Flowers in the Vegetable Garden

It's spring and my vegetable garden is full of flowers. But could this simply be the good gardening principle of companion planting? I'm not sure that those cute little purple violas would scare any nasties away...

One Little Plant

I can't remember when the first of these arrived in the vegetable garden. All it must have taken was one little plant, popped in the garden nearby (I dimly remember ordering a seed packet). I love them, though.

They're a wonderful feature in the early spring weeks, when the garden soil is too cold to plant anything of a vegetable nature. My friend calls them Johnny Jump-Ups.

Gardeners with a casual attitude to self-seeders would be proud of the Calendulas and Forget-Me-Nots in my vegetable garden (though maybe not the Aquilegias). Actually Calendulas are listed in Wikipedia as being helpful to most plants, so I can leave them there and cluck wisely about companion planting if ever a critical visitor glides past.

I love their bright flower colours and their desire to procreate without needing me to fuss about (I mean collect and sow seed). And I can't grow vegetables all the year round, anyway.

All in all, these flowers are much better doers than my vegetables. Oops...