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Growing food ourselves is seeing a resurgence in popularity, at least in part due to concerns about the economy. Thanks to Greg Maynard’s vision, even Goodale Park has edible plants tucked into flower beds this year. (Have you spotted them?) If you’re not someone with an open, sunny backyard, you might not think you can grow edibles. I’d like to suggest edible landscaping or container gardening as attractive options. Edible landscaping can be done anywhere you can grow plants. It’s really just a matter of expanding the plants you consider for any particular need. Need a groundcover? Strawberry, wintergreen, thyme, and low growing mints all are quite beautiful and tasty. Well, actually that may be an exaggeration for wintergreen…but it is a pretty evergreen. It’s just that the berries tast EXACTLY like wax lips. If that doesn’t appeal to you, except for novelty, you can rest assured they won’t go to waste. Birds do enjoy eating them.
Blueberries, gooseberries, and black currants are nice shrubs with edible berrries. The picture above is Harley sitting by some of the blueberries in our front yard (yes, she is the garden trampler mentioned last month). Flower gardens can include not only herbs like sage, dill, lavendar, and most other herbs; but also carrots, raddish, celery, onion, and in some cases peppers – depending on the look you’re going for. Carrots and raddish are best harvested before they bolt (form flowers), but you can allow some to bolt in your flower garden for a lovely display, as well as seeds to save for next year.
“But I only have a balcony”, you say? Grow plants in containers. Similar to landscaping a yard, make your containers interesting by growing plants of different heights and leaf textures together. Take a page from companion planting. This is a growing concept that understands that some plants, when growing together, benefit each other by improving flavor, reducing insect damage, or improving the soil. Consider growing a tomato plant in a large pot surrounded by short rooted carrots. Do “Carrots Love Tomatoes”? You bet they do! In fact, it’s the title of one of my favorite gardening reference books. Not an easy read, but a great reference to use when you’d like ideas on what to plant. It is the most beat up of all of my gardening books, because I refer back to it regularly for inspiration. Continuing this idea, plant a broccoli plant, surrounded by onions and edged with green lettuce to create a monochromatic display of texture. Another option is to select a theme for your potted plants, like the salsa garden pot sold at Urban Gardener last year (we miss your creativity, Christie – although Concrete Jungle is a nice neighborhood addition).
There are so many possibilities for growing food. Try a few new plants this year. Even a very small harvest can be delightful both in the thrill of growing and the enjoyment of harvesting.
Some of my favorite garden reference books:
Carrots Love Tomatoes
Rodale’s Low-Maintenance Gardening Techniques
The Vegetable & Herb Expert (great pics)
The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Food Organically
I Hope this has served as inspiration, and if so, send pictures of your garden — or better yet, invite me over for a meal!
Another angle to consider: besides planting edibles, you may be able to eat your weeds that planted themselves. Garlic mustard can be used in place of spinach, for example. There are wild onions, and our gardens had a major infestation of garlic chives, yummy. Maybe you have a volunteer mulberry tree.
Or consider planting that hairy potato that’s no good for cooking anymore. Maybe you have some garlic that’s getting impatient with you and sprouting green, give it a decent burial.
Funny, the picture makes me think of the dog taking a whiz and then some on the edibles.
@JonMyers – LOL, actually, Harley is a girl, and doesn’t hike her leg, and luckily our boy seems to be catching on that peeing on the compost bin is the best choice — well, and on the fence, since there is a boy boxer next door.
@alexs I think I said something about attractive options ;) - Just ribbin’ ya. I actually love trying wild edibles and eating weeds, too. I like Jan Phillips book “Wild Edibles of Missouri”, and luckily, there are a lot of the same plants here. If they’re invasive, tho, destroy what you don’t eat, so it doesn’t make its way to my yard!
@chris – lol – I’ve seen Harley in the hood. Very cute dog.
Thanks :) She’s my baby. Lots of folks think she’s a boy, because she’s big, has a wolf-like look, and her name is Harley — so I always feel the need to clarify. Heck, Aunt Harriet just called her a “good boy”, last weekend, and she’s family (well, she’s 96, tho, so we cut her some slack if she can’t remember Harley is a girl).
Another great reference for people who want to start gardening is the “Square Foot Gardening” book. I’ve been growing stuff on my deck for a while now (tomatoes, peppers, and herbs last year), but this year I have an extra 73 square feet of gardening space by doing 4 4′x4′ boxes and one 3′x3′ box. You can really grow a lot in a small space. Plus, I forage mulberries and crabapples from existing trees, and this year I planted both a blackberry and a raspberry bush. The initial investment in materials is a little steep (who knew a 8′x6″x1″ piece of pine cost so much?), but I figure that it will be worth it if I spend less at the farmers markets this summer. So far, I’ve got 1 of the boxes done and 12 strawberry plants planted, I’ve got my tomatoes on the deck (2 Sungold Plants and one Early Girl), a dozen or so different herbs in pots, a new Wisteria by the deck so I can train it through the wood for privacy, and some lettuce and arugula in a box on the deck too.
Any suggestions on what I should grow in the remaining 52 sq. feet? Can anyone point me to resources about when to plant what and different crops you can put in the same plot during the same season?
I’ve got radishes, arugula, carrots, broccoli raab, beets, swiss chard, peas and beans in a 4×8 space – you’re pretty unlimited.
Your new beds should be cedar or redwood rather than pine – pine is normally treated with arsenic to keep it from rotting.
It’s non-treated pine – we double checked to make sure. We figured it would rot before cedar or redwood would, but figured that it would be at about the time we’d be needing to replace the soil, too. We’re going to be painting the exterior of the boxes with a flat black exterior latex paint, to help prevent unprotected exposure to the elements, and to allow the sun to naturally heat the soil from the outside and extend the growing season by maybe a week or two.
Are you doing square foot gardening or row gardening?
Whew – Didn’t want you to get sick! I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing – I planted some things in rows where it makes sense (like the root crops and climbers.) The rest is rather freeform.
hola, swampkitty. one of my favorite gardening books is this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Vegetable-Gardeners-Bible-High-Yield-Gardening/dp/1580172121
it’s not necessarily specific to small space gardening, but it tells you which plants get along with each other, and which ones don’t. it walks you through each season as to how best to prepare your beds, and each plant has its own how-to section. plus this doode is ALL ABOUT raised beds.
OSU extension has some great stuff … I’m having trouble finding the link, tho!
That looks like a really cool book. I may have to add another to my collection.
Swampkitty – I think you might be asking about succession planting. Rodale Big Book of Gardening Skills lists some specific crops for succession planting (although, at a quick glance, that Gardeners Bible looks like it might too). I googled succession planting to see if I could send you a link with specific crops, and it did come up with OSU master gardeners website: http://www.hcs.ohio-state.edu/mg/manual/veg2.htm. Johnny’s seeds also had some specific information on what to plant and when.
I also found a link at Johnny’s Seeds that has harvest times and suggestions: http://growingideas.johnnyseeds.com/2008/06/succession-planting-guide.html . Hope some of this helps :)