Which Flowers do you plant with garden vegetables?

[Gary350]

I have not planted flowers in my garden in 30 years when I had a 40x80 garden. Next year I want to plant Low maintenance flowers that blossom all summer.

I wonder if flower seeds in the garden can be as bad as weed seeds? Morning glory seeds once took me 7 years to get ride of.

What does everyone plant from seeds and plant in trays?

Lets see your pictures?

[SQWIB]

Marigolds





Sunflowers





I also have oregano that I chop and drop but let some flower, the Buzz Pollinators love it.

[bri80]

I wonder if flower seeds in the garden can be as bad as weed seeds?

They absolutely can. Many flowers are prolific reseeders, and they can and will compete with your veggies like any other plant growing nearby. I let some go, but I keep an an eye on it. California poppies are the main ones I let grow a little, but they will reseed themselves, for sure.

I grow lots of sunflowers nearby my vegetables, but never in with them. Those guys are way too big to let too close. Inevitably I end up with sunflowers volunteering in my vegetable beds, and I weed them out like any other weed.

[imafan26]

I grow flowers in my yard but not in the vegetable garden. My garden is not really that big and I plant some of the bigger and longer growing edibles in pots as well like tomatoes,beans, peas, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, taro, ginger, turmeric, and most of the herbs. The bigger vegetables take up too much room and things like taro and ginger can be hard to dig up and would take up space in the garden for most of the year so I like them better confined.

I have grown sunflowers in the garden with corn. They do not reseed since I only plant a few and harvest the seed heads. I occasionally plant marigolds between other plants and while they could reseed, I also harvest their seedheads as well. The Jamaican oregano was in a pot but it is now established in my vegetable garden and it is always in bloom and attracts bees. I may have to dig it out since it does take up a lot of space and put it back in a pot.

I have most of the flowers out in the yard. Orchids in trees and on the fence, desert rose, jasmine sambac (rose flowered), gardenia, parrot beak Heliconia, Kimi ginger, geraniums, alyssum, agapanthus (blooming now), lavender, amaryllis, gladiolus, mussaenda glabra (blooms all year), roses, cuphea, crown of thorns, plumeria, gardenia, and the citrus trees and herbs do flower as well. I have mussaenda glabra and penta which flower all year and Euphorbia cotonifolia which does flower but is
grown mostly for its red leaves. Alyssum, blue daze, and dwarf acalypha are perpetual flowering ground covers. Right now the cucumber is attracting bees. I usually always have something in bloom all year.

[applestar]

I always have some kind of herbs blooming -- oregano, lavender, mint, lemon balm, chives.... plus blooming 2nd year carrots, parsley, kale, etc. I try to grow some flowers, but generally they take 2nd priority to tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, so I've stopped starting flowers inside when they can be direct seeded. I also like flowers that I can harvest and save seeds to grow again. This year's veg garden extra flowers are balsam and salvia.

I have perennial flowers in parts of the veg garden areas -- monarda is one. Fruits too -- strawberries within, then others are perimeters -- raspberries, blackberries, elderberries, apples, pears, persimmons, plums..... then there are the native flower and butterfly garden next to the veg garden. Flowers are blooming all the time.

[rainbowgardener]

I plant marigolds and sometimes nasturtium in veggie beds, partly just for ornamental effects.

Most of the flowers I am planting as fence line plantings. The theory anyway is that they will draw beneficial insects into the property and from the fence line it isn't very far to the veggie beds. And that keeps flowers from competing with veggies. I plant a lot of herbs, mostly in containers on my deck. I let some of them flower also, since bees and beneficial insects also like those flowers.

We haven't lived here two years yet, so I am still working on it and adding things as I can. But so far I have on the fence lines:
yarrow, helianthus, tansy, penstemon, carpet bugle, lemon balm, bee balm, black eyed susan, ironweed, new england aster, purple coneflower, coreopsis, milkweed, elderberry. I grew dill and parsley in beds with the veggies. On the deck I have oregano, basil, sage, thyme, fennel, lavender, rosemary, spearmint, tarragon, chamomile, coriander. These are all perennials. They do spread, but not rapidly. Where I was before we moved, the only one that was getting a bit weedy was the lemon balm, but it is easy to pull when it shows up where you don't want it and it is nice to have.

All of these are things that are known to attract beneficial insects, lacewings, ladybugs, braconid wasps, etc. But just because I planted some last year doesn't mean my yard is now full of beneficial insects. Building up the Garden Patrol population happens over a few seasons of having lots of blooms they like.

[imafan26]

You have to be careful with tansy, especially around animals since it is very toxic.

[applestar]

Forgot about nasturtiums. I love eating leaves when they get big enough to be lettuce substitute in sandwiches. Blossoms are colorful addition and edible, too. Only problem is it turns out cabbage white will use those leaves.

[thanrose]

I usually have Catharanthus roseus, or vinca or periwinkle growing and blossoming nearly year round. I always had that and marigold, Tagetes spp., and sometimes nasturtium, Tropaeolum spp., in and among my tomatoes and beans. My grandpop always had Celosia cristata, aka cockscomb, and Zinnia spp. in his vegetable rows. My mother had Cleome hassleriana between her tomatoes.

All of these can reseed, some are sacrificed for nuisance insects, and some are just pretty, although they certainly attract bees and butterflies. I deadhead and seed pod pick. Some are harder to do than others like the celosias. They're spreading seed almost from the time they sprout, although I rarely had problems controlling them.

I suppose there are thousands of reasons to grow different things. For years marigolds thrived here, but then slugs developed a taste for mine. Powdery mildew deprived me of zinnias, and I started to think that nasturtiums were attracting aphids to the vicinity. The toxic sludge that is the acrid odor of Catharanthus is vincristine: a chemo-therapy drug. No one bothers them at all. They don't even set seed with every blossom. I just have to run my hands through and find the twin pods here and there while they are still green.