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. These plants can also encourage a symbiotic relationship with beneficial insects such as lady beetles. 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 like bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, moths, and other insects. Pollinators are obviously crucial to a thriving garden. More pollinators means more produce throughout the growing season. Flowers also beautify your garden space and can be used as cut flowers to beautify the dinner table.
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 their first blooms. 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 insects, or wind, will cause pollination to occur.
Vegetables that rely on pollinating insects include: Squashes, Pumpkin, Melons, Eggplant, Okra, and Cucumbers.
Some plants will deter pests while others can serve as a soil improver to enrich the soil. Flowers planted strategically can also act as a sort of ground cover to reduce the space weeds have to grow. Some plants known to deter pests include petunias, marigolds, lavender, chrysanthemums, and most potent herbs.
Some flowers like Borage, Nasturtium, and Calendula are also edible and are said to be an excellent addition to a vegetable garden.
My personal favorite flowers to grow with my veggies are marigolds because they attract pollinators, deter pests, and are very easy to grow. I love the beauty and variety marigolds offer. Other good choices of flowers to try in your vegetable garden are Zinnias, Sunflowers, Petunias, or Cosmos.
As you use the coming cold winter months to plan your garden, be sure to make room in your garden plan for some flowers. Besides having a more beautiful and attractive garden, the tangible benefits are noticeable as well.
Happy Gardening!
1 comment
I am 75 years old and never knew cucumbers first flowers where only male and needed the 2nd blooms to produce cukes ! Never to old to learn!. About 22 years ago I read some seed companies and the U.S government were trying to produce seeds that would not reproduce. Well they did it. We finally stopped planting a garden when it took 3 plantings in just one row to get a full row of beans! Government controlling our food supply!! So they can control us is coming true ,just like Russia did to their people. In early 1900’s !