Adding some more flowers to the garden
8May 27, 2014 by Buffy
Last year was our first year to grow flowers in the vegetable garden. Spotty and I had a contest to see who could grow the best sunflower. (He won!) They made me smile every time I saw them. They also reminded of our sweet friends that give us the idea to have a sunflower contest.
So this year we adding a whole row of sunflowers! I can’t wait till they bloom.
We also have a few volunteer ones that came up in the garden from seeds the birds scattered last fall.
We also added an old horse watering trough as a raised bed for flowers at the edge of the garden. It had a large hole in the bottom and was no longer used for the horses. I thought it was perfect until it was time to fill it with soil. Oh my! It was going to take a whole truck load. Then, I remembered seeing everyone growing things in bales of straw. (I’ve never tried it, but what the heck!) I was needing an extra bale of straw to hill the potatoes some more anyway, so I just picked up an extra one. The bale of hay fit right in like it was made for it! I just added a few inches of compost on top and planted my seeds. I planted zinnias, purple cone flowers and a large packet of mixed sunny area flowers.
I hope they grow and bloom. If you don’t have flowers in your vegetable garden you should! They will brighten your days!
That sunflower was huge and I love the way you re-purpose. I found myself doing it all the time and now have my hubby doing it. We find a use for everything.
Repurpose! I like that! Yes, we call them projects at our house. I always have one going! Thanks for stopping by
wow…that is one huge sunflower!! I plant a row along my garden every year. Sometimes they come back and other times the birds eat them and I have the sporadic flower. This year I planted Mexican Sunflowers. They are about 3 inches tall now. Hope they continue.
Thanks! It is probably the most amazing thing a kid can plant!
I agree with planting flowers in the veggie garden! I also have a tank I plant flowers in. Droopy ones (wave petunias) don’t care for how hot the metal gets in the summer … I, too, used tons of lightweight filler before the soil. Oh MY! Wish I would have thought of a whole bale!
Wave petunias running down the edges would have been great! Maybe next year!
I planted a lot of sunflowers too and they’re starting to come up. We grow some every year but this year I’ve planted much more than usual. I’m excited to see how they do! We also sprout sunflower seeds inside and eat the greens in salads. Delicious.
We’ve done sunflowers on the edge of our garden the past two years. I actually heard that you should do sunflowers because they are quickly affected by water (or lack of) so you will know if the rest of your plants are getting thirsty. Just watch the sunflowers for drooping and you’ll be ahead of the game! 🙂