Peppers (Capsicum annuum) make a popular addition to home gardens due to being easy to grow and offering a wide variety of sweet and spicy peppers for your garden. Sweet peppers add crunch and mild flavor to many dishes, while hot peppers come in a wide range of different flavor profiles, allowing you to spice up your food to your preferred level. Despite being easy to grow, peppers are still susceptible to damaging pests like aphids, spider mites, whiteflies, and thrips. One way to protect your pepper plants is through companion planting with plants that help repel those threats. Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus) is one such beneficial companion plant that is winter hardy in USDA zones 8 to 10. The herb also helps retain moisture for your pepper plants.

Companion planting focuses on how you arrange your plants so they can benefit one another. Peppers often benefit from being near other plants that repel common garden pests, but there are other reasons for companion planting, including improved plant health and soil fertility. Companion planting is easier when you choose plants that have similar care needs. Peppers and rosemary both need full sun and well-draining soil, so the same location provides the conditions that both plants need to grow well. When you harvest the peppers and rosemary, you can also use them in many of the same dishes to add color and flavor. 

There are many plants you’ll want to keep away from your peppers, but rosemary isn’t one of them. One of the biggest reasons to plant peppers and rosemary near one another is because of the pest-repelling qualities of the herb. Rosemary has a distinct scent that keeps many common pests away from your garden, including many of the bugs that damage your pepper plants. It works by masking the scent of the pepper plants with its own strong fragrance, so the pests can’t find the peppers. Planting the herb near your peppers might not eliminate all garden pests, but it can help lower the population of aphids, whiteflies, thrips, and other insects.

Pepper plants thrive in moist soil, and planting rosemary nearby can help with that. Rosemary plants can grow between 2 and 6 feet tall with a width of 2 to 4 feet. The size helps cover the ground and keep water in the soil, so the nearby pepper plants can have the moisture they need. Your rosemary plants don’t need as much moisture as your peppers, which means the plants won’t compete and the peppers can have the water they need to grow well.

You can plant rosemary and peppers together in a garden or raised bed. Another option is to plant them in separate pots and position the pots near one another, or you can plant one in the ground and the other in a pot. If you want to grow pepper plants in containers, consider your planting setup and how much space you have to determine how to plant each one. Pepper plants only grow about 1 to 2 1/2 feet tall compared to rosemary’s 2 to 6 feet. While the rosemary’s growth can shelter the pepper from winds and heavy rains, it can also block sunlight depending on the positioning. Both plants need full sun, so ensure the planting position allows for that. You can prune the rosemary plant to keep it from getting too big.

Pepper plants benefit from about 18 to 24 inches of space to all for proper air circulation and room to grow. The optimal spacing between peppers and rosemary to keep aphids away is about 1 1/2 feet. More distance decreases the benefits until you reach about 5 feet, at which point the rosemary no longer repels pests from your peppers. If you have multiple pepper plants, consider adding multiple rosemary plants mixed in with the peppers. You can also incorporate other good companion plants for peppers — the benefits of planting basil and peppers next to each other also include pest control. Choosing different companion plants can offer more diverse protection, and it gives you more variety in your garden that you can use in your kitchen.