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Gardening
The Edible Yard by Judy Barrett
Originally published in "Homegrown: Good Sense Organic Gardening for Texas", May/June 2003
Editor's note: The following article lists items specifically suited to Texas climate. Before beginning your own edible yard, please check with a local grower to find plants most suitable for your area.
Once upon a time, a very wealthy person wanted to impress his neighbors. He built a big house with lots of useless ornaments and lots of unnecessary space. His neighbors were impressed but he wanted to impress them even more, so he planted his whole lawn with useless plants; lots of grass that required lots of water, fertilizer, attention, and care; lots of shrubbery that needed to be pruned, fed, and watered. None of it was of any use to anyone except bugs and the occasional critter desperate for food. This wealthy person didn't want anyone to think he needed a useful landscape. He had helpers to take care of everything; keep the grass cut and the shrubbery trimmed into the shape of balls, diamonds and obelisks.
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Then the neighbors all thought, "Oh! How wealthy he must be! How impressive! I want my lawn to look just like his." So began the "mustache system" of landscaping: expanses of grass with a mustache of shrubs around the foundation of the house. The result was lawns that require a lot of care, a lot of money in the form of water and fertilizer, while providing very little in return. These are the lawns that give gardening a bad name; that make people want to stay inside, live in a place where someone else mows the lawn or have a lawn paved with concrete or pebbles. Lawns don't have to be like that. They can be fun, productive, tasty, beautiful, challenging, fragrant, and a whole lot more. If your lawn has become a chore rather than a joy, consider making some changes. Adding edible plants to your garden will increase its interest and value many fold. Having something tasty to look forward to, new textures and colors in the garden, and the satisfaction of producing food for the family are all good reasons to create an edible garden.
There is no reason to dig up the whole yard and start from scratch. Rather, begin by adding a few edibles here and there instead of purely ornamental plants. After all, whether it is a glass of mint tea or a juicy red tomato, there is nothing more satisfying than saying "I grew it myself!" So, think about the things you enjoy eating. If you love fresh greens, add some beautiful Swiss chard in a flower bed or a container. It comes in a variety of showy and striking colors. Ruby chard is, of course, red but there are also varieties with yellow, orange, and bright pink stems. These healthy foliage plants look just as good as any ornamental foliage plant and have the added benefit of being part of dinner or lunch!
If you've been considering learning more about herbs, put a few in the garden. They don't need a special herb bed. Greek or Roman oregano can grow as a ground cover beneath roses or other shrubby plants. Mint will flourish either in full sun or shady spots. Almost any herb will grow in a flower pot or other container. Some people enjoy combining them in strawberry pots. Once you have them growing, you can experiment with them in the kitchen, in bouquets, and just enjoy the fragrances outdoors.
Although big vegetables such as corn and okra might not fit into your flower border, many others will. You can plant a pepper instead of a petunia and enjoy the healthy foliage, nice little blossoms and ripening fruit. Ornamental kale is beautiful in the garden in the winter and tastes just like non-ornamental kale. Tomatoes can be grown in big containers, hanging baskets or in the flower bed. A fence is the perfect place for vining plants, whether they are passion flowers for tea or cucumbers for pickles.
Vegetables, fruits and herbs are lovely plants. We seem to have forgotten that and relegated them to the vegetable plot hidden behind the garage. Instead of hiding them, make one a centerpiece of your garden. A big, healthy artichoke is a great looking plant and, when its beautiful fuchsia-colored flowers open, it is a striking landscape feature.
If you need a tree in your yard, consider choosing a fruit or nut tree. They provide nice shade, often have lovely flowers in the spring, and in the summer or fall offer up their bounty for you to enjoy. You can find trees in almost any size - from giant pecans that will tower above 60 feet to dwarf peaches that will stay about 5 feet. You can also grow some dwarf varieties in containers.
It is all a matter of looking at things a little differently. When you are evaluating your yard, think about what you'd like. Do you want a hedge between you and the neighbor? Instead of using privet, how about using rosemary? It smells wonderfully, tastes great, and grows without care. Many of the herbal plants also have the advantage of being repellants to deer and other pests that love to gnaw on ornamentals.
If you have children, you'll want to get them involved in the edible garden process. While pulling weeds and mowing lawns is not particularly fascinating for kids, watching a gourd grow from seed or a peach ripen on the tree can be. Let them participate in selecting the edible elements of the garden. If they are interested in the beginning, it is more likely they will continue to pay attention to the process, help out in the yard, and enjoy the rewards of a good harvest.
One of the misconceptions people often have about vegetable gardening is that it requires tilling, digging, double-digging, and, in short, lots of back-breaking labor. This simply isn't true. Vegetables like good, rich soil with plenty of humus, but so do pansies, petunias, and St. Augustine grass. If you have existing beds, you can make them more veggie-friendly by simply adding a good layer of compost and mulching consistently.
Adding nutrients to the top of the soil and foliar feeding your plants can make them all healthy and happy. Even large-scale farmers are learning that tilling exhausts the nutrients in the soil, wastes water, and uses way too much energy for the results. In your garden, you can conserve energy (your own) and water by putting down a good layer of mulch on all your beds and renewing it as it begins to break down and feed the soil.
Since you have the good sense not to use harmful chemicals in your garden, you don't have to worry about contaminating food crops. You can feed ornamentals and edibles the same things - compost, organic fertilizers and blends of nutrients. No longer do we have to worry about rose food and tomato food and daisy food! Healthy soil with healthy soil life in the form of earthworms and microorganisms will keep all your plants growing and healthy. In the early spring, when you want to get your veggies off to a quick start, you might step up your foliar feeding program a bit. Spray with an organic liquid blend every two weeks or so and all your plants will benefit.
Pests are another thing that people unduly worry about when considering growing vegetables. Sure, pests come along but no more frequently than they do on flowers. The key is vigilance. Keep an eye out for squash bugs, tomato hornworms, snails and other annoying critters. Pinch them off and drop them in a jar of soapy water or spray with insecticidal soap, garlic spray, orange oil or other organic insect control.
One of the advantages of inter-planting your edibles with other plants is that pests are much less likely to attack a diverse garden than one where all the plants are alike. If you plant basil with your tomato and rosemary with your lettuce, the bugs will be confused by the various scents and go to the next-door neighbor's yard where all the plants are just alike.
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Using herbs throughout the garden is another good trick to confuse pests. Many herbs are strongly scented and repel both large and small pests. Garlic, a beautiful plant that has big showy flowers, is a great repellant for most insects. Lemon marigold, rosemary and many other herbs deter deer from munching in the area.
Whether you are building a new landscape or sprucing up an old one, consider adding something edible to the yard. You'll find it is more fun to add oregano to your spaghetti than it is to pull weeds under the roses!
Larger Trees:
pecan, pear, apple, mulberry, persimmon, ginkgo, walnut
Smaller Trees:
peach, plum, apricot, nectarine, fig, pawpaw (in East Texas), papaya (in South Texas), jujube, rusty blackhaw viburnum, redbud
Shrubs:
rosemary, bay, blackberry, elderberry, pomegranate, althea, agarita, Mexican oregano, Mexican mint marigold, germander, Turk's cap
Vines:
squash, gourds, cucumber, grape, passion flower, peas, beans
Ground Cover:
oregano, thyme, lemon balm, mint, gotu kola
Border/Edging:
onion chives, garlic chives, parsley, prostrate rosemary, society garlic
Edible Flowers:
begonias, nasturtium, calendula, borage, rose, sunflower, Jerusalem artichoke, daylilies, dianthus, ginger, hibiscus, pansies, purslane, monarda, purple coneflower, violets
Judy Barrett is the founding editor and publisher of HOMEGROWN: Good Sense Organic Gardening for Texas. She is also the author of two gardening books--Tomatillos: A Gardener's Dream A Cook's Delight and How To Become An Organic Gardener in 7 Easy Steps. Judy is also editor and publisher of Malcolm Beck's book, The Garden-Ville Method. A long-time organic gardener, Judy writes for various regional and national gardening publications.
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