Don’t just grow flowers and vegetables, grow a spring salad or a fragrant bouquet. It’s all possible
if you plant your plot with ingredients that will add up to something more. We’ll give you some tips for coordinating your intentional garden through the season, starting with these three ideas.
Salad garden
Now is the time to plant leafy greens for your summer salads. And a variety of lettuces thrive in Colorado’s climate. One way to ensure you’ve got a salad smorgasbord is to buy mixed lettuce seed packets. But don’t forgot spinach, chard, endive and other salad-bowl stuffers.
Salad greens don’t have extensive root systems, so they need particular care. The CSU extension service recommends amending the top 6 inches of dirt in your lettuce garden with a pound of nitrogen and a pound of phosphate per 1,000 square feet of soil. The phosphate should be applied before planting, and the nitrogen in early July.
CSU Denver Extension Agent Carl Wilson says despite all the winter snow, there still may not be enough moisture for salad seeds, which need to be shallowly planted. Monitor the top quarter-inch of soil and water it frequently, as often as once a day if there’s no rain or snow. Another way to conserve moisture is to cover seedlings with floating row cover, a white, loose-weave fabric that lets sun and moisture in but helps prevent evaporation. “I think of it as a security blanket,” Wilson says.
Floating row cover, which is available in garden stores, also keeps birds away from your salad seedlings. To discourage rabbits, fence your garden. Fencing should be at 18 inches to 2 feet high, and buried a couple inches into the soil to repel leaping or digging bunnies, Wilson says. Herbes de Provence
Cooks love this bouquet of herbs that can be used in everything from marinara to lamb chops. Traditionally grown in the south of France, where they thrive in the blazing sun and poor but well-drained soil, Herbes de Provence can also grow in Rocky Mountain gardens with very little care, making them perfect for the beginning or casual gardener. They also grow well in containers, inside or outside.
There’s much debate as to which herbs actually make up an Herbes de Provence mixture. Traditionally, it includes marjoram, thyme, rosemary, bay leaves and basil. But it can also contain fennel, sage and summer savory. All of these herbs can be grown from seed – check the package for planting times – or you can buy seedlings in local garden stores.
According to the CSU extension service, you don’t need to amend your soil much to plant these Francophile herbs – an inch of compost dug in 6 inches deep should do it. And although they need supplemental watering, Herbes de Provence are relatively drought-tolerant. Just make sure you plant them in a spot where they’ll get at least a half-day of full sun.
Grow your own bouquet
Timberland Gardens’ owner Kelly Grummons, who has a
degree in cut flower production,
recommends the
following perennials for beautiful bouquets. And remember, you can augment them with annuals such as petunias, snapdragons, dahlias and geraniums.
Peonies: Spectacular blooms can stand alone.
Shasta daisies: Look for the Becky variety, which Grummons calls “huge, pristine and white.”
Larkspur, delphiniums and monkshood: Tall, spiky blue flowers that last a week or more in a bouquet.
Peruvian lilies (alstroemeria): Inch-wide flowers clustered four or five to a stem. Can last two weeks after being cut. Sweet Laura, introduced this spring, is yellow with orange splashes.
Roses: Try the Deep Secret variety, which can last a week and has a pretty fragrance.
Lemon Yellow Maximilian’s Sunflower: New this year from High Country Gardens, this is Grummons’ favorite cut flower. It has pale lemon yellow tiny flowers all the way up the stalk – up to 15 flowers per foot – and it lasts at least a week.
Snow daisy: Grows like a bush, with each stem branched out into 30 to 40 tiny white daisies. “It’s an ideal bouquet builder, and it lasts three weeks,” Grummons says. And don’t forget the traditional spring flowers: tulips, daffodils and iris.
