I have combined veggies & flowers for years. For tomatoes & cukes, I just plunk in individual plants where they will get enough sun & room. Planting them as singles creates interest without overpowering the flowers with veg. Chard - last year I grew a colourful variety from McConnell so it would blend with the flowers. You haven't mentioned them, but carrot fronds are really interesting additions to flower beds.

Thanks for the Carrot idea - I hadn't thought of that but it would look very "fernlike". I had thought of trying to have tomatoes in balcony type containers of the fence - there were a few varieties that said that they would trail and that would free up my limited ground space. The chard would look nice with the roses epecially
bright lights or something like that. Thanks again

Fern

I don't have an "official" space alocated to just vegetables but do find room here and there. Usually for leafy plants like carrots, beets, swiss chard, I'll just start a few seeds in a circle so there's a small circle of it instead of a standard row.

Last year I took a mid-sized flower pot and planted carrots in potting mix. They were a decent size and lots of yield for the pot size. Near the end they were quite rootbound and dried out alot, though.

Glen

Speaking of carrots - the carrots I didn't get pulled last year have started to grow again which seems a little strange to me!! Has this happened to anyone else and will they continue to grow and be OK to eat?
Penny

Penny, carrots are biennial, so the second year they will flower and go to seed. I don't think the carrot root would be any good to eat this year as it would be really woody.

They won't taste good, but they will be good to collect seed from.

I always grow most of my salad stuff and fresh herbs in the flower bed right beside my house - I use a lot more when it's handy. I always think leaf lettuce looks nice with marigolds - my sister used to grow them together in half-barrels when room was tight. Parsley is a nice foliage plant, and dill has neat flower and seed heads. I grow head and leaf lettuce, spinach, chives, winter onions, parsely, sage, oregano, basil, dill, peppercress, and sorrel in with my flowers. Chives and basil are also quite ornamental. (It's a big flowerbed - about 20' X 40')
Connie

I have various herbs throughout some of my flowerbeds. Last year I had a volunteer tomato in one of my beds. I grow and roast sunflowers all over. I also have edible rhubarb and chamomile in my front flower bed. I have dill growing in a tall flower bed by some steps and it looks nice with the blackeye susan. I use more ornamental stuff along fences, such as scarlet runner beans and different peas. I think cucumber look nice along a fence or the back of a bed.

My herbs, peas, tomatoes, ornamental cabbage and kale, kohlrabi, marigolds, cosmos, lettuce, swiss chard, carrots, and radishes will be sharing an 8x8 bed this year. I'm excited to see how it turns out. I love the book Great Garden Companions by Sally Jean Cunningham. She makes an art out of combining flowers and vegetables for beneficial plantings.

This is an interesting topic! I've been planting my tomatoes in my flowerbeds for a few years now because that was the only sunniest spot to grow them. I put sweet basil and purple basil with them last year and that worked very well. I've got chives and sage in my flower beds as well. Last summer my daughter planted the ends of green onions in the flowerbeds as an experiment and that worked great! I've also put my sprouted garlic in the flowerbeds next to other plants -- apparently that helps keep various pests away too which I guess worked because that flowerbed was pretty much bug-free! Gotta love those natural repellants!

Ang