Companion Plants in the Vegetable Garden

When I first started gardening, and I mean something besides just zucchini, I just planted whatever seeds I wanted directly in the ground and expected them to grow and produce the vegetables that I wanted. Sometimes they did and sometimes they didn't. It seems like zucchini is what a lot of gardeners start out with because it nearly always grows and produces very well. Did I say, "very well"? I mean to say that it produces an overabundance of fruits. In fact, my neighbors started locking their car doors whenever I was around because they got tired of finding bags of zucchini left for them. Man...