Vegetables Love Flowers
Author: Lisa Mason Ziegler

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 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. 

With the right information and some careful planning, you can help your plants thrive--and beautify your garden in the process.


I recently won Vegetables Love Flowers. It is full of basic gardening tips and fantastic photography.

Want to get a little fancier with your raised bed?  We are sharing the design for the tiered planter originally built for the Teaching and Display Garden at the Spooner Ag Research Station.  The tier planter box is constructed using 2' x 6' cedar and assembled with deck screws.  

Click here for complete plans. 

Contributed by:  Russ Parker, UW Extension Master Gardener Volunteer

Reprinted with permission from Wisconsin Pollinators

Wisconsin has a diverse native flora that includes wild fruit trees native to the state. Choosing varieties that grow naturally within the state for home gardens and landscapes ensures the trees will grow and flourish. Given the diversity of fruiting trees available, it isn't hard to choose one or several for landscaping, collecting fruit or the beauty of spring blossoms.

Restoring native plant habitat is vital to preserving biodiversity. By creating a native plant garden, each patch of habitat becomes part of a collective effort to nurture and sustain the living landscape for birds and other animals.
Native plants are those that occur naturally in a region in which they evolved. They are the ecological basis upon which life depends, including birds and people. Without them and the insects that co-evolved with them, local birds cannot survive.

Here are seven Wisconsin native fruit tress that not only support native pollinators but also provide edible fruit for you!  Be sure to  "Read More" and click on the tree name to get more details.

Whether they're on your cereal or in jams, jellies and pies, berries are a favorite sweet treat and there are species that are native to our area – providing a sustainable garden that also supports native pollinators.

The wild fruit of Wisconsin offers a variety of fresh and delicious flavors. They can be used alone or combined with other fruit for a unique twist in your favorite jam, sauce or baking recipes. Include these plants in your ‘edible forest’ or general landscape, and have a bounty that you can both enjoy and share with the birds, bees and butterflies that visit your garden.

Edible gardening generally brings to mind beds of lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, melons, and other foods with origins in distant continents. As natives of often vastly different climates and growing conditions, many of these plants require a lot of time and attention to bring to a successful harvest. 

You may find many of the native plants described below already growing. In a rapidly destabilizing world and economy, it’s worth identifying them and protecting them (from the mower or deer that might devour them first, or from invasive plants that might crowd them out). 

Many of the native plants mentioned here are still fairly common in the wild, although increasing development, the spread of exotic invasive plants, and expanding interest in wild foraging is putting real pressure on wild populations. Home cultivation of these native plants for edible usage is a sustainable way for property owners to increase their self-reliance, help maintain existing wild populations of valuable plants and the genetic resilience they hold, as well as support the vast array of wildlife that depend on the presence of native plants for their own survival.
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Links for each berry shrub go to the Wisconsin Pollinators website. 

• Allegheny Blackberry  benefits bees and birds and can grow in full sun to shade.  Thorns can be formidable.  
• Riverbank Grape benefits birds and vines can grow up to 70 feet.  Grows in part to full shade.  The berries are sour until after frost, best for juice.  The leaves are also edible.  
• Wild Strawberry benefits bees, birds and butterflies.  It grows in full to part sun.  The fruit is a sweet snack.  
• Woodland Strawberry benefits bees and butterflies.  It grows from full sun to part shade (up to zone 5).  The fruit is strongly flavored and still collected and grown for domestic use.  
• Low bush blueberry benefits bees and butterflies.  Grows in full to part sun.  The fruit has a sweet pleasant flavor.  
• Velvetleaf Blueberry benefits birds and butterflies.  Grows from full sun to part shade.  More acid than most blueberries with an agreeable piquancy. 
• Highbush Cranberry benefits bees.  Grows in full to part sun.  They can be eaten raw, though not very tasty that way, or cooked.  
• Missouri Gooseberry benefits birds and butterflies.  Grow in full sun to part shade (up to  zone 5).  
• Red Raspberry benefits birds and butterflies.  Grows in full sun to part shade. 
• Black Raspberry benefits bees and birds.  Grows from full sun to part shade.  

Photos and text .. by NCMGV ~ Carla TePaske