Mix Fruit Veggies and Flowers in Edible Gardens

Organic edible gardens maximize productivity of earth space and lower consumption rates. Farms increase food production by the acre, yet urban edible gardens add to the nation’s food supply by the residential mile.

Cities with community gardens have often been aware not only of the human bond between the earth and the human soul, which, at the very least, amounts to a certain satisfaction but also the connection between city dwellers, suburbanites, and their food supplies. One meal picked from the garden (per week, per family) and cooked with what is already in the kitchen somehow trickles into at least a one truck reduction, delivering food from outlying areas, per eight mile area. Impressive or not, this simple fact does help reduce emissions, which cause climate change and lead to global warming – albeit slowly at the less than average per square mile rate. So why participate if global warming won’t immediately cease and the garden looks good the way it is?

The Simple, Selfish Facts of Edible Gardening

• Juicy, fresh fruit and vegetables picked off the vine have higher vitamin contents and taste delicious.
• Organically grown vegetables are higher in antioxidants than those sprayed with pesticides during their growth period which boosts immunity and health of cancer-fighting cells.
• Seed packets are inexpensive and many packets contain enough seeds for a very bountiful (almost too bountiful) harvest.
• Most edibles are easy to grow, many are indigenous, and they look good, even when mixed in among existing plants of a flower garden.

Reasons to Mix it up in the Garden

Wandering around the yard, picking strawberries which grow near the basil and onions which grow near the lavender is not the choice of every gardener, mainly because it mixes up neat, orderly connections of what goes where. For instance, kitchen cupboards are most often arranged with spices in one cupboard, pasta in the next, and tomato sauce in a third. This placement makes sense. In the garden planted in the space of a yard, a community garden, or a patio, maximum yield is sometimes denied to accommodate the idea of placement – what goes where. Edible gardening, if compared with kitchen cupboard arrangement, is like putting all ingredients for a pasta meal, the centerpiece (the flowers for the table), and the garnish in one cupboard.

Advantages of Rethinking What Goes Where

• Pest Resistance – Many herbs such as basil planted near strawberries keep slugs away, naturally, due to their scent. Marigolds also reduce the appearance of slugs near plants like lettuce, spinach, and tomatoes.
• Space Utilization – Onions planted in perennial beds with plants like lavender are attractive and basically do two jobs at once – ornamental flowers and edible vegetable. Their purple, globe blooms increase the beauty of the flower bed until their vegetables are harvested.
• Year Round Foliage – Blueberry bushes are evergreen, as are many herbs, and fruit trees. Even when not blossoming or bearing fruit, their greenery is the height and color of many azaleas (some even changing their color in the fall), and make good backdrops. The vegetable garden is typically a large space that can be surrounded by winter and year round greenery such as boxwoods.

Good Reasons to Mix it up Out in the Yard in the Dirt

1. Maximized yield of edibles enjoyed from the yard to the table.
2. Increased attraction of perennial plants and cost efficiency of double duty plantings.
3. Children learn about growing, the food supply (from farm to grocer), and about lowering consumption by growing for the family and contributing to the food supply worldwide.
4. Increased efficiency for pollinators attracted to sweet scents.

Remember, full sun is full sun – if it’s in the front yard, then a front yard vegetable, fruit, and flower garden can be as attractive as any typical shrub landscaping and much more attractive at the dinner table where flowers are at the center of a home-grown meal. Don’t forget an edible blossom for garnish – an edible gardener’s trademark.

Read about Preserving Heirloom Victorian Roses Cultivated for Cottage Gardens of the 1800s, also written by Kara Smith.