As you stroll through your gardens with your friends with a glass of wine in hand, imagine their delight when they are greeted with a profusion of pretty pops of colour in amongst your vegetable plants.
In the 1970s it seems a trend started to separate flowers from the vegetables.
It turns out that flowers are an essential ingredient in establishing a healthy garden because they attract beneficial insects and birds, which control pests and pollinate crops.
Most gardeners understand this and also know that pollen and nectar are food for insects, and that seed heads provide food for birds.
Gardens should be beautiful as well as bountiful. Mix flowers and vegetables so that both are an integral part of the garden’s design. Let’s say you have a shady backyard, so you decide to put a vegetable garden in your sunny front yard. Most of us would install a rectangular bed or wooden boxes, and plant long rows of vegetables, maybe placing a few marigolds in the corners, or planting a separate flower border. In either case, the gardener will have added plants offering a bit of much-needed pollen and nectar.
Integrating an abundance of flowers among the vegetables, however, would impart visual beauty while also helping beneficial insects accomplish more. Plentiful food sources will allow the insects to healthily reproduce. Plus, most of their larvae have limited mobility. For example, if a female ladybug or green lacewing lays her eggs next to the aphids on your nasturtium, the slow-moving, carnivorous larvae won’t be able to easily crawl all the way across the yard to also help manage the aphids chowing down on your broccoli.
The following is a list of flowers to add to your edible landscape and the benefits:
- Agastache, planted a little bit away from the vegetable garden, can lure cabbage moths away from Brassica crops.
- Alyssumattracts pollinators and can keep weeds down between rows or plants.
- Borageis a great companion plant. It attracts bees and can aid in the pollination of squash, melons, and cucumbers. Boragealso deters tomato hornworms and cabbage moth caterpillars.
- Calendulaattracts pollinators all through the season. Calendula also attracts slugs. Plant a bit separate from plants like lettuce to try to lure slugs away.
- Chamomileattracts hoverflies and parasitic wasps that prey on garden pests.
- Cosmosprovides food and habitat for many beneficial insects including bees, parasitic wasps, ladybugs, and lacewings.
- Dillis a great companion to cabbage, attracting beneficial wasps that feed on cabbage plants.
- Gaillardiais a long-blooming perennial that provides rich nectar to pollinators.
- Herb flowersattract pollinators in droves and many herbs help repel pests.
- Parsleyattracts ladybugs, and spiders that dine on garden pests.
- Petuniascan help repel aphids, asparagus beetles, and leafhoppers.
- Marigolds control nematodes in the soil that prey upon tomatoes, cucumbers, and melons.
- Nasturtiumsrepel squash bugs and attract aphids away from other, more prized plants. The month of June is a great time to plant these colourful flowers.
- Sunflowers attract pollinators and improve the pollination of other crops, particularly squash and pumpkins.
- Yarrowis a bee magnet! The scent of yarrow repels aphids and attracts hoverflies, ladybugs, and wasps - all of whom eat garden grubs and pests.
So grab your glass of wine and delight in the lush kaleidoscopic colours of your vegetable garden.
Lynda Pasacreta is the current president of the Richmond Garden Club. To learn more about dealing with pests in your garden, join us at the Brighouse Richmond Public Library, 2nd floor, June 12th, 7pm to 8:30pm to hear Master Gardener Kristin Crouch talk about dealing with nasty pests in your garden. To register: www.yourlibrary.ca/eventsor phone 604.231.6413.
