Planting flowers in your vegetable garden might seem frivolous, but flowers bring so many benefits to your garden! In this post, we’ll cover the best flowers for a vegetable garden, why you should plant flowers with vegetables, where to plant them, and how to save their seeds for next year.
Best flowers for your vegetable garden
I used to think planting flowers was frivolous, even wasteful, when every inch of garden space could be used for food.
But I've learned that flowers are incredibly beneficial for vegetable plants!
Don’t underestimate the power of a few blooms among your beans and tomatoes. Flowers aren’t just pretty faces, they’re hard-working garden allies that support pollination, repel pests, and boost biodiversity.
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Why flowers are good for your vegetable garden
Flowers bring a wide range of benefits to the garden beyond their beauty. They can make your vegetable garden healthier, more productive, and easier to manage.
One reason flowers belong in your vegetable garden is pest control. Some flowers help repel harmful insects, while others act as trap crops, luring pests away from your vegetables. Nasturtiums, for example, attract aphids and cabbage worms, keeping them away from your broccoli and kale.
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| Monarch butterfly on a zinnia bloom |
The second benefit is pollinator attraction. Bees, butterflies, and other pollinators are crucial for fruiting vegetables like squash, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Flowers like borage and calendula act like neon signs for pollinators, calling them in to do their work.
Third, soil health and biodiversity. Flowers bring in other beneficial insects, improve soil structure with their root systems, and help keep your garden ecosystem balanced.
And of course, there’s the emotional benefit too: flowers just lift your spirits. A garden that feeds your body and your soul? That’s a win in my book!
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Where to Plant Flowers in Your Garden
You don’t need a separate flower bed to include flowers in your garden. You can plant them right in amongst your vegetables. This is called companion planting, placing certain plants together so they help each other grow.
- For example, you can plant marigolds at the ends of your garden rows or around the perimeter.
- Add nasturtiums in among your squash plants, or under your tomato plants.
- Plant borage near cucumbers, tomatoes, or strawberries to attract pollinators and improve growth.
- Add calendula plants between your cabbage and broccoli to deter cabbage loopers and other pests.
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| The right flowers planted in your vegetable garden can help control pests, such as this tomato hornworm. |
You can also dedicate a few corners or borders of your garden to flowering plants. Even just a small patch of flowers can make a big difference in the number of pollinators in your garden.
And if you're growing in containers or raised beds, place pots of flowers in between your vegetable containers. You can even use hanging baskets to add these beneficial flowers without giving up valuable growing space.
That’s what companion planting is all about: growing plants together that help each other thrive. Many flowers can be interplanted right among your vegetables: under the tomatoes, beside the beans, or along the edge of your squash patch.
But when it comes to trap crops, the planting strategy is a little different. Instead of supporting your vegetables directly, trap crops are planted to lure pests away from them, like a decoy.
So the placement of these flowers matters, and instead of planting them mixed among your vegetables, you’ll want to plant trap crops just outside your raised beds or off to the side, or on the end of the raised bed, where they can catch the pests before they ever reach your vegetables.
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| Damage from cabbage worms (cabbage loopers). |
Nasturtiums, for example, are wonderful for this. They attract aphids and cabbage worms, and if you keep them a few feet away from your brassicas (plants in the cabbage family), they’ll draw the pests away like a magnet.
Easy flower care tips
If you're worried about the additional care you might have to give these flowering plants, you'll be glad to know that the flowers most often used in vegetable gardens are low-maintenance and thrive with the same care as your vegetables.
Watering is simple. Just water them when you water your vegetables, making sure you don't overwater.
Snip off the faded, spent blooms to encourage more flowers. This is called deadheading.
Do you need to fertilize your flowers? If your soil is healthy and your vegetables are thriving, your flowers will be just fine. But if they look a little pale or aren’t blooming, you can give them a boost with a little compost or organic fertilizer.
And just like some vegetables, some flowers will self-sow. That means they drop seeds and pop up next year all on their own. Calendula and borage are especially good at this. Once you plant them, you’ll likely have volunteers next season. Volunteer plants aren’t a bad thing ← click that link to read more about them.
Best flowers to grow in a vegetable garden
Here are some of the best flowers to plant alongside your vegetables:
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| Marigolds |
Marigolds are a garden classic. They deter nematodes, aphids, and whiteflies. French marigolds in particular are great for pest control.
They’re also helpful against tomato hornworms, which are the scourge of summer tomato plants. Marigolds are very easy to grow, and can be planted all around your tomato bed to help confuse and deter those big, green caterpillars.
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| A nasturtium flower amid the flat leaves that easily identify this plant. |
Nasturtiums are beautiful, edible flowers, and are an excellent trap crop. They attract aphids and cabbage worms away from your vegetables. Plant them a bit away from your crop, such as at the edges of your beds or in a nearby pot to draw pests away from the main crop.
.jpg "Bees and other pollinators love borage's star-shaped blue flowers.") |
| Borage |
Borage is a pollinator magnet. Bees absolutely love it, and it also brings in predatory insects that help with pest control.
Borage also improves the soil around it and is said to strengthen nearby plants. It grows well with tomatoes, cucumbers, and strawberries. Borage leaves and flowers are also edible and have a mild cucumber flavor.
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| Calendula flowers Photo courtesy of Mary's Heirloom Seeds; used with permission. |
Calendula - which is sometimes called “pot marigold” - is a great companion for brassicas like cabbage and kale. The petals are edible and also have medicinal properties.
Their daisy-like flowers attract pollinators and beneficial insects like ladybugs and lacewings, which help keep aphids in check. It also draws in parasitic wasps that prey on tomato hornworms.
Calendula reseeds easily, too, so once you plant it, it tends to come back year after year.
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| Sunflowers on the edge of the vegetable garden. |
Sunflowers make you smile, but they also attract beneficial insects and birds, can act as living trellises for vining crops like cucumbers or pole beans, and their seeds can be harvested and eaten, added to your birdfeeder, or saved to plant the next year.
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| A monarch butterfly on a zinnia blossom. Flowers attract beneficial pollinators. |
Zinnias, alyssum, cosmos, chamomile, and dill are all good companion plants; they all bring in pollinators or other beneficial insects.
Flowers to avoid planting near certain vegetables
While most flowers get along nicely with vegetables, there are a few combinations to avoid:
Sunflowers release a chemical that can inhibit the growth of nearby plants, especially beans and potatoes. Plant them at the edge of the garden where they won’t affect your plants.
Nasturtiums, while a wonderful trap crop, can sometimes attract too many aphids if planted too close to your most susceptible vegetables such as artichokes, cabbage family crops, peas, lettuce, melons, beans, and potatoes. It's best to plant nasturtiums further away from these vegetables.
How to save flower seeds for next year
If you need another reason to add flowers to your vegetable garden, here it is: Many of these easy-to-grow plants will happily come back year after year.
Once you’ve bought a packet of flower seeds and planted them, you may never have to buy them again.
Saving flower seeds is simple. Just let the blooms dry naturally on the plant. In other words, don’t deadhead the old flowers. When the flowers have turned brown and papery, cut them off the stems and lay them somewhere dry, out of direct sun, to continue drying out.
Once they’re fully dry, gently crumble or pull apart the flower heads to release the seeds. Place seeds in envelopes or small jars and store them in a cool, dry place.
Where to buy flower seeds for your vegetable garden
Of course, you'll need seeds to begin growing these beneficial flowers in your vegetable garden. I highly recommend Mary's Heirloom Seeds. Mary's seeds are sourced from small family farms, are open-pollinated, and Mary has signed the Safe Seed Pledge.
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| A bumblebee on comfrey flowers |
Final Thoughts: Planting flowers with vegetables is a great idea!
Planting flowers in your vegetable garden isn’t just about looks - it’s a smart, multi-purpose strategy that can boost your garden’s health and productivity in so many ways.
Flowers can naturally repel pests, while others attract helpful predators like ladybugs and parasitic wasps that help keep your plants safe. They also bring in pollinators, which means better yields and healthier vegetables.
You can improve the health of your soil and support beneficial microbes by planting flowers. Many even reseed themselves, saving you work next season.
By supporting biodiversity and creating a more balanced garden ecosystem, flowers contribute to a thriving and productive garden. And let’s not overlook the simple beauty they bring. A few well-placed blooms can lift your spirits every time you step outside.
You'd be surprised at how just a few flowers in your vegetable garden can make a real difference, in your harvest and in your day!
So go ahead: plant some flowers with your vegetables. Your garden (and your harvest) will thank you.
