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Spring Flowers for Containers Smart Pots help impatient gardeners get a jump on the gardening season. Instead of waiting to plant in cold wet garden soil, fabric containers allow for earlier planting. Above ground containers warm up faster than garden beds and the containers can be filled with soil-less potting mixes that are at a temperature ready for planting. If you’re looking for early spring color, you can start planting flower seeds as soon as the danger of frost has passed. These flowers are those that typically don’t do well with transplanting. Other flower seeds need to be started indoors about 6-8 weeks before the average date of the last spring frost to allow time for sprouting and growing before moving them outside. Top 10 Spring Flowers Here’s Smart Pots top 10 spring flowers that can be directly sown in Smart Pots starting in March or April, depending on the last frost date for your area. For a succession of beautiful blooms, continue planting seeds every week through May. Baby Blue Eyes (Nemophila) Bachelor Buttons (Centaurea) Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) Calendula (Calendula) California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) Candytuft (Iberis) Clarkia (Clarkia elegans) Cosmos (Cosmos bipinnatus) Sweet William (Dianthus) Wallflower (Cheiranthus) Select a full-sun location for the containers and fill them with a well-draining potting soil mix. The addition of a slow-release plant fertilizer will help keep flowers growing through the season. Loosen the top few inches of soil and smooth it out to keep it loose and crumbly. Break up any clumps of soil and discard any debris that might keep seeds from sprouting. Sprinkle seeds thinly over the soil, keeping seeds about an inch apart. To get good coverage with small seeds, mix them with fine sand in a salt shaker for sowing or use a damp toothpick tip to place individual seeds where you want them. Cover seeds lightly with about ¼ inch of soil and mist with water to get the seeds and soil moist. Avoid planting seeds too deeply. Seeds will take 7-14 days to germinate so be sure to keep seeds and soil moist and don’t let either dry out. After seeds sprout and start to grow, thin plants to several inches apart. Spring flowers like violas and pansies take longer to germinate and need to be started indoors. If you want to see pansy flowers by late spring, start seeds indoors 10 to 12 weeks before the last frost date. As a faster alternative, simply fill your Smart Pots with potting soil and visit your favorite garden center to buy a flat of flowers. Not only will they add early spring color to your containers, but they’ll also provide an early food source for hungry insects.

Grow Better Food with Well-Fed Soil Looking to improve soil quality? Then it’s high time to plant cover crops! Cover cropping is a tried-and-true, old-school, economical way to build better soil. And better soil means better fruits, flowers, and veggies. Back in the day, every farmer and backyard gardener knew the benefits of cover crops — they aerate and add nutrients to the soil between harvests without chemicals or expensive nutrients. Cover cropping is nature’s way to improve soil quality. So when you plant cover crops, you are working hand-in-hand with nature. Need to add nitrogen to your soil? Plant cover crops of legumes like crimson clover, hairy vetch, or alfalfa. Cover cropping with legumes fixes nitrogen into the soil. Plant them in the fall to add organic matter and nutrients to your soil by tilling them under when it’s time to plant in the spring. To increase organic matter in your soil, plant cover crops of annual grasses like winter rye, annual rye, oats, or barley. Grasses don’t improve soil quality by fixing nitrogen like legumes do, but they are great at adding organic matter and aeration. Want the best of both worlds? Look for a cover crop seed blend that combines a legume seed with a grass seed. Hairy vetch and annual rye are a popular combination. The benefits of cover crops aren’t limited to improving soil quality. When you plant cover crops you also protect against erosion from winter wind, rain, and storms. Cover crops control weeds, and hold moisture in your soil. Just cut them down before they set seed and dig them into the soil. Home-grown nature’s compost, naturally made.