Fall Window Box Gardening

Gardening is a concept that grows each year, especially as the organic food and whole foods concepts are in full rage. Many people have turned to starting their own garden to go one step further. Starting your own garden can be time consuming and filled with mistakes. Window box gardening is a good way to learn some basic gardening skills and save a ton of time and money. Additionally, you will be able to enjoy the benefits of gardening from a window inside your home. Turn your spring window boxes from flowing plants and flowers to a summer garden.

Gardening is a pleasure for both the gardener and the chef who will prepare the fresh fruits and vegetables. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned 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. As summer comes to an end and fall approaches, your window box garden will need some additional considerations to produce a healthy garden crop.

The first consideration is to plant things that do not need a lot of room. A window box will be somewhat confining and depending on the size of your window box there may be a few limits as to what you can grow in your garden. A window box should be at least 6 inches tall and deep to grow most vegetables, flowers, and plants. Most window boxes can be used for landscaping during the spring as well, so getting a window box large enough for plants and flowers will give you more options year round.

Late summer is the perfect 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. These vegetables thrive in cool and humid temperatures also. Aloe is also a favorite, because its easier to grow, has shallow roots, and is something that most of us can use.

During late summer you will have to water more frequently. Choose a convenient window to hang your window box and this will make this process easy. Pick a spot that gets decent sun exposure. This will increase most vegetables chances for thriving. If near a faucet spout you can consider getting a self-watering window box drip-irrigation kit to slowly provide a steady flow of drip water to the vegetables.

Continue harvesting vegetables when they are young and tender and cook them as soon as possible. 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 will be much easier and will allow you to quickly remove any plants should the become infested.

If you experience excessive 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. This is especially true for window boxes, where nutrients can drain out over time. Now is a perfect time to side dress the plants with granular fertilizer or to water with liquid plant food.

You can 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. Weeds will rob your garden plants of all the nutrients and will attract unwanted insects. 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.

Gardening from a window box is fun and most importantly simple. It's a great way to start a garden and learn the basics in a way that is convenient and time saving. 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. If used properly, window boxes can be enjoyed year round and learning to start a garden can be fun and simple.