One of my favorite things to do when planning veggie garden beds each year is figuring out which companion plants I'll put with which veggies to help them thrive...and bar none my no-brainer is calendula.
While I usually put it in with potatoes, this time I decided to integrate parsley in those and instead sow calendula seeds along the edge of the raised bed where I've got two heirloom zucchini plants just beginning to bloom along with a tomatillo, and they are going gangbusters. As EpicGardening states, "Aphid-eating lacewings, hoverflies, and parasitic wasps love feeding on the high pollen content" of calendula flowers (source). And it's SOO pretty anyhow (along with medicinal value as others will attest...I've yet to get around to using it in that way...just laziness, I suppose!), not to mention easy as pie to grow from seed (and saved seeds).
Another favorite of mine as a companion plant is borage. While you often hear about its edible purple starlike flowers, I think of it first as a bee magnet! Whether they were the honeybees we raised in our first three homes or the native bumblebees who have officially taken ownership of our gardens here in the Valley (woo hoo!), borage is a huge attractor of pollinators (which of course brings said pollinators to the tomato blossoms as well) while also improving soil health AND the taste of the tomatoes.
My only issue is when it gets so crazy that I struggle to reach in to pick a tomato in late summer because the bees have taken over, but hey, I can be patient...'cause they're why I have so many tomatoes in the first place, right? Yup!
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