Best Companion Planting Flowers for the Vegetable Garden

hey guys it's flower Friday and this is a bit of a different one today we're going to be talking about flowers that make good companions for your vegetables now I've got my book here in the garden with me let me know in the comments if you have my book and what you think of it you guys did such a great job last year when the book came out in March sending it immediately to Amazon's number one bestseller list and it's actually still I think at number five I'm not mistaken in vegetable gardening and that's due to you guys so the book is companion planting for beginners and there's a lot of ideas in there in terms of specific plants to pair with certain vegetables certain vegetables to pair with other vegetables flowers things like that lots of detail so we're not going to get into that much detail on this video I will put a link to the the book down in the video description so I'm going to go through and talk about certain flowers that I love that I have planted here in the garden and right now it we it's May so we're kind of and it's 2023 so we've had a it's still cool so all of my cool season uh flowers are still blooming and the warm season ones either haven't been started yet or it's just barely coming up so we'll go through the cool season flowers first since I can kind of show you what they look like right now and what I've got them growing near and then I'll give you a list of things to have your eye out for seeds or transplants from the garden center that'll take you through the summer and since we're sitting here in front of the nasturtiums we'll start there nasturtiums are not only beautiful for the garden but they're a great trap crop for aphids ape aphids will go and get on your nasturtiums rather than other plants that you want to harvest a big one for me at this time of year or a little bit before cool season would be brass how many of you show of hands or leave it in the comments have your brassicas which are cabbages and broccoli and cauliflower they're always getting aphids right so if you plant nasturtiums about 10 feet away it could draw those aphids over onto your nasturtiums rather than some of your brassicas right here behind me we've got two great ones number one is sweet Alyssa and sweet alyssum uh it is actually scientifically proven they did a study and it actually deters aphids when it's planted next to lettuce so it's a great companion plant for lettuce but sweet alyssum also attracts hoverflies now hoverflies are those little they kind of look like miniature bees but they're flies and they hover and they eat a lot of sucking insects so any insect that's going to suck the juices out of your plant they're going to find and kill and eat not necessarily the adults but their larva are voracious predators of all the small sucking pests in your garden now I've got chives here flowering and the flowers of chives aren't necessarily uh what the companion planting is for they're just a happy by-product but chives are a great thing to plant around things like carrots if you have carrot fly the carrot fly can find your carrots by smell and planting something smellier than carrots like chives or any other allium around your carrots are going to protect them from carrot fly now there are broad types of flowers that bring in beneficial insects to the Garden the first kind are humble flowers and that is flowers that are shaped like an umbrella really they're a bunch of flowers shaped like an umbrella hundreds of flowers in one umbrella shape Dill is one of those fennel is another one parsley is another one if you have some extra carrots that you can let go to flower those are humble flowers as well humble flowers attract parasitic wasps ladybugs hoverflies all great beneficial bugs for your garden now those are annuals but yarrow is something you can plant or aquilia same plant they are great humble flowers that will come back every single year and they'll Bloom for a really long period of time the next type of flower is a daisy type flower now there's tons of Daisy type flowers everything from colangelas to Shasta daisies to zinnias Cosmos even sunflowers and all of these have this outer ring of petals but in the middle are tons and tons of tiny little almost like flowers and those are going to attract not only the beneficial insects but pollinators like bees and butterflies as well because all of those little flowers in the center are all nectar points all of these type of flowers attract lacewings big-eyed bugs and parasitic wasps now that sounds super scary but they're super tiny they don't hurt you but what they do is they can actually pierce the skin of a pre of a pest and we're talking about like stealthy like Leaf miners that you can't even get to because they're between the leaf layers they can Pierce that bug that's the leaf Miner through the leaf and suck out its insides killing it so always make sure to have plenty of Daisy type flowers open Center dahlias that's another good one all right let me talk a little bit about some perennials and then we'll talk about the warm season flowers Lavender is one of my favorite plants but it also happens to be a favorite of lots of beneficial insects and pollinators they provide cover for big-eyed bugs assassin bugs ground beetles and of course the flowers attract hummingbirds and bees and butterflies it's just an all-around great plant to have plus it either blooms almost all the time in an environment like ours or it comes back every year time is another perennial Mediterranean herb that will handle all the same bugs as lavender the beneficials that are attracted to thyme will take care of caterpillars aphids mites and white flies it's a really great plant to have growing near your strawberries because they're both perennial and they're both low growing all right let's talk for a minute about the warm season flower now as soon as someone hears about a companion planting they think marigolds right and it's a great plant but not quite as great as most people will have you believe marigolds are said to be the be-all end-all of companion planting and really there's not a lot of claims for that at least scientifically however if you have root not nematodes they are very beneficial but not as a companion plant they are beneficial as a cover crop so you plant very thickly marigolds all over the area that you have root not nematodes and then you till all of those marigolds into the soil and leave it it's kind of like a biofumigate and then a couple weeks later you'll plant your crops right into that now there are a couple good uses for marigolds as well as companion plants they do attract hoverflies and the smell again is used to confuse pests so they could be planted in the place of chives for instance to keep the carrot fly confused and not be able to find your carrots another warm season annual that uses scent as a means of companion planting or in companion planting is is basil now the flowers on basil attract bees like there's there's nothing else I haven't found that really attracts bees like basil flowers and so I will grow purple basil and allow it to go to flower you don't want to do that with your green basil for cooking because as soon as it goes to flour the leaves turn bitter so I grow purple basil just for the bees but I always I did a whole video on this last year I always plant a row of Green Basil in front or next to my tomatoes not because it makes the tomatoes taste better as some people will say it does not there's no scientific evidence for that at all and really no means of that happening however the smell of the basil keeps away The Moth that lays the eggs that become the dreaded tomato hornworm I've been growing basil next to my tomatoes for about five years never once have I had a tomato hornworm last year I had an entire row of Basil up here in front of my tomatoes and I did not get a tomato hornworm at least there over on the other side of the property I had filmed something for school of traditional skills we built a raised bed there and planted tomatoes didn't even think about planting basil with them and guess what they were covered in tomato hornworms never over here all last year even when those were over there covered these had none so plant basil with your Tomatoes not only do they smell great together they're going to keep those hornworms away zinnias are another flower that attract parasitic wasps and parasitic wasps will use that little beak thing to puncture the skin of leaf miners white flies aphids all those little sucking insects that we all hate and just suck their insides right out killing them right so plant lots of zinnias Cosmos as well same thing now some climates don't get hot enough for zinnias you can grow Cosmos or if you can grow them both definitely grow them both they're both beautiful they last so long Cosmos I think are probably the longest lasting flower in my garden so this has been a bit of a different type of flower Friday maybe one that more of you are interested in than growing dahlias and roses and all of those but we'll be back with those next week if you learned something please give the video a thumbs up share it with a friend subscribe if you haven't already and I'll see you next time

Channel: Next Level Gardening

Views: 46,312

Keywords: best companion planting flowers for the vegetable garden, best companion plants for vegetables, companion planting in the garden, companion flowers for vegetable garden, best companion planting flowers for teh vegetable garden, best companion planting, best companion planting combinations, best companion planting for tomatoes, best companion planting guide, best companion planting vegetables, companion planting for beginners, book, brian lowell, next level gardening

Id: OAxv9Mhq48w

Length: 10min 38sec (638 seconds)

Published: Fri May 19 2023