Here are four flowers I plant with my veggies and their benefits.
Nasturtiums
Nasturtiums are planted in several of my garden beds. Not only are they beneficial, pretty, and easy to grow, they are also edible. They are really good at attracting good bugs. Nasturtiums also repel potato bugs, squash bugs, striped pumpkin beetles, Mexican bean beetles, and aphids. I grow them in my greenhouse because they are suppose to destroy whiteflies. For those of you who have orchards they will help control the woolly aphid, if left to wander.
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| Nasturtiums with my tomatillos and pumpkins. |
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| This one is planted in a pot with a tomato plant in my greenhouse. |
Sunflowers
Sunflower come in a wide range of colors and sizes. I have planted many different ones in the past. I like to try new verities each year. One year I planted the mammoth sunflower, it was over 6 feet tall and the flower head was HUGE. Unfortunately they get so heavy they fall over even staked up. Now why do I plant sunflowers? Well one my honey bees love them, so do other pollinators and good bugs like lady bugs. Ants also like to herd aphids onto them, keeping aphids off neighboring plants. Sunflowers also giving shade to plants, like cucumbers, that need it during the hottest part of the day. Before modern Europeans arrived in the US, sunflowers were grown as a companion for corn, it supposedly increases corn production. I planted a row of sunflowers between my corn rows to try this theory out.
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| Sunflowers with my corn. |
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| Helping shade my cucumbers. |
Marigolds and Zinnias
Marigolds are said to produce a pesticidal chemical from its roots. Because of this they repel bean beetles, aphids, potato bugs, squash bugs, nematodes, and maggots. They can also stimulate vegetable growth.
Zinnias are good for the vegetable garden because they attract pollinators and hummingbird, which eat whiteflies.
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| I planted marigolds and zinnias around the edge of my potato bed. |
