Flower gardening is one of the most rewarding hobbies I can think of, with vegetable gardening being close behind (for a slightly different reason).
The really good thing about flower and vegetable gardening is that you don’t have to be the most dedicated of gardeners, to be able to make a really cool display of flowers and show off to your friends when they come to dinner by creating a centre piece flower display for your table and then serving vegetables that have been lovingly cultivated by yours truly.
Contrary to what inexperienced gardeners sometimes think, flower gardening is not purely a summer-time reward for all the effort you have put in. In reality if you plan carefully, your garden can actually be filled with an abundance of flowers for most of the year.
In spring it is possible to have a beautiful array of bulbs such as daffodils, tulips, crocus, and iris. This riot of colour, arriving at slightly different times will really make you feel sunny and alive as spring takes shape around you. In order to get the best from any bulb display, they need to be planted by mid-autumn, don’t leave it any later or you risk losing them to the frost before they have had a chance to bed in.
In summer we are used to seeing the widest profusion of flowers in our gardens, and here you can really go to town with the various types of perennials that abound in your nearest garden centre, or nursery and these plants will keep coming back year upon year with just a little care and attention from you.
Even autumn and winter have their share of flowers to give colour to your garden such as Asters and ornamental grasses, Hyacinth, Amaryllis and even the delightful Winter Jasmine or Winter Honeysuckle which will give scent as well as beauty to your flower garden.
If you think of the planting as a necessary chore to attain the beauty of your flower garden, you will soon feel that any time spent making this effort is rewarded ten times over once your flowers start to bloom. Likewise with vegetable gardening, a little hard work and discomfort during the planting stage is more than offset by the satisfaction of eating your own home grown produce. You really can taste the difference!
Vegetable gardening need not be too difficult or even time consuming, if you spend a little time thinking carefully about where and what you will plant. A vegetable plot will need to receive about 6 hours or more of sunlight each day to help your plants to be as fertile and healthy as possible, and to achieve the best growth for your plants, your soil needs to be a rich, sandy loam type of soil. Your vegetable plot may well also require the addition of compost or manure to ensure that your vegetables have enough nutrients. Remember that you will need to place the compost underneath and around your vegetables as well.
The best vegetable gardeners always maintain that the way to grow good vegetables and herbs is by planting in rows that face a north to south direction so that they can take full advantage of the sunlight and that your vegetable garden should be planted on level ground with wide spacing between the rows. This spacing will help not only with the harvesting but also when you need to do any weeding.
When planting, choose new and fresher seeds as the older ones may not take and this can be especially disheartening if you are new to vegetable gardening. Remember that you can also plant transplants so that your vegetables will mature at different stages.
Think carefully about which vegetables you would like to cultivate before you visit the garden centre to purchase your seeds and young plants. This will enable you to take full advantage of the knowledge of the staff there in having them to share their vegetable gardening tips with you.
As a last aside, you may want to try planting some of your vegetables in raised beds as well to help keep the slugs away from your seedlings. Another way to maximize your vegetable crop is to plant different yet complementary plants next to each other. This way you will have lots of different vegetables to harvest for your table. Enjoy!
Water Gardening & Hydroponics Gardening