What to Plant With Carrots: Carrot Companion Plants (and What to Avoid)

Carrots are easy neighbors. They stay low, root deep and take a long time to size up, so faster or taller crops fit around them without much competition. The catch is that carrots must be sown directly in the bed and are slow to sprout, so they need a spot where nothing else will crowd or shade the tiny seedlings for the first few weeks. Here is what extension sources list, and how to fit carrots into a mixed bed.

Good companion plants for carrots

Tomatoes

Oregon State and Virginia Extension both list tomatoes and carrots as companions. Their roots work at different depths, and the tomato canopy gives heat-sensitive carrots some afternoon shade in midsummer. Sow carrots along the sunny side of the tomato row, not underneath it, so the seedlings get light while they are small.

Onions

The onion family is listed as a carrot companion. Both are slim, upright crops that pack into rows close together, which makes a carrot-and-onion strip a space-efficient edge for a bed. Keep that strip away from beans, peas and lettuce, which are listed as poor onion neighbors. More in what to plant with onions.

Lettuce

Lettuce and carrots use different soil depths, and lettuce is harvested well before the carrots need the room. Sow a row of each side by side in spring. See what to plant with lettuce for its other companions.

Peas and beans

Peas and beans are both listed as carrot companions. A pea trellis on the north side of a carrot row is a classic cool-season pairing; bush beans fill the same role after the last frost.

What not to plant with carrots

Virginia Extension lists dill as incompatible with carrots, and its parsley row lists carrots as incompatible with parsley. All three are close relatives in the same plant family, so grow dill and parsley elsewhere (see what to plant with parsley); put dill for example near lettuce, where Penn State notes it draws aphid predators. The rest of the pairs to keep apart are in our keep-apart chart.

Carrots and radishes: the mixed case

UMN Extension describes an old trick: sow a few radish seeds in the same row as carrots. Radishes sprout in days and mark the row while the carrots take up to three weeks to come up, and you pull and eat the radishes as the carrots emerge, which gives the carrots more room. Maryland Extension suggests the same pairing. Virginia Extension, on the other hand, lists radish as incompatible with carrots. If you try it, sow the radishes sparingly and pull them on time so they do not crowd the young carrots.

Sowing and thinning

UMN Extension is clear that carrots should always be sown directly in the garden and never started in pots, because their long taproot starts developing right away and transplanting damages it. Seeds can take as long as three weeks to germinate, so keep the surface moist; a crusted surface after heavy rain can stop the tiny seedlings from breaking through, and a light spray of water helps.

When the largest seedlings are three to four inches tall, thin them so the remaining plants are about two to four inches apart, leaving more room for larger varieties. Pull weed seedlings at the same time.

A simple carrot bed layout

1. Peas on a trellis along the north edge.

   A listed companion that will not shade the bed from there.

2. Two or three rows of carrots in the middle.

   Thinned to two to four inches apart.

3. Lettuce in the next row.

   Harvested long before the carrots need the space.

4. Onions along the south edge.

   A listed carrot companion that stays slim and low.

Keep dill out of this bed, and note that onions and peas are listed as poor neighbors for each other, so keep the onion row on the opposite side from the peas, as above. Our raised bed layouts include more combinations.

When to plant carrots

Carrots are a cool-season crop that can be sown a few weeks before your last spring frost. UMN Extension suggests two or three plantings spaced three weeks apart for a steady supply of young carrots. Our planting calendar turns your frost date into a sowing window. For dates by frost and zone, repeat sowings and fall carrots, see when to plant carrots.

Watering and harvest

Carrots need steady moisture. UMN Extension recommends irrigating whenever the garden gets less than an inch of rain a week; dry roots turn bitter, tough, fibrous and misshapen. Harvest any time the roots reach a usable size. Water the day before, then loosen the soil with a garden fork before pulling, since pulling straight up can snap the root.

Carrots in containers

Short or round carrot varieties do well in deep containers filled with a loose, well-draining mix. Sow directly in the pot, keep the surface evenly moist until they sprout, and thin just as you would in the ground.

Frequently asked questions

What grows well with carrots?

Extension-listed companions for carrots in our checker are beans, lettuce, onions, peas and tomatoes. The table on this page explains why each pairing works.

What should you not plant with carrots?

Our sources list dill and parsley (carrot is listed as incompatible with parsley; they are close relatives in the carrot family) as poor neighbors for carrots. Sources disagree on radishes.