Backyard Vegetable Garden Ideas for Beginners
The Best Way to Lay Mulch
While mulching your landscape can seem simple at first glance, there is more to consider if you want your labor and time to turn into a pretty landscape with healthy plants. Our quick step-by-step guide will tell you how to lay mulch and give you plenty of tips to use along the way.
Step One – Figure Out How Much Mulch You Need
The first thing you should do is figure out how much mulch you need. To do this, you must figure out your flower beds’ square footage. You’ll do this by multiplying the width and length of each one. The average step you take is 2.5 feet long, so walk along the edge of the beds and count the steps you take along the length and the width.
- Total Length – 2.5 x the number of steps
- Total Width – 2.5 x the number of steps
Once you get the total square footage, you’ll need to figure out how many bags of mulch you’ll need.
- Two Cubic Foot Bags – Square footage divided by 12 to get the number of bags needed to put down a two-inch layer of mulch.
- Three Cubic Foot Bags – Square footage divided by 18 to get the number of bags needed to put down a two-inch layer of mulch.
- Bulk – Square footage divided by 128 to get the amount of bags needed to put down a two-inch layer of mulch.
Step Two – Gather Your Tools
Once you know how much mulch you’ll need for your garden beds and you buy it, you’ll have to get your tools. You’ll want to get a pitchfork, shovel, wheelbarrow, rake, and gloves. Having everything on hand will help the project go smoothly from start to finish.
Step Three – Clean the Beds Out
Remove any debris, dried-up leaves, old mulch, and sticks from the beds. Take time to clean up the bed edging along the beds, and use a spade to cut a defined, clean line between the lawn and bed.
Step Four – Water the Beds
If you haven’t had any rain in the area and the beds are dry, water them. The mulch will help to retain moisture. Before you water the beds, you may want to apply a pre-emergent herbicide to prevent weeds from poking through.
Step Five – Remove any Weeds
Clean out any weeds you spot in your garden beds. Remember, the main benefit of mulching is that it suppresses weed growth, so you shouldn’t have to weed the beds nearly as much.
Step Six – Spread the Mulch
Shake the mulch from the bag or shovel it from your wheelbarrow into small piles. Put on gloves and use your hands to spread the mulch, especially as you get close to your plants. The mulch should be two to four inches thick because weeds will push through if it’s too thin. On the other hand, if the mulch is too thick, water won’t reach the soil. Once you finish, you can water the mulch to help it settle into place.
Contact Evergreen Landscaping
Not sure how much mulch you need? Maybe you don’t have time to lay mulch yourself. Whatever the reason, our professional staff is here to help. Reach out and contact us to set up an appointment.
A Useful Guide to Companion Planting
Companion planting is learning how to grow different vegetables or plants together for mutual benefits. There is a mixture of herbs, plants, and vegetables that all grow well together, but some will bully others. So, looking at this quick guide to give yourself a solid idea of how companion planting works is a good idea.
Companion Planting Cheat Sheet
Before considering companion planting, rotate your crops. Don’t plant the same garden crop in the same spot for more than one year because this can lead to disease spread, pest issues, and nutrient imbalances. If you rotate your crops and you’re ready to companion plant, the following list can help:
Beans
Broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, corn, cucumbers, peas, potatoes, radishes, squash, and tomatoes
Carrots
Beans, peas, lettuce, onions, and tomatoes
Corn
Beans, cucumbers, peas, melons, potatoes, and squash
Cucumbers
Beans, beets, corn, onions, peas, and radishes
Peas
Beans, carrots, corn, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, radishes, spinach, and tomatoes
Garlic
Beets, brassica, carrots, eggplant, peppers, potatoes, and tomatoes
Lettuce
Corn, pumpkins, and squash
Potatoes
Beans, brassica, corn, lettuce, radishes, and spinach
Tomatoes
Basil or other herbs, carrots, squash, and cucumbers as part of a three-way companion partnership
Herb Companion Planting
Not every garden is big enough to grow a range of crops needed for companion planting. However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t take advantage of herbs’ benefits, like repelling or trapping pests and attracting pollinators to the area. A few culinary herbs that can help repel pests and protect your crops using companion planting include but are not limited to:
- Basil
- Chives
- Cilantro
- Lavender
- Mint
- Rosemary
- Sage
- Thyme
Ideally, the goal is to allow your herbs to bloom, as this is when they’re at the most fragrant stage. In turn, this is when they do their best to repel pests, and they may even work well to repel deer or rabbits from your vegetable garden.
Companion Planting Mistakes to Avoid
Just like there are plants that play nicely together, there are those that clash. Generally, plants that compete for the exact nutrient needs, like space, sun, or water, shouldn’t be companion plants, either above the ground or at the root level. Likewise, crops with issues with the same plant diseases, like blight, shouldn’t be companion plants. You want to spread them out as far as possible to prevent them from spreading, and the same rule applies to plants with the same pest issues.
Also, some crops will stunt the growth of other plants. Fennel is a very popular example of a poor companion plant that you want to give its own spot in your garden a decent distance away from other crops. This stops it from slowly taking over and taking out your other plants.
Contact Evergreen Landscaping
Do you have more questions about companion planting? Maybe you’d like help setting up the perfect garden space. Whatever the reason, contact us. Our staff is happy to answer your questions and set up the perfect companion planting setting in your yard.
How to Plant a Garden to Attract Pollinators
Fluttering butterflies, buzzing bees, and speedy hummingbirds are fun to watch as they zoom and flit around from plant to plant, but these key pollinators do much more than provide entertainment. They’re responsible for helping pollinate your vegetables and flowers. So, it makes sense that you’d want to attract as many to your yard as possible. But, how do you go about this? We’ll outline several tips for you below.
- Create Groupings of Plants
Did you know that a lot of pollinators are near-sighted? This means that it’s much more challenging for them to find flowers or plants if they’re spread around the yard. To fix this, try to plant your items in groups of three to five to mimic the natural planting style they’d encounter in nature. This gives a can’t-miss target for all of your pollinators to come in.
- Provide Shelter
Any pollinator you attract will need a place to hide and feel secure as they raise their young. Examples of spaces include a compost pile, hedge, longer grass, a dead tree, or soil that doesn’t have any mulch. Try to add shelter around your pollinator garden to entice them to come in, stay, and raise their young next to a safe hideout and a food source.
- Incorporate Native Plants
Ideally; you’ll include a few native plants in your landscape design in your pollinator garden. These plants are usually hardier and not as prone to issues with diseases and pests when you compare them to important plants. A few examples include purple coneflower, Liatris aspera, coreopsis, swamp milkweed, California poppy, and manzanita. If you’re not sure which native plants will thrive in your area, you can contact your local extension office to get a list of native plants. You can group them with non-native plants that have similar growing needs.
- Consider Planting Trees
Include shrubs and trees in your pollinator garden plans. A crabapple or maple tree will come alive with activity during the blooming period, and most pollinators will stick around for more blooms throughout the summer months. Shrubs like butterfly bush, viburnum, summersweet, and spirea all come packed with nectar-laden flowers that pollinators find impossible to resist. If you add these trees with your shade flowers, your pollinators will have layers of areas to visit. As a bonus, the trees can offer shelter.
- Stagger the Bloom Times
One big component to getting pollinators to stick around once you lure them in is to offer an ongoing nectar source. Also, consider the colors as different pollinators respond to different colors. Bees like yellow, blue, purple, and white, while hummingbirds are attracted to red-hued flowers. Butterflies love purple or red tones. Fill your yard with all these colors, and pick plants with different bloom times. Planting flowers in different heights, shapes, and growth habits will also help draw pollinators in.
- Don’t Forget the Water
Even pollinators like access to a nice water source, and it’s relatively easy to add one to your pollinator garden. Consider putting a bird bath in, or you can put a shallow pond or small fountain in. As a bonus, this can give you the sound of running water, and this is something very relaxing to listen to as you go about your day.
Contact Evergreen Landscaping
If you’re going to create a pollinator garden but you’re not sure where to start, contact us. Along with having knowledge of the native plants, we can help you set up a haven that draws the pollinators in all spring and summer long.
Plants for Retaining Walls
Retaining walls may not look stunning on their own, but they perform a very important function in helping control erosion. If you’re someone who has a retaining wall running through their property, you can easily dress it up by adding plants around it that camouflage the wall or that provide visual interest by cascading down the side. We’re going to outline several functional and pretty plants for your retaining wall below.
- Creeping Thyme
This plant is very popular because it is a pretty cascading plant. It’s a low-growing perennial that creates a very dense mat of tiny leaves, and it’ll spread very rapidly over and down your retaining wall. It’ll thrive in a huge range of conditions, and it’s very easy to grow. There are also several types of creeping thyme available, and they offer different leaf textures and colors with hundreds of tiny flowers.
- Cascading Rock Cress
This plant is also called Aubretia, and it’s a plant that virtually anyone can grow. You’ll get a herbaceous perennial that thrives in rugged environments. It likes to be in at least partial sun if you can’t put it in a full sun location with well-draining soil. When it grows, it hugs the surfaces of walls and rocks. Over the years, this low-maintenance plant will give you a huge mat of flowers and green foliage with a very pretty but light scent.
- Tumbling Losetto Tomato
A tumbling tomato won’t give you coverage for your retaining wall all year-round, but they do produce delicious fruit in the summer months. To get the biggest visual impact, plant a row of cascading tomato plants along the top of your retaining wall. As they grow, they’ll spill over the wall with vibrant green leaves, cheerful yellow flowers, and then sweet and succulent red tomatoes.
- Wave Petunia
If you’re trying to cover your retaining wall as quickly as possible, it’s hard to beat the petunia’s speed. These are low-maintenance and colorful annuals that will spread up to four feet at full maturity, and they give you a stunning splash of colors. Petunias love to be in well-draining soil in a sunny location so they can be happy at the top of your retaining wall. They’ll also flower again and again throughout the spring and summer months without any deadheading.
- Trailing Lobelia
Most gardeners already know what lobelia is, and it’s a popular plant around the world. There are now over 400 lobelia types available, and it’s easy to find one to fit your growing zone. Trailing cultivars create a nice visual display with star-shaped, tiny flowers that cascade. They love warm locations, so you should put them in full sun for the best results. You can treat them as perennials in some zones, but they’re annuals in cooler zones.
Evergreen Landscaping Has Plants for Your Retaining Walls
Don’t leave your retaining wall bare and sticking out like a sore thumb in your yard or garden. Instead, contact the professionals at Evergreen Landscaping and allow us to help you choose the perfect plants to add visual interest and pops of color to your space all summer long.
How to Protect Plants from Heat
Extreme temperature swings and unseasonably warm weather can cause a lot of potential damage and stress for your plants. Even plants that love warmer temperatures aren’t huge fans of sudden temperature changes. However, most plants are much more resilient than you know. If you put a few protective measures in place, you can quickly help your plants make it through a heat wave with almost no impact. We’ll outline several ways you can protect your plants below, and you can decide which one is going to work best for your situation.
- Add Mulch Around Your Plants
Ideally, you’ll add a one to three-inch layer of mulch around all of your plants, and you want to leave a small gap right by the stems. Mulch is excellent for helping to insulate the root zone of your plants, and this can work to stop fluctuating temperatures. Mulch is also great for helping keep the soil and roots cooler as the temperature starts to climb. As a bonus, mulch is a great weed deterrent, so your plants won’t have to compete for water or nutrients.
- Put up Shade Cloths
Shade cloths are exactly what they sound like, and you can typically buy them in rolls from your local garden center. You can drape them over your plants to help shield them from the sun during the hottest parts of the day in the afternoon hours. The plants will still get sun in the morning, but it’ll block the harshest rays from reaching your plants to help keep the area cooler. If you don’t want to drape it right on your plants, you can set up wire hoops over your plants as a support system for the cloth.
- Water Early in the Morning
Instead of waiting until later in the day to water, you should plan on getting up early and watering before the sun starts heating up the area. It works to ensure that the plant roots are hydrated before the sun’s rays hit them. This is important because the heat can pull the water out of the soil and dehydrate any surface roots, negatively impacting the plant’s ability to absorb nutrients and water. Watering early is also a nice way to ward off heat stress; you can think of this as sunburn for your plants.
- Plant the Seeds Slightly Deeper
If you haven’t planted your seeds yet, you can plan on putting them an inch or two deeper in the soil. This won’t negatively impact their growth, but it will help save them from the heat if the topsoil starts to dry out in the middle of the day. It also encourages your plants to have deeper roots, and these roots are less likely to get dehydrated from the sun later on. Look and see what the planting depth is on the seed packet and add an inch or so. This will be more than enough to help protect the roots and encourage strong growth.
Contact Evergreen Landscaping for More Tips to Protect Your Plants
Summer is here, and it’s your job to protect your plants. The professionals at Evergreen Landscaping are here to help, and all you have to do is reach out and contact us today.
