Keep your space pretty and productive
There’s no need to compromise on an attractive display when you grow edible crops. Part of the joy of growing your own food is eating a dish that tastes – and looks – great.
Luckily, the ever-increasing popularity of homegrown food has fuelled plant breeders’ enthusiasm to create eye-catching, attractive varieties in a continually expanding palette of colours. Crimson-flowered broad beans, vividly marked ‘Borlotti’ French bean pods, and ‘Turk’s Turban’ winter squashes are stalwart potager plants, but conventionally unassuming vegetables are also now receiving a makeover. For example, I’ve found that hot-pink ‘Starmaker’ kale teams beautifully with blush-pink ‘Peppermint’ chard and purple ‘Crimson King’ basil.
Adding cut flowers such as sweet peas, sunflowers and zinnias to your plot allows you to reinforce accent colours while attracting useful pollinators and other beneficial insects. Companion-planting French marigold ‘Honeycomb’ alongside my tomatoes last year not only deterred whitefly, it also provided a brilliant splash of brick-red colour right through into November.
Other great companion-planting crops that win on looks as well as results include garlic chives to deter carrot root fly, nasturtiums as a lure for cabbage white butterflies and oregano ‘Herrenhausen’ to attract predatory hoverflies. Edible flowers such as calendula, violas and borage add visual excitement to summer salads and drinks, too.