Summer Window Box Gardening Ideas

Window Box Gardening is a new concept that makes an old concept simple and convenient. It's a convenient way to start a mini garden from your window without having to dig, till, and pull from your backyard land. It's a great summer window box idea and a great way to learn the basics of gardening with a small time commitment before you get involved with a much bigger project in your backyard. There's a few tips and tricks though to learn before you get started.

Window box gardening is a pleasure for both the gardener and the chef who will prepare the fresh fruits and vegetables. Wether you're a beginner or a pro, a window box is a simple and convenient way to maintain a miniature garden. Depending on the season, different plants and techniques are recommended to best optimize your garden. With summer winding down, your garden will need a little special care in order to produce a banner crop.

Now is the time to plant additional vegetable seeds for the fall harvest. Peas, spinach, lettuce, endive, beans, carrots, turnips, swiss chard, and beets are all excellent late summer plantings and perfect summer window box ideas. These vegetables thrive in cool and humid temperatures and do not require deep root space to grow. Aloe and cactus are also great summer window box gardening ideas to consider.

When starting a window box garden in the summer, it's a good idea to harvest early when still tender and cook right away. This will increase your yields and extend your harvest. Be on the lookout for insects and treat without pesticides if possible. Monitoring plants for infestation from your window box will be much easier and will allow you to quickly remove any plants should the become infested.

With heavy rainfalls, you will need to give your garden an extra boost of fertilizer. Rainfall leaches the nutrients from the soil and robs the plants of vital nutrition needed to produce. Now is a perfect time to side dress the plants with granular fertilizer or to water with liquid plant food.

Afterwards, what do you do with all of your vegetables that have been planted and are now ready for harvest? Freezing and canning are the answer. You will have vegetables in your freezer or on your shelf to enjoy long after frost ends the season. Almost everything you plant can be frozen or canned. Blanching or steaming is very important in freezing all vegetables. Vegetables should be heated and steamed then immediately cooled before freezing. This process eliminates any unwanted bacteria.

And of course, even a window box needs weed prevention and care to make sure you are maximizing your efforts. The weeds are robbing your plants of moisture and nutrients and are encouraging insects and diseases in your garden. Maintain the window box free of any weeds and use granular fertilizer if possible. Water on a daily basis and use weed prevention such as Preen or Concern. These weed killers will help you stay weed free towards the end of the summer season and into the fall.

Window box gardening is a fun way to simplify the garden process on a level that is convenient and manageable. This also gives you ideas of what window boxes can be used for in the hot and colder seasons when spring flower blooms begin to disappear.