Flowers in the Vegetable Patch: What I Will Grow Next Year

 I always get pleasure out of flowers and try to put some in my veg garden every year:

African Blue Basil, a bee magnet

 

Zinnias, beloved by butterflies

Black-Eyed Susan Vine (heads up, it's a little "spready").

The main reason I do this is not for the aesthetics, though the combo of larger, colorful flowers and veggies is entrancing.  I try to include flowers to increase the number pf pollinators that visit my garden-good for me, good for them.  If you do any nature reading, you know that pollinators, and all insects, are on the decline. So, plant some flowers to help them.  

 

I want to add a caveat to my selections above: The above plants, though beautiful and useful to pollinators, are not all natives. In fact, only the zinnia is native to the US, but in the southwest, not Virginia. Yet, not all native plants fit within the constraints of a vegetable garden, but certainly do use them in other areas of your yard when you can.  This article makes the case for increasing the use of native plants in pollinator gardens:

https://vnps.org/the-right-kind-of-pollinator-garden/

I have many native plants in other areas of my yard and will write more about them in the spring.