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Post by daylilydude on Feb 21, 2018 5:05:39 GMT -5
Is this something that you do, and which vegetables do you use?
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Post by octave1 on Feb 21, 2018 9:08:06 GMT -5
I plant flowers in the vegetable bed. Does it count?
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Post by guruofgardens on Feb 21, 2018 9:36:21 GMT -5
Hey octave! I also have flowers in the vegetable area! I have so many irises that they now surround one of the areas where I’ll plant non-tomatoes this year. There is one right in the middle of the area that will have to be removed is it’s getting way too big.
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Post by hairymooseknuckles on Feb 21, 2018 10:00:39 GMT -5
A few Marigolds in with the tomatoes.
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Post by spike on Feb 21, 2018 10:00:50 GMT -5
I had a flower bed along the fence that was just sad. So I plant a couple sunflowers, broccoli and brussel sprouts there now. Then in my garden I also plant sunflowers and zennias to bring in pollinators and it looks pretty!
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Post by brownrexx on Feb 21, 2018 10:00:53 GMT -5
Last year I planted okra in my flower bed because I had heard that the flowers were really pretty but then I found out that they only lasted one day so this year Okra will be in the vegetable garden where it gets more sun.
I also plant flowers in my vegetable garden. I spend lots of time there so I like to see some pretty flowers while I am working. I also plant a few annual flowers in the fenced area of the veggie garden that I can not grow in the flower beds because the bunnies eat them to the ground.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Feb 21, 2018 10:31:03 GMT -5
I grew Roselle last year in my front flower beds. Lovely plant, but prone to flopping over - probably because most of the sun came from one side, so they were reaching for more - Roselle LOVES sun. They also got HUGE and shaded out quite a few of my flowers. If I grow Roselle again, it will be out in the middle of the lawn where it can flop and sprawl and get as big as it wants.
I've put some of the prettier greens there (lettuces, kale, chard) in my front flower beds a couple of times. I toyed with the idea of growing okra there, but decided not to, because I didn't want to wade through and possibly damage the foreground flowers when I picked okra every day or two.
I have also grown passion flower vines on trellises at the back of the front flower beds, too. But between the house and the trees, they really only got about half sun, so they bloomed sporadically and I never saw a fruit. However, it's also likely that the passionfruit plants I grew were from one of the sterile cultivars bred for bloom only. I would like to grow a good fruiting passionfruit cultivar sometime, but this time on a trellis or arch situated in full sun.
Technically I still have edibles out there: daylilies blooms are edible, and so are the roots of cannas. But from what I understand canna roots are only eaten by very hungry people.
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Post by ladymarmalade on Feb 21, 2018 10:55:37 GMT -5
I plant flowers in the vegetable bed. Does it count? This is me, also! Last year I put Cosmos in my community garden. I've turned the flower bed in the back into my herb garden- some of those end up flowering. I have a few bulbs scattered around my yard, but no devoted "flower bed".
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Feb 21, 2018 11:11:42 GMT -5
Oh, silly me. I forgot that I have some turmeric in the front flower bed also.
I planted it late last season (July, I think), so I doubt any is harvest-size. I need to go space it out, because I planted too many little roots all crammed close together. I didn't know whether any would come up since it came from refrigerated grocery store roots, but many of them did. The foliage didn't get as big as I expected, but that could be due to the crowding, the late planting date, or both. Interestingly, when I was clearing out in that bed the other day and moved some of the dried foliage it was surprisingly fragrant even though it was dead and dry from the January freezes.
I also am about to plant some sections of ginger root. Hopefully at least some of them will come up. I am going to be optimistic and plant them at their final spacing. The ginger may or may not get big enough to harvest this coming fall and winter, but by the end of the 2019 growing season, with any luck it will be huge...ginger is supposed to be super-easy to grow here, but this will be my first time growing it.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Feb 21, 2018 12:58:21 GMT -5
All that I plant in my flower beds is veggies and herbs! lol The one across the front gets peppers and lemongrass in it. The first year I put the lemongrass in the front, Mom came by after they had gotten fairly large, probably in August, and said "Oh, when did you start growing ornamental grassses?" It took me a few seconds to realize what she meant, and I said "Oh, that's lemongrass. You know I don't grow anything that I can't eat!" Many peppers become very ornamental, once they start ripening, and I stagger purple varieties across the front, when I have them. And last year I put an SIP with the lavender Thai eggplant, which was ornamental, but not that great to eat, so I won't be growning that again. I'll stick an SIP of okra there, from now on. The bed on the other side, goes just a few feet to the left of the steps, then down the side of the porch. This is where I grow my mint, since, being surrounded by concrete, it can't spread to everywhere else. Around the back of the bed I grow other herbs, epazote, mostly, but mint is the one that comes back every year. I'm jealous Laura_in_FL! Too cold here for ginger or turmeric. I do have some Japanese variety of ginger that is cold resistant (a lady a little further north gave me some), and it's used for the shoots. And it comes up every year.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Feb 21, 2018 18:06:38 GMT -5
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Post by mgulfcoastguy on Feb 21, 2018 18:26:34 GMT -5
I’v Put eggplants and peppers in flower beds and sunflowers in gardens.
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Post by september on Feb 22, 2018 0:57:04 GMT -5
I've grown some ornamental peppers in the flower beds, and occasionally a volunteer tomato that mysteriously travels 100 ft from possible sources to sprout in with the flowers, but normally it's the other way around, with flowers bordering and within the vegetable raised beds. Now that I think about it, I have seed from the tomato microdwarf project, so I suppose I could put a row of micros as a border to one edge of the flower beds. Or alternate canary yellow marigolds with micro tom plants on the border of my deck flower bed. Oh wait ... the deer would eat them without netting protection, so scratch that idea.
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Post by hairymooseknuckles on Feb 22, 2018 2:10:35 GMT -5
september, Good for you for helping with the "Micro" project. I bet that is both fun and interesting.
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Post by horsea on Feb 22, 2018 15:52:45 GMT -5
Hey octave! I also have flowers in the vegetable area! I have so many irises that they now surround one of the areas where I’ll plant non-tomatoes this year. There is one right in the middle of the area that will have to be removed is it’s getting way too big. Hey, I know what you mean. I planted one teeny tiny baby wild (native) iris years ago and it spreads like crazy. The good part is that it is so beautiful. Even has a fragrance.
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Post by ahntjudy on Feb 22, 2018 17:49:09 GMT -5
september mentioned ornamental peppers...there are a lot of really attractive ones... Years ago, my Uncle had plants of ornamental peppers he grew out front...I believe he said the seeds were from Trinidad/Tobago...They were really pretty...in the shape of upright small C7 Christmas lights...colors went from green to yellow to orange to red to purple...all on the plant at the same time... Sure do wish I was into seed saving way back then...
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Post by september on Feb 23, 2018 0:34:49 GMT -5
september , Good for you for helping with the "Micro" project. I bet that is both fun and interesting. I really enjoyed it the first summer and grew lots of nice little plants! I had hoped that I could grow them inside during the winter in my south bay window. But that didn't work out too well because of tall stringy growth and mildew problems later in the winter. Too many cloudy days here and short daylight hours, and too chilly by the windows at night. I'm sure I would have had better luck if I had just grown them under lights in another part of the house, but I'm not interested in using artificial lights until seed starting time at the end of March.
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