It was warm outside yesterday. Almost 60 Fahrenheit and it makes me itch to get into the garden. When my girls were very small I turned my attention almost solely to vegetable gardening and left the flowers to a few leftover and neglected places on my property. Not that I don’t like flowers, but knowing how to care for them and when to plant and pinch them back has never been my strong point. The productive nature of vegetable and fruit plants led me to value them more and learn the ins and outs of seed starting, water conservation, composting and even winter sowing.
Just yesterday afternoon I was given the chance to preview a new book by Lisa Ziegler. She is a cut flower farmer in Virginia who has learned how to truly grow her vegetables and flowers naturally and organically. I was surprised at the level of detail included in which varieties of flowers go best with which vegetables, when to start both, how and where to prepare the garden beds, how to put them to rest in the winter and get them ready for planting in the springtime. She even offers “recipes” of flowers to be grown together for pest control and beauty – in the garden and in cut arrangements. Really, reading this book has given me a new found appreciation for flowers in a productive garden. Not only do I now see them a pretty plants, but also as deterrents of pests and attractants of beneficial insects.
The photography in the book is spectacular. The colors pop off the pages and the staging of the cut flowers and even of our farmer-author makes you want to reach in and lend a hand. The layout of her gardens are simple and straightforward and gave me hope that I could one day also bring a bounty of fruits, vegetables and flowers from my own garden to local farmers markets. Somehow perusing this book has helped me take a step forward in overcoming the feeling of being overwhelmed by the work my garden brings. It’s helped me realize the joy, wonder and beauty of nature I’ve been missing these last few years. – Lucero
VEGETABLES LOVE FLOWERS: Companion Planting for Beauty and Bounty
Fight garden pests and increase your yields the natural way with this tried and true technique!
Planting vegetables and flowers together is one of the oldest ways to create a healthy, bountiful garden, but there’s more to the method than you might think. Vegetables Love Flowers: Companion Planting for Beauty and Bounty (Cool Springs Press, $21.99, on-sale March 27, 2018) will walk you through the ins and outs of companion planting, from how it works to which plants go together and how to grow the best garden for your climate.
Centuries ago, before chemical fertilizers and engineered inputs, the most productive vegetable gardens shared one common attribute: the vegetables were paired up. Not with other vegetables but with beds of beautiful flowers. Even then, gardeners knew that vegetables love flowers. Or, to more precise, vegetables love pollinators, and pollinators love flowers. Drawn by colorful, fragrant blossoms, they visit in swarms, performing their good work – and the vegetables thrive.
Companion planting with vegetables and flowers is not as simple as it sounds. But with the right information and some careful planning – following the timetables, tips and planting schedules outlined inVegetables Love Flowers – you can help your plants thrive–and beautify your garden in the process. Author Lisa Mason Ziegler will show you how to keep the flowers blooming and the pollinators buzzing. Your vegetables will produce more fruit than ever and, as an added bonus, you will enjoy lovely cut flowers all season long. Who doesn’t love a happy ending?
Lisa Ziegler is an author, accomplished speaker, and the owner of the Gardener’s Workshop, a thriving small market farm. She began her career selling cut flowers to local florists and Colonial Williamsburg, a business that soon grew to include florists, supermarkets, farmer’s markets, a garden-share program, and a subscription service and later expanded into selling the tools, supplies, and seeds that she used in her own garden. At the same time, Lisa has steadily built a speaking career leading presentations and workshops for garden clubs, master gardeners, commercial growers, and other groups centering on her simplified organic gardening methods.
VEGETABLES LOVE FLOWERS: Companion Planting for Beauty and Bounty
On-Sale Date: March 27, 2018
$21.99 US · $28.99 CAN · 176 pages · Paperback ∙ ISBN: 9780760357583
Cool Springs Press, an imprint of Quarto Publishing Group