make others near them healthier and in some cases increase their fruit yield and flavor. Chives contain a sulfur-based oil that gives them most of their oniony flavor and aroma. The oil in chives is also responsible for many of its companion planting benefits. Below is a look at some of the many plants that pair well with chives in the garden. There are also a few that you should not plant anywhere near chives.
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Apple trees
Chives planted near apple trees can offer major benefits, including warding off apple pests like borers and even larger ones like deer, which do not like the smell of chives. Chives can also help to prevent diseases like apple scab. Chives planted near apple trees may benefit them by bringing in pollinators. More pollinators can result in increased yield.
Grapes
Chives are renowned as a good companion for grapevines. They help to keep pests away while boosting fruit production by attracting pollinators.
Carrots
There are multiple benefits to companion planting chives with carrots. The aromatic chive plants protect carrots from carrot flies, which find the plants by smell. Chives also benefit carrots by improving the size of the carrots — they tend to be longer — and their flavor.
Strawberries
When planted alongside strawberries, chives can drive away rodent pests since they don’t like the smell. The effects chives have on the soil can also help to boost the yield from your strawberry plants.
Tomatoes
Your tomato plants can get the same benefits from chives that other flowering plants do. The flowers of the chive plants attract pollinators that can increase the yield of your tomatoes. Chives can also help to get rid of aphids, which are among the pests that can harm your tomato plants.
Roses
Chives can be great partners for ornamental plants like roses. Chive plants will keep Japanese beetles — a rose pest — away while also improving the roses’ fragrance.
Cucumbers
Cucumber plants can be targeted by cucumber beetles. Chives can repel these beetles and thus protect your harvest.
Alliums
The Allium family includes onions, garlic, and chives. Because it is closely related to these other plants, chives share many of the same requirements. They like light to moderate watering and sun. Chives will grow well alongside most Alliums.
Brassicas
The Brassicaceae family includes cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower. Chives can make them healthier, not just by discouraging pests but also by their effect on the soil. Chive plants have anti-fungal and antibacterial effects on garden soil that can help to protect brassicas from disease.
What plants should not be planted with chives?
Beans are among the plants that you should keep away from your chive plants. Bean plants have negative allelopathic effects on chives. Allelopathy refers to the biochemical effects that one plant can have on another. Bean plants put out chemicals that negatively affect chives and that may stunt the chives’ growth.