4 Must Have Flowers For Your Vegetable Garden!

By Elizabeth Jones

10 May 2021

Flowers do SO MUCH MORE than add a touch of beauty and color to your vegetable garden. They attract pollinators, which is very helpful in making sure your plants will produce fruit! Plus, if you’re having insect pest problems, before grabbing some pesticides, try planting these flowers. It might just work better!

Marigolds

were a part of my childhood. I remember our driveway was lined with a beautiful border of yellow and orange marigolds. I would help my Mom collect seed heads to replant next year. Not that they really needed help as marigolds are prolific self-seeders.

I revisited my childhood last year by planting marigolds. One of my experiments last year was with companion planting. It was a HUGE success! I planted marigolds in 2 parts of my garden. One was on the patio in the pot with the cucumber. My patio plants need a little extra help in attracting pollinators. The second was by the tomatoes. This variety of marigolds (Sunsets Giant) grew to be just over 5 feet tall! This was perfect for not being overpowered by my tomatoes, which grew taller than me!

2 Main Reasons Marigolds have earned a PERMANENT place in the garden!

1. Marigolds are one of the best companion plants. They attract all kinds of good pollinators to the garden and do repel some pests. There were the most beautiful butterflies all over my garden and the bees were hard at work! 2. More importantly (to me anyway) was how my tomatoes did. I had a few marigolds by one section of my tomatoes. The tomato plants that were next to the marigolds were the healthiest I’ve EVER had. There was very little nematode damage to the roots of those tomatoes. The other tomatoes NOT by the marigolds had more nematode damage.

While there has been only some research done into marigolds and nematode prevention, my personal experience has been awesome! Marigolds are said to repel pests. This was certainly my experience and not just with the nematodes! I had one tomato hornworm when I usually have more than I can count. But, this is more likely due to the next flower I recommend for your garden.

Sunflowers

add bold colors and height to any garden. They come in a variety of colors from reds, pinks, yellows, and even white and various sizes from miniature varieties to 10’+ giants!

Sunflowers will attract birds, which eat pests like tomato hornworms. These attractive flowers are also magnets to the Eastern leaf-footed bug. I usually have a problem with the leaf-footed bugs in my tomatoes later in the season, but not last year!

I had only 3 sunflowers which bookended the 2 rows of tomatoes. The Eastern leaf-footed bugs couldn’t help themselves! They were all over the sunflowers and NOT ONE was in the tomatoes! And I still got to enjoy the flowers and harvest the heads, despite the leaf-footed bugs! Needless to say, sunflowers have earned a permanent place too!

I really like black-eyed peas. But for whatever reason, aphids are attracted to black-eyed peas and can be a real problem. Aphids are the reason the next 2 flowers are a must for your garden!

Alyssum

The third flower is Alyssum. These small white flowers pack a big punch! Ladybugs can’t get enough of them. If you want to attract ladybugs to help with any aphid problems, plant Alyssum! Their compact size is great for placing between plants without taking up extra space. These are great for small gardens, like mine!! I plan on planting more this year and placing them between the pepper plants and maybe a few near the black-eyed peas.

There is one plant that sprang up on its own last year (you can see it here) and it has so far survived the many nights of 20-degree temps and is blooming away! This shouldn’t be!! If it lasts until the pollinators come back, I’m saving seeds from this hardy little thing. For their compact size and ladybug attraction powers, these too have earned a place in the garden!

Nasturtium

The fourth flower is the nasturtium. This will be my first time planting it. I’m looking forward to seeing if this flower lives up to the hype and helps with my black-eyed pea, aphid problem. Every part of this flower is edible. The flowers are supposed to be really tasty and great in salads.

These flowers are good aphid traps. You can plant nasturtium to lure aphids away. If they do the same thing in the black-eyed peas with the aphids as the sunflowers do with the Eastern leaf-footed bugs, they will have earned a permanent place in the garden! See Garden Experiments 2021 for more details!

Try one or all of these flowers in your vegetable garden this year. Let me know how it works for you! Just drop me a line at ejones@prlib.org!