We have another great article by our member, Anne Patterson, featuring excellent information on integrating vegetables and herbs into your flower garden. She explains that “plants that are both edible and attractive are called ‘edimentals’.”

Read the article to learn how you can create a garden that is not only a feast for your eyes but also puts food on your plate.

The photo above shows an ornamental flower bed with ‘Redbor’ kale (Brassica oleracea var. acephala ‘Redbor”) with purple edible foliage (photo: Albert Mondor)

For many gardeners with limited planting space, having both a flower garden and a food garden is an impossible dream. Given a choice between roses and radishes, many choose ornamentals over edibles.  Foodscaping, which combines plants that are both edible and attractive with ornamentals, eliminates the need to make a choice.

Vermont garden author Charlie Nardozz, who recently published a book on the subject, says foodscaping is a realistic response to a growing interest in food self-sufficiency.

“You don’t have to do a total yard makeover; it’s more like a touch up. Foodscaping is integrating edibles into your gardens without sacrificing beauty. It’s a great way to produce food for yourself and your community and still have the beauty and functionality you want in the landscape.”

Those with no yard space can add edimentals to hanging baskets or to containers on a sunny balcony.

Foodscaping does require planning, however: a sunny exposure is better for most vegetables, and water requirements for edimentals should be compatible with already established plants in the border.  If the leaves of bordering plants overlap and shade the soil, gardeners will save water and reduce weeding.

As with ornamentals, gardeners can choose edimentals that are annuals, or perennials, or shrubs for spots in the back, middle or edge of the garden.

Annual Edimentals

Swiss rainbow chard will bring a lovely pop of orange, pink, and yellow to the garden. It handles low moisture better than spinach, kale, or lettuce.

New Zealand spinach, scientifically known as Tetragonia tetragonioides, is a lush, leafy green vegetable native to Australia and New Zealand. It is often used as a substitute for regular spinach due to its similar flavor and texture. It thrives in warm, dry conditions and is known for its nutritional benefits. It grows around 2’ high and wide and is a good substitute for cool-weather spinach, which often bolts in unseasonably warm spring weather we encounter in Kamloops.

Peas and beans are good for growing along fences. Pole beans are more drought tolerant than bush beans.

Herbs

Chives (Allium schoenoprasum) are a fine choice in this region to plant along the edge of the garden.  This perennial produces edible leaves and flowers; the green stem is long, pencil-like, and thin, with a center that’s hollow like a straw. They grow in dense hearty clumps, and typically are one of the first herbs to pop up in the garden in spring.

Rosemary provides structure similar to ornamental shrubs and has an evergreen appearance, fragrant foliage and is drought tolerant.

Perennial Edimentals

For the back of the garden, few grasses can compete with the towering, feathery fronds of asparagus.  After producing asparagus, these fronds stay green until late in the fall. The hardy, northern varieties can easily withstand cold snaps in this area with light mulching.

Rhubarb produces large clumps of enormous leaves up to 2’ across.  It is a statement plant which withstands cold and drought well.  The leaves are poisonous. Late in the season a large stalk appears bearing small greenish white flowers.

Container Foodscaping

Image: Jacky Parker

Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) is an easy veggie to grow in containers. Allowing for the high water content of many varieties, particularly those for cut and come again culture, it’s important to use a potting mix and container with excellent drainage – and to water regularly, especially on sunny days. Lettuces grow best in fertile soil that holds moderate moisture. Use the largest container you can manage.

For more information on edible landscaping, go to:  ediblelandscaping.pdf