Must have of the season: what plants to plant at their summer cottage
Modern summer residents often move away from the usual beds and berry bushes, opting for landscape design and "Sunday" picnics. But for those who consider a suburban area not only as a resting place, but also as an additional source of vegetables and fruits, the question of what to plant in the country is relevant every spring. With today's variety of garden crops, making a choice is not at all easy. What qualities of plants to pay attention to when choosing seeds or seedlings for summer cottages?
Garden at a country cottage: trees with minimal maintenance
Unlike the owners of home plots, not every summer resident has the opportunity to move out of town for the entire summer season. Therefore, it is worth choosing plants for the "hacienda" that do not require painstaking care and frequent watering. And, of course, you will have to focus on the size of the site and climatic conditions.
If the size of the land plot allows you to plant several fruit trees, a summer cottage garden will be an excellent solution.
You can easily diversify the table with vitamins and make winter "canned food" by planting the following trees:
- apple tree;
- plum;
- cherries;
- pear.
Varieties must be chosen adapted to the climate of the area where the site is located. It is better to plant flowering fruit trees of one species with 3-5 seedlings, then they will be better pollinated. You can add to your garden sea buckthorn or dwarf apples - ranetka, and in the southern regions, drought-resistant varieties of cherries, peach and apricot trees will take root well in the suburban area.
Advice
Many varieties of pear and apple trees grow into fairly large trees. Therefore, a young tree should be placed no closer than 3 m from buildings.
Taking care of your garden is easy enough. Trees need plenty of sunlight, pruning in spring and fall, and minimal watering during particularly dry summers. In addition to fruits and berries, the summer cottage garden will provide a pleasant shade for relaxation on hot days and diffused sunlight for vegetables and a flower garden. In addition, planting of thorny sea buckthorn along the fence can become a good "hedge" and protect the cottage from unwanted visitors.
Shrubs
Well-groomed bushes with bright berries or lush flowers look aesthetically pleasing and do not take up much space on the site. Therefore, it makes sense to plant them even on "six acres".
Unpretentious shrub crops include:
- any kind of currant - black, white, golden (it is also forest) or red;
- blackberry and raspberry;
- gooseberry;
- decorative flowering bushes hydrangeas, spireas, lilacs, jasmine garden.
You can plant seedlings of bushes in a separately allocated free space or directly along paths and fences. The only condition is to leave the distance from buildings or between plants at least one meter. In order for the shrubs to grow well and bear fruit, it is enough to water them on weekends, timely prune and sometimes huddle the soil, removing weeds. In regions with severe frosts, you will additionally need to cover the bushes for the winter.
Vegetables, aromatic herbs, berries
And what to plant on the site for those city dwellers who expect to get a harvest of vegetables, but at the same time come to the country only on weekends? You should immediately abandon crops that need frequent care, abundant watering, or harvesting a ripe crop more often than once every 4-6 days. These include, for example, cucumbers, zucchini and tomatoes.
The following vegetable crops are well tolerated by rare watering:
- melons - melons, pumpkins, watermelons;
- root vegetables - beets, carrots, potatoes, radishes;
- cabbage (including broccoli);
- onions (green and onions);
- eggplant;
- zucchini (ordinary), squash;
- garlic;
- turnip.
An excellent source of vitamins will be juicy herbs from the garden: parsley, marjoram, lettuce, cilantro, dill, tarragon, sorrel, lemon balm and garden mint. They can be sown in early spring or before winter to get early greens for salads and okroshka. Most of these plants are perennials and are capable of self-sowing every year, which will greatly facilitate the care of the dacha.
Another useful quality of crops such as mint, dill, lemon balm, and basil is that these plants are "allies" for vegetables. Sown evenly between the beds, they stimulate seedlings, improve vegetation and the taste of some vegetables, and their bright smell scares off pests such as midges, aphids, and white cabbage.
Advice
It is better to immediately adapt crops for rare watering: after the first shoots appear, you should not immediately water the plants. You will need to wait about 5-6 days for the roots to start growing deeper, closer to moisture. Then the plant may well exist in conditions of watering on weekends.
Growing strawberries (strawberries) in a suburban area always causes a lot of controversy. To get a harvest of large berries, it takes more effort than usual watering requires: timely weeding, top dressing, and loosening are needed. It is possible to facilitate the care of berry bushes if you plant strawberries in a garden bed protected by a covering material - this will protect against excessive loss of moisture and beneficial trace elements, as well as against weeds, active growth of antennae. For the rest, strawberries are a rather unpretentious culture.
Flowers
It is generally accepted that garden flowers are capricious and too delicate plants. But there are many perennial and annual varieties that do not require special conditions or frequent watering. At the same time, they bloom magnificently and are even able to bring certain benefits.
Summer residents should pay attention to such flowers:
By combining different varieties of these plants, you can get a flower bed that blooms throughout the warm season. A good decoration will also be well-kept lawn... For him, you can buy seeds of one of the dry-resistant varieties of lawn grass or grow meadow clover... In the latter case, watering will be minimal - the clover has enough rainwater.
Unpretentious plants planted in a suburban area will allow you to spend weekends, not only working, but also relaxing in the country. Of course, you cannot completely do without gardening work. The summer cottage needs to be given time regularly: water, loosen, top dressing and remove weeds on time. But the reward for the work will be a harvest of fruits and vegetables, which will be enough both for the table and for winter preparations.
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