Comments on: ‘harvesting’ perennials, planting vegetables

By: margaret

margaret — Wed, 06 May 2009 10:44:28 +0000

Welcome, Sandra. For many years I have planted my cutting tulips (ones for bouquets) in my raised vegetable beds, then just planted veggies over them. The limitation: The tulip foliage needs to ripen, or wither, gradually on its own; you cannot cut it off until it's ready. See the Flower-Bulb FAQ page for details about bulbs, under daffodils (same idea for tulips). So if you can make space for your other things while letting the tulip foliage ripen, all good. I would suggest also that you interplant with something that doesn't require a lot of digging, of course. See you soon again.

By: sandra

sandra — Wed, 06 May 2009 00:34:04 +0000

Hi, I’ve never written before but I need to know if where my tulips are blooming now, when they no longer bloom and I cut them down can I put in a vegetable garden amongst them. Last year I put flowers around them and it worked. Can I do a vegetable garden this year?

By: margaret

margaret — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:56:01 +0000

Welcome, Louisa. A soil test is the correct first step, yes. I took a drastic approach this year, because I had skipped liming for a many years and let things go too far to the acid side, and was also topping up the beds with more soil and lots of compost and digging it in well. The package label rates are usually 2.5 to 5 per 100 square feet as I recall. For growing tomatoes, I would have done 5/100 here normally. Again, had I not been adding so much material to the beds, I would have stayed in the more typical range. See you soon again.