Biennials & Perennials in the veg patch

I wanted to point out that mid & late summer is a great time to start biennial and perennial seeds. Seeds started now will be blooming plants for next year. I no longer have a veggie garden but I used to sow seeds in the veggie patch after I pulled out an early crop that quit producing - like lettuce, spinach or radishes. I'd direct seed the spot with sweet Williams, foxglove, bellflowers, dianthus or any other quick germinating flowers. The seeds sprout quickly in the warm soil if you keep them watered and you can move them in the fall or early spring when you're ready to turn it back over to veggies. It's a very easy way to grow a lot of plants without a lot of work. Of course there's always the risk of converting your entire vegetable garden over to a nursery bed for flowers - LOL! - like I did.

LOL Good one Sue.

this is a good tip. I have recently cleared out a couple thousand square feet that had brassicas, and I'm about to clear out another 1000sqft that has carrots finishing up.

I'll try this method per your suggestion! What other perennials and biennals are good for this?

Dave

Great idea, Poppysue. I'm gonna do it !

Let see .... I went over my seed list to see what I've direct seeded before with good success. Another easy little trick is to take some of the seed heads off of the flowers that have matured in your garden and toss them in the veggie patch. They will re-seed right there where you toss them. Easy as pie. I stuck to things that should germinate easily THIS season. I'm sure there's many more if anyone else wants to throw their 2 cents in.

Yarrow
Ladybells (adenofora)
Agastache
Hollyhocks
Basket of Gold Alyssum
Anthemis
Bellflowers - campanula (almost any of them)
Wallflowers
Shasta daisy
Lupines
Painted daisy (pyrethrum)
Coreopsis
Dianthus - (Sweet Williams, Maiden Pinks, Cottage Pinks - Just about any Pink!)
Foxgloves - ( any digitalis species)
Gaillardia
Perennial Sunflowers
Sweet rocket
Perennial candytuft - iberis
Perennial sweetpea vine
Rose Campion (lychnis coronaria)
Maltese Cross (lychnis chalcedonica)
Forget me Nots - (myosotis)
Nepeta - catnip OR catmint
Balloon flowers
Jacobs Ladder
Rudbeckia
Salvias
Malvas; mallows; & sidalcea (checkerbloom)
Catchflies (silene)
Verbascum - (Mulleins)

lol just what i was looking for poppysue.I have small shallow bed want to use dianthus how deep soil do they need?and this winter what would i need to do to them?
thanks

I forgot to thank you for this thread, Sue. We have many of the seeds listed above, and we're already getting started sowing them in situ, in "Sector 2", our new garden.

The rest of the seeds have been added to my want-list. :-)

Dave

I hope this works out for you Dave. It saves so much work and the plants get a much better start than you can give them in house. Every spring I would have a plant sale and I started growing perennials this way for the sale. I would start potting up the baby plants as soon as I could get out there and dig. The sales started out as a small yard sale and it grew & grew every year until I couldn't keep up with it anymore. The last one I had there were so many cars on my street my neighbors couldn't get out of their driveways. This was the first year I haven't had the sale after about 5 years in a row. I've enjoyed playing in the garden so much more and I've been able to concentrate on the things I want to grow rather than what people want to buy at the sale. If you plan to sell perennials this should be a great way to build up a good supply of plants.

That's exactly the plan, Sue. Thanks again for this helpful information! I am starting to get a lot of seeds in from our gardens, and soon will be getting the trading engine going full speed here. Your trade list will be my first stop :-)

Dave

How about Cosmos?

I had just read an article on doing this and plan to seed next week. It sure makes sense. I was just going to put them in flats and start on top of my refrigeratior or in the basement under grow lights like I do in the spring but now I'll just do it in my "overflow" garden. I'm going to plant agastache, aster, belamcanda, catananche, eupatorium, gaura, lychnis, lupine. Wish me luck - my dream is to visit all your beautiful gardens :-)

Gwydion cosmos can be direct seeded easy enough but it's an annual and won't survive the winter. If you plant it late in the fall when it's too cold for germinating it would probably sprout in the spring - just as if it had self seeded. I think its a little late in the season for zone 5 to direct seed it now and get much for blooms before a killing frost.

Vic sounds like a good plan to me. Lupines, lychnis, and agastache have all germinated easily in the garden for me.

I don't have veggie beds to toss the seeds into, but I've been sowing seeds in large pots and they've been doing well. So far I have yellow and apricot foxgloves, caryopteris, maltese cross, lynchnis angel blush, yellow columbine, baptisia, and 4 echinacea plants that Poppysue sent me the seeds for this spring to put in my beds this fall. I've just planted dierama, stokesia purple parasols, primula, and red gaillardia. I've been doing this for about 3 years and it seems like the plants do really well because they have all winter to develop their root systems for the next year. Linda T

What about Butterfly bushes? When should their seeds be planted? Anyone know?
Tamlamb

Hi Tammy' I grow butterfly bushes(budleii?sp.)
I usually divide them and replant'

Not sure about growing from seeds,haven't
tried it'Maybe someone will help us out'''

I'd like to know the techniques used for
harvesting and growing from seeds,know that
they're pretty hard to find'Sis'

Poppysue, Cosmos, Zinnias, and Marigolds always reseed themselves abundantly in my gardens....but then this is Texas, and you're in ME...some more are portulaca, vinca, flax, and gomphena....

"eyes"