Plan Your Garden(s) This Weekend!
March 30, 2021
Late March is the perfect time to start planning your spring garden, so put on your woolies and start looking at seed catalogues as you survey your surroundings. Planning ahead will pay off as soon as the dirt and weather’s warm enough to start digging!
Veggies for Your Dinner Table
If you’re planning a vegetable garden, you’re going to want a sunny spot in your yard. Morning Chores offers 19 vegetable garden layouts and plans, with ideas to inspire your green thumb aspirations. After you decide your primary goal for your veggie garden – from aesthetics to growing the most produce possible – see which of these options best suits your intentions!
You can go big and bold, or start small and conservative with a layout with lots of variety, but a more controlled (lower maintenance) space. We like the 4×4 foot square plan with greens, peppers, onions, beans, carrots, spinach, radishes and tomatoes.
For a raised garden bed, you can build your own out of corrugated metal and treated lumber (how-to plans at Family Handyman) or buy one from Home Depot (cedar, composite, concrete, pine and plastic) or buy plans from Etsy, in a variety of sizes and heights.
You can also garden in five-gallon bucket planters (inside the garden beds) as the folks at Old World Garden Farms will show you. They created an entire garden using this method, with tomatoes, tomatillos, herbs, peppers, and more.
By the way, the best vegetables to plant in early spring (there are a handful of hardy spears, and leaves that will tolerate cold wet weather, including asparagus, lettuces, peas, rhubarb and spinach. Check out The Spruce for more info.
Flower Gardens – A Feast for the Eyes!
To get a jump start on your floral scenery, Better Homes and Gardens suggests you clean up your flower beds, cut back dried foliage and plan to divide your perennials just before they start spring growth.
Dividing perennials is a low-cost way to fill your garden with mor plants or share them with friends. It’s also a good way to keep your plants healthy since the middle can thin out over time and live bare spots. Dividing clumps of herbs and irises can encourage new growth.
Plan your new additions – cold-hardy annuals and new perennials – to give them time to get settled and grow new roots before the hot summer weather hits. And for some quick color, blend in a few cool-season plants like pansies and/or snapdragons. They can also brighten up containers on the porch.
Home BNC offers 25 spring garden ideas that will make your outdoor spaces more inviting, and Lush Home has picture after picture of inspiration combining flower beds, rock gardens with flowers, and tree perimeter ideas.
In late spring you can start cleaning up flowers that have already bloomed and get to planting in earnest. Plant your summer-blooming bulbs like dahlias and gladiolus when the threat of frost is past – most experts say wait until Mother’s Day. And then sit back and enjoy the flowers of your labors!
Get Your Garden On!
Things are getting green in the master-planned community of Southshore, and soon there’ll be an explosion of color in front of the homes here! If Southshore appeals to you, with new construction from some of Colroado’s top home builders, isn’t it time to explore the options? Check out the brand new homes from Taylor Morrison, Century Communities, Richmond American Homes and Toll Brothers. Life at the Lake looks like this – stunning ranch and two-story designs – priced between the $400s and the $700s.