Starting to Plant the Beds

The following day my husband stopped on the way home to pick up a flat of flowers and herb.  I was not specific in my instructions other than marigolds, petunias and herbs.  I figure he has been helping me around the gardens long enough to have a good idea what I like.  He brought an assortment of marigolds, deep purple petunias, thai basil, purple basil and lemon basil.  Apparently my comment that one can never have too much basil has not gone unnoticed :)

The flat of plants just looked so pretty!  I always love planting and buying flats of plants because in such a small space there is a lot of hope and anticipation of what is to come.  This year has been a bit off with the house for sale and a May vacation so I didn't start a lot of plants indoors.  I am relying on buying a few flats of plants this year as well as the free tomato and pepper plants I can get. 

Buying plants if you don't have the chance to start them yourself is still a good value.  A cell-pack of vegetables usually ranges in cost from 99¢ to $1.29 for 4 to 6 plants.  A flat usually holds 48 plants and ranges in price from $10 to $15.  A $100 budget for annuals, herbs and vegetables can buy a lot of plants! 

Marigolds are excellent companion plants for tomatoes, peppers and lettuces.  This bed will be planted with all three so I planted marigolds around the perimeter.  In less than two days the first bed is already taking shape and looking good!  Once the marigolds were planted the bed was prepped for planting the other vegetables.

Work has already started in the herb raised bed. The herbs there already look great so it was a matter of working up the bed a bit after weeding then stringing the grid.   Then that bed was ready for planting as well.  So really under 2 days of a bit of work and it wasn't difficult or time consuming work the beds were in the progress of being planted.

Happy Gardening!

Garden Gnome
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