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Why Are Marigolds Good For Tomatoes? 5 Important Reasons To Grow Them With Tomatoes

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Tomatoes are considerably rewarding when it comes to growing them, but they will come with their downfalls. However, it isn’t just us humans who love tomatoes; a lot of animals, birds, and pests also love the plant.

If you’re asking yourself the question of “Why are marigolds good for tomatoes?” Keep on reading this article for reasons that marigolds are good for plants.

Let’s get right to it!

Why Are Marigolds Good For Tomatoes
Companion planting (marigolds and tomatoes) – via Flickr

Why Are Marigolds Good For Tomatoes?

Have you ever seen a codependent relationship in humans, where both are dependent on the other and complement the other in some way? This relationship exists in animals too. Sometimes if a majestic sea turtle visits a particular spot at a specific time in a year, other fish will come and start cleaning it.

This is known as a symbiotic relationship. It also exists in plants. They have attributes that can help out their neighbors. A plant might be something known as a nitrogen fixer. What this means is that the plant can take nitrogen from the air around it and put that into the soil.

As nitrogen is helpful for plants, this is an excellent ability to have. Another example of plants helping other plants is when a plant has deep roots, which can help break up the soil and introduce beneficial nutrients for the shallow-rooted plants around it.

However, there are also some plants that take away nutrients from the soil and can potentially hinder the growth of the plants surrounding it. These are known as aggressive plants, which have high standards of moisture and nutrients which they suck out from the soil.

Marigolds are friendly to other plants. Here are five reasons to grow them alongside tomatoes.

Marigolds Repel Animal Tomato Pests

Marigolds have a pretty strong scent. This strong odor that they emit makes the lives of garden pests hell. They are repulsed by this scent. These animals that marigolds repel include cats, deers, snakes, and rabbits. These are some of the animals which are likely to attack your plants.

Some of these are very annoying, and they are not affected by scarecrows. They are persistent in their mission of eating tomatoes. This makes dealing with them very difficult. Especially snakes, even though they don’t eat tomatoes, might be a hazard for anyone in the garden.

Planting marigolds with tomatoes will keep all these animals away from your precious plants.

Marigolds Keep The Soil Healthy

For home tomato growers, nematodes can plague the roots of the tomato plants. These also bother eggplants and peppers. If you have all these growing in your garden, keep on reading.

Marigolds will help in this scenario. These trap and kill all of these nematodes. It would be best if you plant these marigolds in all of the areas where an infestation might be likely. The nematodes are killed because marigolds emit a particular toxin that kills them.

For this reason, it is healthy for the soil that you grow marigolds in your garden.

Why Are Marigolds Good For Tomatoes 2
Marigolds are supposed to help keep aphids away from tomato plants – via Flickr

Marigolds Attract Bees and Other Insects Which Benefit Tomatoes

If you plant marigolds, they are most likely to attract other insects such as bees, ladybugs, and butterflies. This helps speed up the pollination process of the plant.

These insects carry pollen from one plant to the other. This pollen helps massively when it comes to planting, growing, and speeding up the plantation process.

Another benefit of these insects is that they repel some other insects like caterpillars and aphids, which are bad for the plant’s health. Marigolds help attract these little guys that further stop all the pests from infesting your plants.

Marigolds Are A Trap Crop For Insects Such As Snails and Slugs

If you’re still wondering why marigolds are good for tomatoes, this reason might be able to convince you to plant some in your garden as well.

Everyone hates stupid slugs that come into the garden. They are disgusting to look at and ruin the hygiene in your garden as well. They also suck on some plants and steal the nutrients from the fruits.

Same with snails, nobody enjoys seeing both of these, and these just ruin the overall health of your garden. Both of these pests actually love tomatoes, and you might not even notice them since they are so small.

When you go to pluck your fruit, only then you might notice that an infestation has happened in your garden, and there are loads of slugs and snails in your garden. They will also leave the tomatoes opened as they try to enter the fruit and leave tiny holes inside it.

Marigolds are an effective trap crop for snails and slugs. The foliage of the plant is toxic for the slugs, and they die.

Because of this, marigolds are fantastic to keep out any snails and slugs from your garden.

Marigolds Repulse Tomato Worms

A lot of worms love to eat tomatoes. These also include caterpillars. Giant moths are also likely to be attracted by your tomato garden. Marigolds repel these two insects in multiple ways.

Firstly, the pungent odor they emit is repulsive for moths, and they won’t be able to lay eggs in the vicinity. Moreover, the insects that marigolds attract are enough to repel all of these insects, which also include parasitic wasps which eat tomatoes as their lives depend on them.

Some other insects which may be bad for your tomatoes are worms and caterpillars, which are also repelled by marigolds.


Conclusion

If you keep on asking yourself the question, “Why are marigolds good for tomatoes?” This article answers that question for you.

Marigolds provide a lot of benefits to tomatoes that grow near them. The odor they spread throughout the atmosphere is enough to keep all the insects away from the tomatoes.

Best of luck!