companion plantings borage>>>

winters here so more time to read.. reading on benificial companion plants
for tomatoes.. borage seems to always be recommended .. mostly for attracting
bumble bees and assisting in polination of tomatoe flowers..
so im going to grow borage on couple edges of where my tomatoes will go in 2012..
anyone else plant borage near/among their tomatoes????

i plant basil and marigolds among my tomatoes. never tried borage but it is a big bee attraction.

Borage is beautiful with those lovely blue flowers and yes, they do attract some insect pollinators, BUT, tomatoes don't need to be insect pollinated b'c they self pollenize almost all of the time.

If you aren't saving seeds, as many of us do, then no problem, but putting borage out there will just increase cross pollination such that saved seed of OP varieties will not be true to the variety and cross pollinated to one degree or another..

Edited to add that I just saw rising creek's post, mine creek does that too, LOL, mention basil and marigolds. Basil can't alter the taste of tomatoes for several reasons and many find that marigolds attract spider mites in a big way. And using marigolds as a trap crop for bad nematodes is a compltely different story indeed.

Hope the above helps.

Carolyn, who bought Louise Riotte's book, Carrots Love Tomatoes, many many years ago and tried some companion planting, but when I used controls I saw no differences at all, and that for several different kinds of veggies and fruits..

i have no rhyme or reason for planting basil and marigolds. i do not save seeds from my vegetables cause i dont know what mixes with what, so i buy a lot of seeds. i just love the smell of all the different plants together.

carolyn..i dont save seeds..i can see where bumble bees would mess up polination if you were wanting specific
plants..
i guess theres a misunderstanding on many tomato growers..thinking they are self polinating..which they arent..
they are self fertile.. needing the assistance of wind,bees.. to set fruit.. as well as the optimal temperatures
and humidity to polinate at highest levels..
i guess commercial growers use to use fans in their greenhouses to get best polination.now many introduce
bumble bees for that purpose..
very cool stuff.. :)

I think most tomato growers do know that when they refer to self pollenization as I do, or pollination as most do, that it means via wind/air movement or insects to allow for the pollen to fall from the anthers to the stigma.

Many years ago there was a wonderful professional beekeeper who posted where I did and he was adament about distinguishing the two words pollenization and pollination.

Pollination in the beekeeper world means cross pollination as we say it, as mediated by insects, whereas Pollenization is the word they use to describe what most of us call self pollination with the understanding that insects are not involved.

So even today I use both words to distinguis between the two.

His commercial job was not only with outside crops but also with greenhouse crops which included tomatoes. He used to tell us how many bee visits it took to fertilize all the ovules in the tomato ovary, the seeds to be. ( smile)

Carolyn

I have both blue and white borage growing around my tomatoes. I never thought about the possibility that they could encourage cross pollination due to attracting so many bees. Indeed I do have to watch out not to get stung as they like to germinate in my walking paths. They self seed each year and grow almost like a weed but are beautiful flowers and get quite large as well. This next year I will be sure to plant any tomatoes whose seed I wish to save away from the borage or weed it from that area!! I understand that people also use borage in salads but I am not fond of "fuzzy" type leaves in my salad! They are also somewhat prickly when my legs brush along them while walking.

lol..i was thinking the same thing about the foliage too .. :)
i guess you can eat the flowers too.. for me..makes me happy knowing
that bumble bees have some food out there.. and
with helping my tomatoes set ..just another plus... yea !!!
when i was in high school.. 2 million yrs ago.. a neighbour was a beekeeper..
he even got me started with 2 hives of my own..till i built up an alergy to many
stings.. so had to give them up.. but i enjoyed it.. he was very strong in his point
to what you said.. pollination/pollenization..

I had borage plants around my tomatoes until my MIL noticed them. She thought they were weeds and removed them for me. Lol and sigh.

I read that it deters tomato hornworms and cabbage worms. I didn't have any hornworms or caterpillars till late in the season, after the borage was gone. Have no idea if the two issues actually had anything to do with each other. It was a new garden -- the pests might just not have discovered it early on.