Flowers in the Veggie Garden

While I'm a sorry excuse for a flower gardener, as anyone who's seen our landscaping would agree, I'm a huge fan of flowers in the vegetable garden. In fact, sometimes the flowers do better than the veggies.

One of my favorite annuals is the tried-and-true marigold. There are so many colors, and you can even choose dwarf varieties that will easily fit into the smallest garden. You can also easily save seeds to plant again next year. Nasturtiums are a gorgeous option that gives tons of blooms. The best part is that the blooms are edible and add a peppery bite to salads. When shopping, keep in mind that some varieties are climbing and need a trellis while others are mounding, which tend to sprawl and should be directed towards an open area so that they won't crowd out your vegetables.

A few other annuals I enjoy are cosmos, zinnias, and calendula. One last flower I'll add to the list is chamomile. It smells amazing, blooms early, and easily self-seeds, so you can plant it once and have it year after year. If it reseeds and you don't want it, it is easy to pull out or transplant elsewhere. And if you're a tea fan like me, dry the flowers and keep them on hand for chamomile tea.

Sunflowers are a classic summer flower in my garden. Most of them are volunteer sprouts from the black oil sunflower seed we feed the birds in the winter. Personally, I like the sprouts because it saves me the trouble of starting them from seed (mice find my sprouts every time I transplant them). This year I tried a few other varieties for fun, and they tower over the entire garden and are always packed full of bees. The sparrows will start to raid the seeds as soon as they begin to dry later this fall. If you want to grow sunflowers, be sure to read the seed packet to see if they're a cut flower type (often bred not to produce pollen, meaning they don't provide value to bees) or if they're recommended for seeds. Most get quite large, so plan for a location where they don't shade out your other plants.

If you have the room, I'd highly recommend devoting space to some perennial flowers. Aside from only having to plant them once, they will bloom all summer long and provide valuable food and habitat for beneficial insects and birds. I planted a lot of varieties in my raised beds, and while they did well, some of them got a bit large, and any that went to seed ended up causing a bit of a weedy mess in future years. My advice is to plant them in a separate bed that will be permanently devoted to perennials. My favorites include yarrow, echinacea (coneflower), salvia, coreopsis (tickseed), lavender, columbine, and rudbeckia (Black-eyed Susans). This list provides a range of flower types that will benefit a wide variety of insects. Nancy's Dream Garden Center always has a great selection of perennials. If you want to get a jump on next summer, get a few perennials this fall and transplant them, so they have time to establish before winter.

While working from home, I've been able to watch the garden during the day from my makeshift office. I've seen Black-chinned hummingbirds, catbirds, Bullocks orioles, western kingbirds, sparrows, and wrens raise multiple clutches of babies in the garden. With all the flowers blooming and irrigation making the area a bit of an oasis, there are plenty of insects to snack on and enough cover to provide safety from predators. So even if my green beans are lackluster or I'm too lazy to go out and prune the tomatoes, I still know the garden is providing for the species that live in the area and that's good enough for me.

While I can't personally claim the success of raising baby birds, I still feel this quote reflects my thoughts on the garden: "If you've never experienced the joy of accomplishing more than you can imagine, plant a garden."– Robert Brault