Planting Calendar

Preparing for Your Vegetable Garden

Vegetable plants need fertile soil that can hold an ample supply of moisture without becoming soggy. Soil that remains too wet precludes essential oxygen from reaching the roots and the plants will usually die as a result. That means you’ll need to add plenty of compost to Vail’s thin, poor soil. Compost has an almost magical property of holding the perfect amount of moisture. Soil amended with compost will help give your plants the even moisture they need, without drowning them in the process!

For leafy greens like spinach and lettuce, you should also add some cottonseed meal or well-composted manure to provide them with the extra nitrogen they need to quickly grow an abundance of leaves. Don’t add it to the entire garden or your tomatoes, beans, and other fruiting crops will grow lavish foliage at the expense of edible produce.

Planting in Squares

Since raised beds tend to warm up more quickly in spring, you may want to use them for your vegetable garden. Square foot gardening is a technique used to increase productivity in raised beds while greatly reducing the amount of labor involved. The Square Foot Gardening Foundation reports that the method “… is estimated to cost 50% less, uses 20% less space, 10% of the water, and only 2% of the work compared to single row gardening.” Vegetable gardening in Vail is difficult enough as it is, so using a method that increases your crops while reducing the labor involved seems like a win-win situation!

The raised beds are filled with a combination of one-third each of blended composts (preferably five different kinds), coarse perlite, and sphagnum peat moss and/or coconut coir fiber. This rich soilless mixture eliminates almost all the weeds, soil-borne pathogens, and pests normally present in garden soil. It also retains moisture very well while still allowing vital oxygen to reach the plant roots.

Because of these perfect conditions, plants are grown much closer together than in traditional gardens and your yield per square foot is greatly improved. The plants are also usually planted in a patchwork pattern with a different type in every square. This confuses pests like Colorado bean beetles. They can’t find their favorite munchies amidst the organized chaos of a garden planted by this method! You’ll definitely appreciate having a planting calendar handy in order to keep track of when to plant each square.

Let Us Help With the Rest of Your Vail, Colorado Landscape

Leaving the rest of your yard and lawn care to our professional landscapers lets you focus your care and attention on your prized vegetable garden. We can handle everything from landscape design and installation to irrigation and sprinkler systems. Are you considering an outdoor kitchen in which to grill those garden-fresh veggies? We can work with you to design and build the outdoor kitchen of your dreams. Landscape Technology Group can handle all of your landscape needs from lawn mowing to a complete landscape design and installation.