Incorporating flowers into your vegetable garden not only adds splashes of color and enhances the area’s appeal, but it can also boost your crop production.
Why Grow Flowers in the Vegetable Garden?
Planting flowers in your vegetable garden offers many benefits. Some obvious benefits include attracting beneficial insects and bees, while certain flowers can also repel or attract pests away from your vegetable plants.
Attracting beneficial insects: Some flowers attract insects, such as ladybirds, which feast on aphids.
Repelling and attracting pests: Marigolds and nasturtiums excellently lure pests such as aphids.
Attracting bees and pollinators: Flowers like nasturtiums attract bees into your plot, aiding in pollinating beans, tomatoes, and courgettes.
Edible flowers: Some flowers, like nasturtiums, are edible and enhance salads.
5 Flowers to Grow in a Vegetable Garden
Calendula
Calendula, also known as pot marigold, is an easy-to-grow flower that will keep flowering throughout the summer months. They will grow in any soil and love full sun. Calendula is excellent at repelling pests such as aphids and cabbage white butterflies.
It’s best to sow calendula directly where you want them to grow. Prepare the soil and add a little garden compost. Sow them roughly 1 cm deep and keep the area well-watered. Deadhead the flowers throughout the summer months to encourage new blooms.
Nasturtium
Nasturtiums are excellent for attracting bees into your veg plot and will also attract cabbage white butterflies away from your precious vegetable plants. As an added bonus, nasturtiums are also edible, including the leaves and the flowers, and are great in a salad.
Start them undercover or sow directly once the last frost has passed. To start them undercover, sow one seed per 9 cm pot roughly 1.5 cm deep. Once they are large enough to go outside, harden them off for a week and plant. To sow directly, again sow 1.5 cm deep, roughly 10 cm apart, and keep them well-watered.
Marigold
Marigolds are excellent companion plants for tomatoes. Their scent helps deter whitefly and tomato hornworms. French marigolds are also known to help combat root nematodes in the soil. They are also good at attracting hoverflies, bees, and butterflies.
Comfrey
The bees love comfrey, and you can also use the plant to make your own fertilizer. Comfrey can be invasive and will self-seed. Varieties like Bocking 14 are sterile and won’t spread.
Sunflowers
The large flowers help attract many species of bees and other pollinating insects. Each flower contains hundreds of tiny individual florets that are rich in nectar and pollen that insects love. The seeds of sunflowers will also attract birds into your plot. Growing sunflowers from seed is easy; sow them into individual pots in April and May. Once they reach sufficient size for planting, place them in a warm, sunny, sheltered spot, and keep them well-watered throughout the summer months.
Maximizing Your Vegetable Garden with Flowers
Growing flowers among your vegetables offers numerous benefits, including pest control, enhanced pollination, and adding flavor to your salads. These flowers not only enhance the health and yield of your vegetable plants but also transform your garden into a more aesthetically pleasing and enjoyable space. So next time you’re planning your vegetable plot, remember to include these flowers to reap their full range of benefits.