The Edible Garden
- Best taste, freshness and nutrition
- Chance to grow organically
- Control of food safety (pesticides, E-coli, etc)
- Wider range of varieties than in stores
- Economical and convenient
- Helps reduce global warming
- Aesthetically pleasing
- Provides independence
- Fun for kids of all ages
Local Advice for Local Gardeners
Growing your own food is tempting for many reasons, from economic to environmental – and of course the taste. It doesn’t make environmental sense to have a big lawn when you could have an edible landscape instead. It’s easy to add just one tomato plant to the flower garden, have herbs at the windowsill ready for snipping, trellis an apple against a brick wall, put a couple of dwarf citrus trees in pretty pots in the sunroom, or go all out with a full-fledged vegetable garden plot, brimming with harvests. When you grow edible plants, you are in control – of pesticides, of the varieties to choose, of picking at absolute peak of perfection.
Choose from these types of edible gardens
- Vegetable garden
- Edibles in containers
- Fruit garden
- Herb garden
- All-in-One vegetable and flower intermixing
- Windowsill edible
- Hedge, groundcover and more
Edible Gardens need:
- Soil - Well-drained, enriched with organic material. Use soil-less potting mix for containers to minimize disease.
- Light - Generally full sun is best; many leaf crops can take half day to light shade.
- Moisture - Keep moist, especially during drought.
- Fertilizer - All purpose soluble fertilizer applied monthly in growing season, twice monthly for containers.
What to Grow Where
- Full sun - The perfect place for virtually every edible - vegetable garden, fruit and nut trees/bushes, an all-in-one intermixed garden.
- Light shade - While most edibles prefer full sun, these will take less - lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, pak choi, arugula, endive, radicchio, cress, beetroot, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, rhubarb, kale, kohlrabi, turnip, mint, blueberry, tayberry, strawberry, gooseberry, currant, broad bean, parsley, mizuna.
- Flower border - Add such pretty edibles as red lettuce, herbs, parsley, bronze fennel, peppers, curly kale, yellow oregano, tricolor sage, strawberry, red cabbage, rainbow chard, endive, carrot, lemon balm, thyme, chive, lowbush blueberry, and edible flowers such as calendula, nasturtium, daylily buds, and bachelor button.
- Containers - Large pots near patio or deck are a good place for herbs, strawberry, blueberry, dwarf fruit tree, pepper, cherry tomato, rainbow chard, salad greens, bushy crab apple, fig.
- Espalier - Train dwarf and semi-dwarf apple, peach, pear, nectarine against a wall.
- Hedging - Throw out standard hedge ideas and consider berry bushes and rugosa rose (for rosehips).
- Arbor/pergola/fence - Ideal spots for many climbing and rambling edibles such as grape, bean, squash, gooseberry, raspberry, currant, hardy kiwi, sugar snap pea, maypop passionflower.
- Groundcover - Strawberry (wild and cultivated), lowbush blueberry, mint, creeping thyme and Roman chamomile provide pretty low-growing cover while also giving fruit, culinary aid, and tea.
- Indoor windowsill - Continually ready for harvest can be chives, basil, parsley, mint, thyme, dwarf tomato, sprouts.
- Year-round sunroom - Try tender edibles such as citrus (orange, lemon, etc) and dwarf fig.
- Herb garden - Perhaps organized by category: culinary, tea, medicinal.
- Shade tree - Planted on the south side of the house, these provide good shade – standard apple, chestnut, hardy pecan, American hazelnut, butternut, Black Tartarian sweet cherry.
- Windowbox - Use pretty and small edibles such as trailing tomato, red and speckled lettuce, strawberry, radish, edible flowers, parsley, round carrots, variegated thyme, trailing rosemary.
- Foundation planting - Plant bush plum (aka Nanking cherry), blueberry, currant, gooseberry, rugosa rose at the house foundation.
- Barrier - Thorned varieties of raspberry and blackberry, gooseberry, rugosa rose.
- Native plant - Elderberry, American persimmon, native plum, bush apricot, hardy mulberry, wild strawberry, highbush blueberry, cranberry, and chokecherry are all American native plants.
Terrain's Top Ten Edibles:
- Cherry Tomatoe
- Pepper
- Highbush Blueberry
- Rainbow Chard
- Bronze Fennel
- Dwarf Peach
- Meyer Lemon
- Thyme
- Grape
- Curly Kale
Did you know....Fruit and nut trees often need to be planted with more than one variety to ensure good pollination.
Written by Graham Rice