Basil improves the flavor of adjacent tomatoes.
The one trial we know of found no difference in flavor, and nobody has proposed how it would work. Plant basil next to tomatoes anyway. You'll want them at the same time in the kitchen.
What is actually known
No proposed mechanism. One garden trial is known: a 2004 West Virginia University study whose blind taste tests over three years found no consistent preference for tomatoes grown with companions. Extremely widely believed.
The evidence
Evidence: checked against 1 source in the research-based literature.
The source
Double blind taste tests over three years showed no consistent preference for tomatoes grown with companions over those grown in monoculture.
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Cite this page
Milpa Gardens. “Basil improves the flavor of adjacent tomatoes.” Evidence grade: Contested. https://milpa.garden/beliefs/basil-tomato/
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How we grade evidence
- Well established
- The rule names its mechanism and is settled, by sources a person has read and checked or by plain arithmetic and geometry.
- Promising
- The mechanism is named and the literature backs it. A few questions are still open.
- A good hunch
- Plausible by its mechanism, but field studies are thin, so treat it as a lean.
- Contested
- The evidence points both ways, or no study has tested it, so the planner does not enforce it.
- Contested here means nothing we found supports it.
- Refuted
- The claim did not survive its sources. It is kept so the folklore can be answered.