It seems like vegetable gardens can be pretty boring places – if delicious. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, making your vegetable garden prettier can actually help it thrive. Adding flowers, as well as additional little details can help transform the space into a place to be enjoyed. Here are some ideas:
– Location, Location, Location
Picking a pretty location for your garden makes the space that much more enjoyable. This can be challenging if you don’t have much yard, but a small hillside or a little spot that overlooks the rest of your yard can work great.
Another idea is to pick a spot that is nice to look at from inside your home or from your back patio.
– Make an Entrance
Even if you have a little garden, you can make it beautiful by adding an entryway. This could be as simple as installing a picket fence with a little gate, and as glamorous as installing a terraced walkway with an arch at the entryway.
If you don’t have enough space to install an entryway, try adding ornamentation which makes your veggie patch pop. You can add little gnomes, a birdhouse or birdbath, or even a bench that overlooks it all.
– Add Flowers
Don’t just grow veggies or fruit in your veggie patch. Try growing flowers. You can grow lavender – which is fragrant and pretty – as well as a useful herb, or plant bright flowers like California Golden Poppies, daisies, magnolias, sunflowers, and more. You can even force tulips and plant them – which is the perfect flower this time of year.
Another idea is to allow some of your vegetables to flower – or stagger their planting so that they flower at different times.
– Raise the Beds
Raised beds make your garden look neat and orderly. Additionally, they provide natural walkways between beds.
If you have a hillside home, raised beds are great for keeping the soil where you want it, while still planting on your hillside.
– Think with Color
Vegetables can be other colors besides just green. Think with both taste and color when you pick varietals. Additionally, if you want to add flowers, try for colors that will pop and catch your eye. Not only will you enjoy them, but the bees will too!
– Brighten up with Pots
Sometimes you can add a little color just by adding bright pots to your yard.
– Cut Down on Weeds, Use Mulch
Using mulch helps your vegetables, and has the added benefit of making weeds easy to pull. One thing to think with when you use mulch, however, is that you should try to pull any weeds before laying it down and if you choose manure, make sure it is fully cured as sometimes weed seeds can survive the digestive system of an animal.
– Attract the Right Animals
When you have a natural yard, you want to attract birds to eat the bad insects off the plants. Utilizing some native plants, and providing areas for birds to perch and bathe goes a long way in attracting the birds you want to your yard.
Additionally, flowers and staggering your plantings so they bloom at different times will attract bees as long as you have sweet, fragrant, and bright flowers. You need bees to pollinate things like tomatoes and squash – so cultivate a garden that they will enjoy.
Here’s to a fruitful vegetable patch!
