When Is The Best Time To Plant Seeds In Your Garden?
Seeds are tough when you consider a few things about them. They can remain viable as something you can plant in the ground for years on end. If you plant apples one year but don’t want to again the next, you can hang on to your seeds longer than you can hold onto any plant. That being said, once you plant a seed in the ground, it becomes more vulnerable to the season you plant it in. This makes it important to plant your seeds at the right time of the year.
In Arizona, where the weather reaches different extremes compared to the rest of the country, when you plant your seeds is even more important.
WHAT TYPES OF SEEDS ARE YOU PLANTING?
Before we can get into the when, we need to know the what. Not all seeds are planted during the same time of the year. If you plan it right, you can plant one kind of seed during one time of the year, and it will be finished growing before it's time to plant a different type of seed.
There are several types of seeds that you can plant in a garden: flowers, vegetables, fruits, and herbs. There’s some crossover between them, and you can mix and match so that you’re almost always growing something throughout the year.
PLANTING FLOWERS
Due to the wide range of flowers that grow in Arizona, you can plant some in February that will bloom through the summer. Warm-season flowers like angelonia, bougainvillea, and cosmos should be planted so that they bloom in the warm season, whereas cold-season flowers like geraniums and snapdragons are better to be planted in the fall. This way, they can bloom as winter turns to spring, or even during winter. This means you can time your planting schedule accordingly so you have different flowers in your garden all year. Doing this means you don’t have to pull any out before you want to.
PLANTING VEGETABLES
The period when you can plant vegetables doesn’t necessarily line up well with flowers. Most vegetables survive and grow healthy when you plant them in the early spring. While they’ll be ready around the same time a warm-season flower blooms, they can’t be planted around the same time, so you should be careful if you’re trying to use the same planting space for them.
PLANTING FRUITS
Many fruits actually grow from trees and tall vines. You shouldn’t try to plant them in a garden but in a wide-open field. Because they do grow from trees, they take years to grow. If you’re planning to plant fruit, you’re not using many, if any, of the same materials that you would use to plant anything else. This allows you the freedom to plant something else in a garden, but they are entirely different projects.
PLANTING HERBS
Some herbs are like vegetables, where they are planted in the spring, but others are like cold-season flowers that should be planted in the fall. This makes herbs the perfect alternative to filling out your garden when you’re not sure what can grow in your time range. If you plant a warm-season flower, you can plant an herb afterward in the fall when you couldn’t plant a vegetable. If you plant a cold-season flower, herbs can work alongside them or after them. Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme are some of the best herbs you can plant in Arizona’s climate.
CONTACT PIONEER LANDSCAPING CENTERS FOR YOUR SOIL
Not all soil works with every type of plant. When you're preparing your garden for the next planting season, and you’re not planting the same seeds as you did before, contact the representatives at your local Pioneer Landscaping Center. We’ll make sure you have the right soil to match whatever flower, vegetable, fruit, or herb you’re trying to grow. We want to help you see the fruits of your gardening labors.