Clovers Garden Tips

   Are you looking for unique plants for your containers or window boxes? Do you need more space to grow healthful herbs and veggies? Try tucking a few herbs or veggies into your containers and you’ll solve two problems at once! Using herbs in your containers is much like using herbs in cooking . . . they add a depth to each “dish” and heighten the flavor and beauty of everything around them. Herbs and veggies, too, will stay in bloom or full-green all summer long keeping your pots looking full and fresh. Our wide variety of super healthy plants gives you the design freedom to select by color, scent, texture, leaf size, or height.

TIP: Select containers that can be moved inside for winter and you’ll extend your growing season and have access to fresh-cut herbs all year.

If you need ideas for how to create a container, click over to our How to Build a Container Garden article for some great tips on building the perfect pot. But as we always say, there are no right or wrong answers in gardening so pick what you love! Here are a few selections to get your creative juices flowing:

For colorful or showy thrillers: Lavender, sage, stevia, ornamental peppers, red kale, cabbage, or chives.

For texture and fillers: Basil, lemon balm, curly parsley, chamomile, dill, or lettuce.

For thick spillers: Mint, thyme, rosemary, strawberries, or vining cherry tomatoes.

When you start looking at herbs or veggies as a container element – instead of in a garden row – you’ll be surprised by the range of textures and colors. Combined with flowers, herbs add depth to your patio pots and all alone they create interesting combinations. Try putting a spiller-type herb like Creeping Lemon Thyme with a thriller flower such as French Vanilla Snapdragon. Or create an entire container of herbs with contrasting colors and textures such as the multi-colored Tricolor Sage, light Silver Edge Thyme and the lovely flowering Hidcote Lavender. Herbs such as basil and mint add rich undertone scents to your spaces and will attract birds or butterflies. Be sure to choose combinations, though, with the same water, sun, and drainage needs and be aware that some herbs will grow profusely and need occasional trimming to avoid overcrowding.

Little Gardeners Tip: Gardening with herbs shows your kids the connection between scent and flavor. Rub a leaf between your fingers to release the smell and ask your children to guess the food they’d find that herb in. They’ll be amazed when they see what a “dill pickle” plant looks like!

Once your plants really take hold, be sure to snip off occasionally to keep their growth in check . . . and then take those herbs right into the kitchen for a delicious summer dish. Beautiful and yummy!

Planting your own containers is a great way to stretch your budget and gives you the ultimate creative freedom as you can pick the exact colors and textures to match your designs.

Selecting the right combination is easy if you follow the thriller-filler-spiller formula used by professional garden designers. This concept works for every container from a narrow window box to large front entry pots and the three elements work together to create beauty and balance within the container. Using this approach will give you long-lasting pots that look professionally designed. Just remember to group plants with similar sun and water requirements.

TIP: Don’t overlook the herb and veggie aisle for your pots . . . many have great textures, colors, and scents that will add interest to your containers.

There are hundreds of ways to combine your favorite flowers and plants and here are just a few suggestions to get you started (bonus hint: plants shown in bold also repel mosquitoes!):

• Thriller: This is the centerpiece used to draw the eye to the container and create drama in the composition. Choose something for bold color, height, structure, or for all three. Examples of good thrillers include dahlia, geraniums, lemon grass, calla lilies, gerbera daisies, or the upright growing Thai Gong Bao hot pepper plant.
• Filler: These plants ring the lower half of the thriller, hiding the stems, and filling the space with more color and texture. Choose plants that stay at a medium height with a mounding growth pattern such as lantana, non-trailing petunia, dusty miller, coleus, or impatiens.
• Spiller: This portion of your pots tucks in under the fillers and spills over the edge of your pot, creating another layer of color and texture to showcase the thriller. Good selections for spillers include wave petunias, alyssum, vinca vines, or the edible and lovely creeping lemon thyme.

Try adding plants and flowers that actually repel mosquitoes (yes, some of your favorites are also hated by skeeters and biting insects. Try these groupings for planters that only get bigger and more protective as summer goes on.

Are you ready to grow some tomatoes?! The season’s here and this article will show you everything you need to know to pick the right tomato for your garden.

By some estimates, 95% of home gardens include tomato plants! Which means that most of your gardening friends are already fussing and fretting over growing the best, the biggest, the juiciest, the reddest, and the sweetest tomato. Whatever your goal, tomatoes are truly a summertime jewel and the most versatile veggie for the dinner table. Nothing quite beats the taste of a thick slice of tomato on a warm summer evening – except for a delicious, hearty tomato sauce in the dead of winter made with your homegrown tomatoes.

Sometimes choosing the right variety, though, can be totally overwhelming. With so many choices out there, many of us just cross our fingers and pick the prettiest plant! The type of tomato you choose starts with how you plan to use the produce. If you’re going to make salsas or sauces, choose a tomato with a meaty flesh as these hold up well when cooking, canning, or freezing. If you’re planning on eating them fresh off-the-vine, choose a salad or cherry tomato that has a bit higher water content and is usually sweeter. Many varieties in the beefsteak category fit both of these bills so are a good choice all around. Your growing space also determines what type of plant to buy as some of the heirloom varieties can require a lot of room to grow well.

Of course, the world of tomato growing involves a bit more detail than whether a tomato is meaty or viney and you’ll encounter a few technical terms on plant labels. These terms include:

• Determinate vs. Indeterminate. Determinate tomato vines produce blossoms, then fruit, at the end of the vine and typically set fruit over a short time span. Once the fruit is set the plant stops growing, creating a plant that is usually shorter, easier to control but the plant also stops producing tomatoes after this crop. Indeterminate tomatoes are typically older varieties and their blossoms grow all along the vine. These types of tomatoes will continue to grow and set fruit as long as the weather allows. They also grow taller with long vines so do require staking and lots of space.
• Heirlooms vs. Hybrids. Heirloom tomatoes are grown from seeds that have been handed down for generations. These types of plants are also “open-pollinated”, are genetically identical to the parent plant, typically offer the most variety, but also can be less disease-resistant. Hybrid tomatoes have been cross-pollinated from two non-identical plants to enhance or encourage certain qualities such as fruit size or disease-resistance. Most of the tomatoes you see at standard nurseries are the hybrid variety.

Tomatoes are also categorized by the shape of their fruit and thickness of their flesh – and these categories somewhat determine their end use:

• Classic, Globe, or Round. These are nearly perfectly round tomatoes like those you see on the supermarket shelves. They usually grow to a medium size and are useful in fresh dishes such as salads or for slicing.
• Beefsteak. These are the largest tomatoes you can find and tend to be flatter with meaty flesh. They are delicious freshly sliced but also hold up well when cooked. Because of the heavy fruit, these plants require good supports or the vines will break under the weight of the tomato.
• Cherry, Currant, or Grape. These are the sweet little tomatoes often used in salads, shishkabobs, and other fresh dishes. The fruits grow in clusters along the vine and are usually abundant producers for most of the growing season.
• Roma, Plum, or Paste. These tomatoes have thick and meaty flesh, an elongated shape with a pointy end, and grow to a medium size. They are prolific producers and are the go-to tomato for the sauce and salsa maker.

 

 

 

 

Little Gardeners Tip: What do kids love more than digging in the dirt? Digging into a fresh bowl of homegrown salsa! did you know this snack is high in Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Potassium, and Lycopene and when you make it yourself you can control the salt content. Your kids won’t even know they’re eating their vegetables! Click out our delicious Pico De Gallo recipe.