Flowers or vegetable gardens? Nourishment or aesthetics?
These were previously the hard decisions that gardeners had to make. But these two can easily be combined to make a garden that is both a feast for the eyes and the palate.
One of the greatest themes in landscaping nowadays is edible gardening, the practice of designing a beautiful garden that also produces an edible harvest. It’s an effective way to make the most of small spaces.
You may gather food from your yard with the help of an edible garden without feeling like you’re on a farm. Additionally, it is an excellent approach to start kids off on a diet and way of life that is truly healthy.
Getting Started
As mentioned earlier, many benefits come with planting your own fruits and vegetables. The first benefit is that your food will be fresher than what you can buy in a store and your grocery expenditures will be lower. By starting your own edible garden, you’ll also be able to choose exactly what you feed your family and enjoy spending time together.
Don’t worry if the idea of wanting to make a beautiful landscape out of edible plants makes you feel intimidated. You may be surprised to learn how simple it is to incorporate food into your ornamental landscape. The following tips and procedures will help you get started:
Step #1: Decide What Your Main Objective Is
Making an edible garden has several benefits, including cost savings on groceries; relishing the freshest produce possible; teaching children a healthy way of life; cultivating a novelty or conversation-starter garden; and improving the appearance of your yard.
Be sure to prioritize what is most important to you before designing your garden. This will assist you in selecting the most appropriate crops to plant. For instance, if you want to produce as much food as possible, you’ll probably choose differently than if you just want to give your flower bed a culinary twist.
Step #2: Examine Your Available Space
What location will you use to cultivate your garden? Which yard—the front or the back—will it be in? Maybe only in the porch planters?
If you’re planning to have your edible garden in a prominent, visible spot, you should exert extra effort to give it a pleasant impression.
Make sure that the proposed garden area has sufficient sunlight and suitable soil for the task you plan to carry out. Despite the fact that some vegetables, like lettuce, can be grown effectively in partial shade, most food plants need full light, healthy soil, and plenty of water.
If you only have limited space, don’t give up yet.
To minimize space, you may always try planting a garden in a container or creating a vertical garden. On the other hand, if your yard is large enough, adding one or more fruit or nut trees to your collection is recommended.
Step #3: Select your plants
The process of creating an edible garden is fairly similar to creating any other ornamental garden. In terms of height, form, texture, color, and growing habits, you should pick plants that contrast or complement one another. You should also position them properly so that they all work together to produce a stunning visual effect.
You need to choose how much of your space will be used for edibles. You may either go all-edible or sneak a few veggies in between flowers in different ways. As you organize your garden, take into account the following categories of edible plants and their suggested types:
Edible flowers
You might be surprised by how many edible garden flowers there are. You can use colorful flower petals and blossoms from your garden as lovely garnishes to add a special touch to any dish. Additionally, they delightfully accentuate salads, and many of them, when dried, make great herbal tea. Some flowers, like nasturtiums and daisies, have edible leaves that can add a unique flavor to a tossed salad. Some species, such as sunflowers and Jerusalem artichokes, are also well-known vegetables in and of themselves.
These flower species are safe for consumption, so think about integrating them into your yard.
- Angelica (petals)
- Bee Balm (flowers)
- Calendula (flowers)
- Dianthus or Carnations (petals)
- Daisy (leaves and petals)
- Daylily (flowers, shoots, buds, and tubers)
- Jerusalem artichoke (tubers)
- Nasturtium (leaves and flowers)
- Rugosa roses (hips and petals)
- Sunflower (sprouts and seeds)
- Viola/Pansy (leaves and flowers)
Herbs
Herbs can add color to your garden as well as flavor and excitement to your food. Try including any of the following flowering herbs in your edible garden:
- Basil – The eye-catching purple-leaved cultivar is especially well-liked as an edible ornament.
- Garlic – Hard-neck garlic produces a lovely flower stalk (scape) in the early summer that has a curlicue-like appearance and resembles small corn stalks. Before they bloom, you may cut them off and add them to soups or stir-fries.
- Chives – Purple-blooming chives are a wonderful border plant that will bring bees and butterflies to your edible garden.
- Parsley – When mixed with flowers, clumps of parsley can provide an eye-catching edging.
- Rosemary – For a fragrant accent plant, trim this woody perennial herb into a tree shape or let its bushy branches spread out naturally.
Ornamental Crops:
Common garden vegetables in a landscaped area? Of course! Many ordinary vegetables have beautiful form and color when viewed objectively, and they can really stand out as accents in the garden. Some veggies even come in decorative variations, which are really worthwhile to look for. Why not give one or more of the following a try in your garden this summer?
- Tomato – A few tomato plants are necessary for any food-producing garden to be complete. Unless you already have a trellis to train them up, choose indeterminate types that will remain manageable without confinement. The most plentiful tomatoes are cherry varieties, which also brighten the garden.
- Pepper – Ornamental peppers, with their blazing exhibitions of red, orange, yellow, and even purple colors, put on one of the most beautiful garden displays. These stunning plants look impressive in a border and thrive in container plantings.
- Squash – Squashes are excellent accent plants in your yard if you have space for them to roam. Their enormous orange blossoms can be eaten, and their sprawling leaves can set off taller flowers like cosmos, hollyhocks, or sunflowers.
- Red Cabbage – A red cabbage plant has frozen rosette-shaped leaves that resemble a huge purple rose. It looks aesthetically pleasing when combined with decorative peppers or nasturtiums.
- Kale – The popular purple or white head of ruffled leaves that resembles a flower is known as “flowering” kale, which is well-known among gardeners. However, other kale varieties can help spice up your garden, particularly in the late fall. Consider picking the almost black, strap-like foliage of dinosaur kale or the purple, oak-like leaves of Red Russian kale.
- Okra – Okra plants are a sight to behold if you’ve never seen one. This iconic Southern vegetable has sculptural qualities seen nowhere else in garden plants, including its flowers, leaves, and blooms.
Treats for You!
It’s never a bad decision to explore some new interests, like maintaining your own edible garden all year round. Naturally, having a place to plant is essential, and—believe it or not—the majority of us have some useful space, whether it’s a full backyard, a little side yard, a patio, a window box or a balcony. It’s never been simpler or more enjoyable to landscape with food, so keep those tips in mind!
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