Things Needed

The First thing you are going to need for a cutting garden is a place to put one.  Maybe you live in a subdivision and have a limited amount of space, or maybe you live in an apartment building in the middle of a city, regardless, you to can have a cutting garden.  There is no limit or set standard as to how large or small it can be.  With that in mind, here are a few ideas to possibly get you started in the right direction.

  This is an example of a good start for a place to plant some flowers.  This is a planter that can be attached to your window and serve a purpose for many smaller plants or flowers that you may want to cut and arrange indoors.  This will serve for both homeowners and apartment renters, and can be made by hand or purchased already assembled.

 

 

 

 

The pictures shown above apply more to homeowners and give an idea of how you can incorporate flowers into a small area without taking up yard space.  Some homeowners don't want to lose all the yard space that they have due to kids wanting to play, or possibly other plans that take presidence.

For those of you stuck in the midst of the downtown area and still want the beauty and fragrance of the flowers to grace your place you can purchase the aforementioned window boxes or attach similar type boxes to a rail or patio.  Below is an example of this:

Now that you have an idea of how you can utilize the space that you have, I am going to discuss some tools that will be neccessary in order for you to build and maintain your cutting garden.

You can choose between a shovel and a spade, both work in similar ways.  This mainly applies to those of you that are homeowners with a yard to work with.  A shovel or a spade will be to large for those of you choosing to do flower boxes on the side of your house.

 

 

Another tool that will help you home owners is an edger to keep a firm line between your beautiful flowers and the grass that could possibly over take your bed.  This task can also be done with a shovel or spade, but this one will work the best of any of the three.

For those of you city dwellers, this is a trowel and will serve most of your purposes for turning the potting soil and placing or removing your flowers from your flower box.

Here is the best tool to snip or cut your flowers so that you can take them and make floral arrangements with them.  Hand prunners work very well as long as you maitain a sharp edge.  As with all sharp objects, you must be careful when handling these prunners.