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Erica Groneman

Jan 14
5 min read
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What Are The Best Flowers To Plant In Your Vegetable Garden?

Increase Fruit and Vegetable Production

Did you know that planting flowers in your vegetable garden will help increase fruit and vegetable production? It’s true. Some flowers and vegetables have a symbiotic relationship. This means that they protect or encourage each other to be healthier and have greater growth. This is because groupings of plants can increase local humidity, reduce evaporation, retain soil moisture, and diversify soil nutrients and microbial activity. Plants can also encourage a symbiotic relationship with beneficial insects such as ladybeetles. Using flowers or other plants in this way is called companion planting. If you haven’t yet discovered the benefits of companion planting for yourself, I invite you to give it a try.

Flowers Attract Pollinators to the Vegetable Garden

Flowers attract pollinators like bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, moths, and other insects. Pollinators are obviously crucial to a thriving garden. More pollinators mean more produce throughout the growing season. Flowers also beautify your garden space and can be used as cut flowers to beautify the dinner table.

parts of a flower

If you are seeing many blooms that do not start developing into fruit, there may be a reason for that. For example, cucumbers often only set male flowers in the first blooms set. For plants that are not self-pollinating, male and female flowers must be present to be pollinated by a pollinating insect.

In the example of cucumbers, you must wait until the second set of blooms, where both the male and female flowers will be present. “Perfect” flowers, such as can be found with tomatoes or peppers, have both the male and female parts required to complete pollination. A shake of the flower due to insect activity or wind will cause pollination to occur.

Vegetables that rely on pollinating insects include squashes, pumpkin, melons, eggplant, okra, and cucumbers. These plants, some of which are often called vegetables (by association, not botanically), are the fruit (mature ovary) of the flower and contain seeds. True vegetables often only require pollination if you are planning on saving the seeds. This is because the vegetable is a harvest of the roots, stems, shoots, or leaves. Examples include beets, broccoli, carrots, lettuce, mustard, radish, and turnips.

Flowers in the Vegetable Garden to Deter Pests

Some plants will deter pests, making them incredibly valuable not only for the health of your plants but for your enjoyment as well. I love gardens and plants, especially adding some water features here and there. Unfortunately, plants and water are a magnet for bugs and pests throughout the garden. However, they can be controlled and deterred by using a variety of well-placed plants. Here you can find a list of plants for targeting a variety of pests. You can find another list specifically targeting mosquitoes in our “Plants Naturally Repel Mosquitoes” article.

Asters

Asters - Deter many insects and pair well with sunflowers for an assortment of color.

Calendula

Calendula - Has some antifungal and antimicrobial properties. Deter asparagus beetles and tomato hornworms.

Geraniums

Geraniums - Great for cabbage and leafy greens. Known to repel cabbage worms, corn earworms, and Japanese beetles.

Herbs

Herbs - Many herbs do well at detering pests because they are often extremely aromatic, or contain natural flavors or chemicals that are disliked by many insects and animals. Common herbs for detering pests include basil, thyme, rosemary, mint, and lemongrass.

Lavender

Lavender - Does not like to grow near mint or impatiens. Does especially well with roses and herbs. Repels many insects.

Marigolds

Marigolds - Many insects, especially Mexican bean beetles and nematodes. Great with tomatoes, pepper, potato, and eggplant.

Nasturtiums

Nasturtiums - Deter aphids, squash bugs, striped pumpkin beetles, and whiteflies. Do well near beans, cabbage, and cucumbers.

Petunias

Petunias - Does well near tomatoes, beans, squash, or potatoes. Repel many insects and attract hummingbirds.

Tansy

Tansy - Deter flying insects, ants, and beetles. Does well near potatoes and squash.

Flowers to Improve Soil Quality and Nutrients

Whether you are growing flowers or vegetables, it is important to protect and improve your soil from year to year. One of the ways to do that is by growing a protective and working living mulch. A living mulch can help control weeds, retain moisture, reduce erosion, encourage healthy microbe activity, increase organic material, and attract pollinators, as mentioned above. While you can and should utilize spring or fall cover crops, you can continue to utilize them in the form of a living mulch throughout the growing season as well.

garden cover crop mix

Sunflowers - have deep root systems help pull up and keep water in the root region. Its roots also decompose into organic matter when the plant is cut at ground level. The foliage may be cut and dispersed to decompose on the surface over winter.

Sweet Pea - nitrogen fixing legume.

Sweet Alyssum - groundcover and living mulch.

Borage - improves water drainage and compact soils as a groundcover, is edible.

Bachelor Buttons - living mulch.

Erica Groneman's photo

Hi, I’m Erica Groneman. I am a mom, volunteer, and a gardener. There’s something satisfying about getting my hands dirty and watching things grow. I believe gardening is universal and crosses all boundaries, bringing us all together. I hope we can share in the joy of growing together. Thanks for stopping by!

9 comments

Aleksandar

Cool! :)


Kimberly Parker

This article is super helpful!


Deb

Is there any plant that will deter white flies?


True Leaf Market

Lynette, you can find some additional ideas on our Squash Bugs Pest Guide page under the “Squash Bug Treatment” section (link below). In addition to these ideas, I would highly recommend utilizing crop rotations for preventing problems with your next planting. Because squash bugs can overwinter and get a jump start on creating infestations for future growing seasons, you will want to plant your squash plants in a new location. Because squash bugs are only attracted to and feed on certain types of plants, you could instead grow vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, brassicas, etc., there next time. As for companion plants, I would recommend growing catnip, tansy, radishes, nasturtiums, marigolds, bee balm, and mint. https://www.trueleafmarket.com/pages/squash-bugs-pest-guide


Lynette Ewer

I have a real problem with squash bugs! I am unable to grow squash because of these insects and I have tried diatomaceous earth, soapy water spray and scraping the eggs off of the leaves to no avail. Is there something else you could recommend or something I could companion plant with the squash? Thank you


Sandy

Easy to digest and USE information. Thanks so much!


JoJo

I’ve become obsessed with planning out my companion planting this year. In some years I left the flowers in pots & moved them around the raised bed as the vegetables starting getting too big. Good article especially where you give tips on why these flowers are good companions & why you should plant in the ground vs. in a pot.


Sandra

This is so helpful! I’m planning on planting many of these flowers anyway, so now I know where they will be beneficial, as well as beautiful!


Cheyenne

I love seeing all the colors flowers bring to the garden. Feeding pollinators is a perk of them as well. I love the ideas in this article and can’t wait to implement them in my garden this year.