A productive vegetable garden needs more than good soil, sunlight, and regular watering. Pollinators play a big part, too. Bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and other insects help move pollen from flower to flower, which allows many plants to produce fruit and seeds.
Adding flowering vegetables to your garden can give pollinators another source of food while helping with pollination at the same time. Some vegetables are especially attractive once they begin flowering.
These plants can help improve pollination in your garden while giving bees and other helpful insects more places to find nectar and pollen.
Tomatoes
Tomatoes are a staple in many vegetable gardens, and their yellow flowers can attract bees and other pollinating insects.
Tomato flowers contain both male and female reproductive parts, so tomatoes can pollinate themselves. Bumblebees can still be helpful because their buzzing can shake pollen loose inside the flower, a process known as buzz pollination.
If you grow several tomato plants, you’ll have plenty of flowers for visiting bees throughout the growing season.
Squash
Squash plants are a great addition to a pollinator-friendly garden. They produce separate male and female flowers, and bees have to move pollen from the male flowers to the female flowers for fruit to develop.
The large yellow blossoms are hard for pollinators to miss. Squash bees, bumblebees, and honeybees may all visit them.
Growing different types of squash can also give pollinators plenty of flowers during the warm growing season. You can find more plants with a reputation for standing up to hungry garden visitors in this guide to 14 rabbit-resistant plants for your flower garden.
Peas
Pea plants produce small flowers that can attract bees and other insects. Most garden peas are self-pollinating, so they don’t depend on insects to produce a crop, but visiting bees can still move pollen around the flowers.
Once the plants begin flowering, they can add another source of food for pollinators in the garden.
If you’re interested in bringing more helpful insects into your growing space, check out these 12 beneficial insects you want in your garden.
Cucumbers
Cucumber plants produce separate male and female flowers, which means pollinators play an important role in fruit production.
Bumblebees, honeybees, and squash bees are among the insects that visit cucumber flowers. They carry pollen from male flowers to female flowers as they move around the plant.
Poor pollination can lead to small, misshapen cucumbers or flowers that drop without producing fruit. If you see plenty of bees visiting your cucumber plants, that’s a good sign.
Pumpkins
Pumpkins are another crop that depends heavily on pollinators. Like squash and cucumbers, pumpkin plants produce separate male and female flowers.
Their large yellow-orange blossoms are easy for bees to spot. A USDA report highlights the importance of bees, including native bees and honeybees, to pumpkin pollination.
If your pumpkin plants are producing lots of flowers but very few pumpkins, a lack of pollinator activity could be part of the problem.
Peppers
Pepper plants produce small flowers that attract some pollinating insects, though peppers can generally pollinate themselves.
Bumblebees and other insects may still visit the flowers and move pollen around. Pepper plants also add a useful mix of color and texture to the vegetable garden.
If you enjoy adding flowers around your vegetable beds, here are 19 of the most beautiful perennial flowers to plant in your garden.
Eggplant
Eggplant flowers have a distinctive purple color and can attract bees, especially bumblebees. Like tomatoes and peppers, eggplants are generally self-pollinating.
Research published through ScienceDirect.com has looked at eggplant pollination and the role of insects in improving pollen movement.
You only need one eggplant plant to produce fruit, but having several plants can give visiting pollinators more flowers to work with.
Melons
Melons rely heavily on bees for pollination. Their flowers are relatively small compared with pumpkin and squash blossoms, but bees are drawn to the nectar.
Melon plants produce male and female flowers, so pollen needs to move between them before fruit can develop.
If you grow several melon plants, you’ll have more flowers available for bees during the growing season. Just give the vines plenty of room because they can spread quickly.
Broccoli
Broccoli may seem like an unusual vegetable to include on a pollinator list because most people harvest it before the flowers open. If you leave a broccoli plant in the garden long enough, though, it will eventually produce clusters of small yellow flowers.
Those flowers can provide food for bees and other insects, making broccoli useful for a fall or late-season garden. Once many other vegetable plants have stopped flowering, bolting broccoli can give pollinators another source of nectar and pollen.
You can let a few plants flower while harvesting the rest for food.
Onions
Onions become especially useful to pollinators if you let them flower. Instead of harvesting the bulb, allow the plant to send up a tall flower stalk.
The rounded flower head is made up of many small white, pink, or purple flowers. Research documented through ResearchGate lists several insect visitors to onion flowers, including bees and other pollinating insects.
If you’re growing onions for food, you can let a few plants flower and set seed while harvesting the rest for their bulbs.
Beets
Beets can also feed pollinators if you allow the plants to flower instead of harvesting them at the usual stage.
The plants send up tall flower stalks covered with many small flowers. Bees and hoverflies can visit these blooms, making flowering beet plants useful in a garden where you’re trying to provide more food for insects.
You can let a few older beet plants flower while continuing to harvest younger roots from the rest of the bed.
Beans
Bean plants produce flowers that attract bees and other insects. Depending on the variety, the flowers may be white, pink, purple, or another soft shade.
Most common garden beans are self-pollinating, so they don’t need a second plant or an insect visit to produce beans. Still, bees may visit the flowers and can contribute to pollen movement.
If you’re growing beans, leave some flowers undisturbed and avoid spraying insecticides while bees are actively visiting them.
Carrots
Carrots are usually harvested for their roots before most gardeners ever see the flowers. Leave a carrot plant in the ground long enough, though, and it will send up tall flower stalks topped with clusters of tiny white flowers.
The flowers form an umbrella-like shape called an umbel. They aren’t as large or colorful as squash or pumpkin flowers, but they can attract bees, hoverflies, beetles, and other small insects.
Allowing a few carrots to flower can also give you the chance to collect seeds for future plantings, depending on the variety.
Radishes
Radishes are another crop that can contribute to a pollinator-friendly garden if you let some plants go to flower.
Once the edible root has matured, the plant can send up flower stalks covered with small white, pink, or purple blooms. Bees and other insects can visit these flowers for nectar and pollen.
If you want a longer flowering period, stagger your plantings so different groups of radishes reach the flowering stage at different times.
Zucchini
Zucchini is one of the better-known vegetables for attracting bees. Its large yellow-orange flowers are easy for pollinators to find, and bees regularly visit them while searching for nectar and pollen.
Since zucchini produces separate male and female flowers, pollinator visits are especially useful. Pollen has to make its way from the male flowers to the female flowers for zucchini to develop.
If you grow several zucchini plants, you’ll have plenty of blooms during the summer. Just don’t be surprised if the plants produce more zucchini than your household can eat.
Give Pollinators a Reason to Visit
You don’t have to turn your entire backyard into a flower garden to make it more inviting to pollinators. Letting a few vegetable plants flower can provide additional food for bees, butterflies, hoverflies, and other helpful insects.
Try leaving a few radishes, carrots, onions, beets, broccoli, or other crops to flower rather than harvesting every plant. You can also add flowering herbs and native flowers around your vegetable beds for even more variety.
A garden with flowers appearing throughout the season gives pollinators more reasons to stick around, and having more pollinator activity can be especially helpful for crops such as cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, and melons that depend heavily on insect pollination.
