Best Flowers to Grow with Vegetables

Foreign. If you think you've got to make a choice between being a flower gardener or being a vegetable gardener, you're wrong. In fact, if you're a flower gardener, you have got to add some vegetables to your space to make the most of all those pollinators. And if you're a vegetable gardener, you've got to be growing flowers. Not only do they make your space more beautiful and colorful, but they also attract pollinators like bees and butterflies and distract pests. In this video, I'm going to tell you my 10 favorite flowers to put in my vegetable garden so that all of us no longer have to choose between being a flower gardener or a vegetable gardener. We can all be both. Marigolds are probably the most well known flower for planting alongside vegetables, and for good reason. They repel nematodes, deter aphids, and attract pollinators, otherwise known as a triple threat. I like to grow my marigolds right alongside my tomatoes, peppers, basil and beans in the garden. And I especially love the French marigold variety. Oh my goodness, it smells divine. Next up are nasturtium, the ultimate trap crop. Nasturtiums can be grown from seed planted directly in the garden, and I love to grow nasturtiums alongside the edges of my raised beds or or over an arch trellis. Nasturtiums will serve three purposes in your garden. First, they're going to be beautiful and full of color and add height and texture. Next, they're going to lure pests into their beautiful blooms to keep them off the rest of your plants. And finally, the entirety of the nasturtium plant is edible. The leaves are edible, the flowers are edible, and even the seeds can be pickled and eaten too. Petunias might just look like pretty little flowers, but they are actually so good for the garden. Photinias repel aphids, squash bugs and tomato hornworms, and they are perfect for planting alongside the edges of your raised bed. Their trailing habit adds such a beautiful feature to the kitchen garden. I just love it. Petunias can be planted alongside pretty much any plant, including tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, beans and even greens. Calendula is one of my favorite flowers in the vegetable garden. First, it can be grown by seed planted directly in the garden. Next, it is a trap crop which will attract aphids and other white flies to keep them off your beautiful leafy greens. Finally, calendula is so good for you and is known as a medicinal plant. You can make salve and tinctures from calendula and also make your own calendula calendula tea, which is so delicious. Zinnias are possibly the easiest cut flower any of us can grow, and the best part is they grow right alongside your vegetable plants. Zinnias are a pollinator magnet. You're going to have butterflies, bees and hummingbirds all flocking to all the different color zinnias that you grow in your vegetable garden. Zinnias do not like frost, so they're going to grow in the warm and hot season season. And you can grow them right alongside tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, anything that flowers and fruit and zinnias are going to help make those plants even more productive. Snapdragons are my favorite flower to grow when it's cool outside. When it's spring or early fall, snapdragons are my go to flower and you have never seen such happy bees as the ones that are hiding in the middle of a snapdragon bloom. So snapdragons come in all different colors and their compact shape makes them perfect for growing along the borders in raised beds. In fact, my prettiest garden photos ever come from the seasons when my garden is packed with snapdragons. After you get your first bloom on each and every plant, deadhead those and bonus tip. The plants will bloom two or three more times before the end of the season. If you're looking for a low maintenance flower that blooms nonstop, stop. Coreopsis is the one for you. Coreopsis grows when there's no frost in the garden and it attracts beneficial insects like parasitic wasps and lacewings. These bugs actually fight the bad bugs for you, so they are perfect to add right alongside any plants that you have some pest problems with. I like to grow coreopsis outside of my vegetable beds because they tend to bloom and get pretty tall and big, but you want to keep them as near your raised beds as possible so you get that beautiful ecosystem working where the flowers are protecting your greens and also making your garden so much prettier. Sunflowers are also a pollinator magnet and you can grow sunflowers that are miniature and fit inside your raised beds. Or if you want to grow larger varieties, you can plant them outside your raised beds to still get all the benefits. Sunflowers will attract butterflies, bees and lots of birds. My favorite is the yellow finch. Watching those birds eat sunflower seeds is is such a beautiful experience. Sunflowers also have deep roots that will help loosen your soil and get it ready for the next season. I love adding tulips to my vegetable garden because they are so compact, so beautiful and they're one of the first flowers you get to see in early spring. I add tulip bulbs along the edges of my raised bed in late fall or even a planting in the middle of winter in a mild climate. And I get these beautiful tulips right alongside all my early spring greens and herbs. It is the best way to welcome spring to the garden and also feeds those pollinators as soon as the temperatures start to warm up. Now this last one I would never put inside a raised bed. I did that once and trust me, I've never done it again. It's cosmos. Cosmos are a non stop bloomer and oh my goodness, these flowers are covered in bees and butterflies. But don't put them inside your raised bed. Instead, plant seeds or right outside your vegetable garden so that all those bees and butterflies come for the flowers and stay for your fruit. I love growing all different kinds of colors, but the pinks, the purples, the reds, the yellows, the oranges, they really make your vegetable garden shine in the middle of summer. They take care of the pollinators and you'll get so many blooms you can cut a bunch to bring inside and suddenly you're a flower gardener too. Flower gardeners, vegetable gardeners, the labels, they're done after this video because all of us are official growing both. We can be both. Okay, before you leave this video, make sure you subscribe to the Gardenary channel and tell me in the comments what flower you would like to watch me grow in my own garden and which one you're going to grow this season too. I'll see you next time. Thanks so much for listening to the Grow youw Self podcast. You can keep listening anywhere. 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