If you are like me, you grow the flowers you really love in your garden only to feel bad when it comes to cutting them for inside your home. I started growing zinnias 2 years ago alongside my veggies and when it came time to cut a few for my home, I realized how choosy I had become in order to not take too much out of the garden. (Silly, I know!)
Anyways..fast forward to this Spring..we are finally in our own home with our own yard and I decided a cutting garden is exactly what I needed! Adam and I got to work spraying off a patch of grass I had marked off then we dug up the sod (which is a lot more work than I ever gave it credit for!)
Next I added in some peatmoss and well composted cow manure to add some much needed nutrients back into the soil and then the fun began!
This year I have dedicated the majority of this bed to my floral love..zinnias. I was quite embarrassed when I realized how many seeds I had so in they went (this is going to look gorgeous when it starts blooming! I planted approximately 1,000 in here!)
Also added to my cutting garden is:
– sunflowers
– dahlias; and
– sweet peas
I will write another post with an update on my cutting garden as soon as the blooms begin to open. Can’t wait!!
Nikala - Can’t wait to see how beautiful this turns to be! I got a box of 1000 zinnia, marrigold AND daisy seeds last fall. (for $5 a box, I obviously couldn’t leave them on the shelf!) Plus I have a ton of flower seed packets i’ve picked up since! And just one large garden! How did you plant your zinnia’s along veggies? Like a row of say beans, with zinnias/flowers along it or what? I’m desperately trying to figure out a way to incorporate taller cut flowers (mainly zinnia’s+daisies) into my veggie garden. Sunflowers and marigolds are a bit easier to figure out
Or maybe you have a picture of your veggies+zinnia’s together?!
Dawn Cosgrove - OMG I wouldn’t have left those seeds on the shelf either!! lol Way too tempting to pass up! What I like to do is just either plant a row of flowers amongst my veggies (I did a border of sweet peas each year that outlined my garden from our fields) or, with my zinnias in particular, I just made a centre point in the middle of the garden that I staked a bamboo tee pee, planted morning glories to climb up the stakes then made a double, circular planting of zinnias around that as a focal point of the garden! I did that again this year as well in my veggie plot that I just planted here on Thursday 😉
dawn - I know you love your flowers Dawn and this is a perfect idea for you!! I can’t wait to see them growing and how many you will get!! I don’t like cutting my flowers either, we don’t have many so I want them to stay outside to enjoy but a few find their way onto my kitchen table, lol.
ENJOY IT!!