Spring garden planning

Design for eye appeal
Add an esthetic touch by combining fruits and vegetables with edible herbs and flowers. Consider the following tips from Klose and Crawford.

• Take advantage of colour: team plants with contrasting colours, such as purple ruffled basil and bright gold marigolds or yellow pot marigold (calendula); or combine two plants of the same colour, such as onions with purple foliage and climbing hyacinth beans, with their purple flowers and pods. Place carrots, with their finely textured leaves, near a bold blue-green leafed cabbage.
• Use curly parsley or spicy globe basil for an attractive low border "hedge" around your bed.
• To keep roving plants such as squash or cucumbers in line, grow them on bamboo or twig trellises.
• Place straw mulch under heat-loving crops such as melons and tomatoes; this holds in warmth, smothers weeds and keeps dropped fruit clean; to keep cantaloupes and similar fruits off the ground, set them on top of overturned medium-size transplanter pots.

Ensure variety
For fresh salads bursting with flavour, try mesclun, a gourmet salad mix that includes greens such as chicory, cress and chervil and several varieties of colourful lettuce. "Mesclun mixes are expensive in the grocery store but very easy to grow and they give salads a wonderful taste and texture," says Klose.

Plant mesclun in 60 cm square blocks or even in containers. Harvest the greens when they're young (simply snip off what you need for the day's salad) and they'll regrow at least until the weather gets hot. Plant a second crop in late summer for fall salads.