Top five annual flowers for the kitchen garden- #2, Cleome

Cleome, also known as 'spider plant', latin name Cleome hassleriana, is an old friend from my first days as a gardener. I was  a lot less attentive to my garden's needs then, and even when I neglected to water or fertilize my Cleome they still thrived and flowered, and produced lots of seeds to save for the next season. Their stately heads of pink, purple and white flowers  still rise above my current garden and provide great nectar targets for hummingbirds and hummingbird moths.
I have not bought Cleome seeds in about 30 years. When the seedling come up too thick I thin them, (the compound foliage makes even small seedlings easy to identify) and they tolerate transplanting on cool moist days. I sometimes select for just one color, but often let them grow mixed.
Because of their spiny stems Cleome are rarely eaten by rabbits, deer or woodchucks, so they can liven up the unfenced parts of the kitchen garden. They also make fine cut flowers when collected early in the day-- rememnber to wear gloves or the spiny stems will hurt you!
They also produce flowering side shoots if the main flower head is removed. The seeds can be dried and stored in the fridge, but I generally just grab a few plants after the first frost and shake the seed heads over any bare patch where I want them to grow the following year.
Here's a pic of late season Cleome flowering behind Sol's doghouse:

September 3rd tour of my Bay State Kitchen Garden

Well, the best laid plans... I will get back to my picks for top annual flowers soon, but first here is a September tour video:

Top five annual flowers in my kitchen garden- #1, Bachelor Button

As I sit in my study writing I can hear the welcome sound of rain falling in the night, as well as a chorus of crickets and the Labor Day fireworks at the racetrack nearby.

Summer is coming to an all too fast end, but for many of the annual flowers I grow in my kitchen garden it is peak bloom time. Over the next few nights I'm going to post about my top five kitchen garden annuals.

Here's my criteria to make the list: they must grow easily from seed sown directly into the garden, they must require little maintenance, they must bloom freely over a long time, and they must add both color and texture to the garden.  Other criteria can vary—some of my favorites are edible, some feed birds and butterflies, and some make good cut flowers,  while others are tricky to keep happy in a vase.

Why grow flowers in a vegetable garden at all? Well, the tradition of kitchen gardens is that they are places of beauty and comfort as well as food. Growing flowers among the vegetables also provides food for insects and birds that eat insect pests. And mixing the flowers and food crops makes it hard for those insect pests to find and eat the crops.

I'm going to write about the top five in roughly the order they bloom in my garden. Bachelor Buttons often winter over in sheltered spots, and they grow quickly to flower when sown before the last frost. By late June I have masses of flowers in colors from blue to red, sometimes edged in contrasting tones.  The foliage is a pleasant soft gray-green, and the upright form contrasts nicely with my early greens and peas on their trellis. They are also edible, bloom a long time in big clusters, and can re bloom if the flower heads are cut off  with hedge trimmers. 

Here's a shot of a clump from a small packet of seeds I bought for 20 cents: