How to Get Bigger Harvests, Fewer Pests, and a Garden that is Full of Life!

Growing your own food is a rewarding, empowering experience. The joy of harvesting fresh produce from your own garden is unmatched. However, what if we told you that your vegetable garden could be even better? What if you could enjoy bigger harvests, fewer pests, and a more vibrant, lively garden?

The secret lies in this simple addition: flowers.

It might not seem obvious at first, but adding flowers into your vegetable garden can revolutionize how your garden grows. We wish we had stumbled upon this knowledge earlier when we first started growing our own food. Back then, we focused solely on vegetables, thinking that was the most efficient approach. 

But once we introduced flowers into the mix, the transformation was undeniable. The garden became a thriving ecosystem, pests were less of a problem, and most importantly, our harvests improved significantly.

Today, we’ll dive deep into why you should grow flowers alongside your vegetables, the benefits, and practical tips to get started. Let’s explore how flowers can help you create a more abundant and harmonious garden.

The role of flowers in a vegetable garden

Flowers in a vegetable garden go far beyond just adding beauty and colour. They play critical roles in improving the overall health and productivity of your garden. Let’s break it down:

1. Attracting pollinators for better harvests

Pollination is essential for fruit and vegetable production. Crops like tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and peppers rely on pollinators like bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds to transfer pollen from flower to flower, enabling them to produce fruit. If your garden lacks pollinators, your harvests will too.

Flowers are the ultimate pollinator magnets. Bright colours, sweet nectar, and alluring scents draw in these beneficial creatures. By planting flowers among your vegetables, you ensure a steady stream of pollinators visiting your garden. This increased pollinator activity directly translates to better fruit set and higher yields from your crops.

Some of the best flowers for attracting pollinators include:

• Sunflowers
• Zinnias
• Cosmos
• Marigolds
• Lavender

2. Boosting biodiversity

A garden filled with vegetables alone can feel like a monoculture. While vegetables are wonderful, they don’t always create a balanced ecosystem. By introducing flowers, you increase biodiversity, which makes your garden more resilient to pests, diseases, and environmental stressors.

Flowers attract not just pollinators, but also other beneficial insects like ladybugs, lacewings, and parasitic wasps. These insects help control pest populations naturally, reducing the need for chemical pesticides. For example:

• Ladybugs feed on aphids, which can wreak havoc on plants like kale, broccoli, and peppers.
• Parasitic wasps lay their eggs inside pest insects like caterpillars, effectively reducing their numbers.

This natural pest control is one of the biggest benefits of growing flowers alongside your vegetables.

3. Improving soil health

Certain flowers, particularly companion plants, can improve the health and fertility of your soil.

• Leguminous flowers like sweet peas and clover fix nitrogen in the soil, enriching it for neighbouring plants.
• Deep rooted flowers like comfrey and borage draw up nutrients from deep in the soil, making them available to shallower rooted vegetables.

Additionally, flowers with dense foliage or ground covering habits, like nasturtiums, help prevent soil erosion and retain moisture.

4. Repelling pests naturally

Just as some flowers attract beneficial insects, others have properties that repel harmful pests. For example:

• Marigolds release chemicals into the soil that deter nematodes, which attack vegetable roots.
• Calendula can repel aphids, whiteflies, and other common garden pests.
• Chrysanthemums contain pyrethrum, a natural insecticide.

By strategically planting pest repelling flowers near your vegetables, you can create a garden that is less appealing to destructive insects.

5. Providing shade

Tall flowering plants, such as sunflowers or hollyhocks, can act as natural windbreaks, protecting delicate vegetable plants from strong gusts. They can also provide partial shade for crops that prefer cooler conditions, such as lettuce or spinach, during the hot summer months.

Why we wish we had started growing flowers earlier!

When we first started gardening, we had a very practical mindset. We were focused on efficiency and maximizing food production, so we only planted vegetables. For a while, it worked. But over time, we noticed some recurring challenges:

• Our plants were frequently attacked by pests like aphids and cabbage moths.
• Yields from pollinator dependent crops like zucchini and cucumbers were inconsistent and often disappointing.
• The garden lacked vibrancy. It was functional, but it didn’t feel alive.

Everything changed when we decided to experiment with flowers. At first, we added a small patch of marigolds and zinnias near the vegetable beds. The results were almost immediate. Bees and butterflies started visiting the garden in droves, and our vegetables began thriving. Over the next few seasons, we expanded our flower selection and integrated them throughout the garden. The difference was like night and day:

• Pest problems decreased significantly, as beneficial insects started keeping pest populations in check.
• Pollination improved, leading to bigger harvests.
• The garden came alive with colour, movement, and biodiversity. It became a space of joy and inspiration, not just utility.

Looking back, we wish we had stumbled upon this knowledge earlier. The benefits of growing flowers alongside vegetables are too significant to ignore.

How to incorporate flowers into your vegetable garden?

Ready to transform your garden? Here’s how to get started:

1. Pick which flowers you would like to grow

Not all flowers are equally beneficial for a vegetable garden. You can focus on those that attract pollinators, repel pests, or improve soil health. 

Some great options include:

• Pollinator Magnets: Sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, lavender, bee balm
• Pest-Repelling Flowers: Marigolds, nasturtiums, calendula, chrysanthemums
• Soil-Improving Flowers: Clover, comfrey, borage, sweet peas

2. Plant flowers strategically

Consider companion planting, where you pair flowers with vegetables that benefit from their presence. For example:

• Plant marigolds near tomatoes to deter nematodes.
• Grow nasturtiums near cucumbers and squash to repel squash bugs and aphids.
• Add borage near strawberries to improve their flavour and attract pollinators.

You can also create dedicated flower borders around your vegetable beds or scatter flowers throughout the garden. We like to grow flowers in separate pots throughout our garden too.

3. Mix annuals and perennials

Annual flowers, like zinnias and marigolds, bloom quickly and provide immediate benefits. Perennials, like lavender and echinacea, take longer to establish but offer long term rewards. A mix of both ensures year round benefits for your garden.

4. Embrace succession planting

To keep your garden full of blooms, practice succession planting. For example, as spring blooming flowers fade, replace them with summer blooms like zinnias or sunflowers. In late summer, plant fall blooming flowers like asters.

5. Provide habitat for beneficial insects

In addition to flowers, consider adding features like insect, bug or bee hotels, small water sources, or undisturbed areas of your garden to provide shelter for beneficial insects.

The bonus benefit: A more bountiful garden

While the practical benefits of flowers, better pollination, natural pest control, improved soil health, are reason enough to grow them, there’s another equally important benefit: beauty. A garden filled with colourful blooms is a feast for the eyes and the soul. It’s a place where you can unwind, connect with nature, and feel a sense of calm.

If you’re serious about improving your garden harvests, it’s time to embrace the power of flowers. They’re not just pretty faces, they’re hardworking allies that can make your garden more productive, resilient, and vibrant. From attracting pollinators to repelling pests and enriching the soil, flowers bring countless benefits to a vegetable garden.

Looking back on our own gardening journey, we can’t help but wish we had started growing flowers sooner. They’ve transformed our garden into a thriving ecosystem, where vegetables and flowers work together in harmony. The harvests are bigger, the pests are fewer, and the garden is full of life.

So, pick up some flower seeds, start planting, and watch your garden flourish like never before!

Happy gardening 🌸