When people think of gardens that you can harvest, they typically think of a vegetable garden arranged in neat rows. But there is no reason that you can’t incorporate edible plants into a beautiful landscape bed, or design vegetable gardens that look like an ornamental landscape.
Edible landscaping, or “foodscaping,” combines the best parts of ornamental landscaping and vegetable gardening. This type of garden design can be particularly good for homeowners with small yards, or those who want a unifying theme throughout their yard instead of separate vegetable gardens and landscape beds. If you live in an area with an HOA that prohibits traditional vegetable gardens, edible landscaping can be a way to grow vegetables in your yard without violating that rule.
Planning the Design
If you’re starting with a yard that isn’t already landscaped or you plan to re-do the entire yard design, you’ll have a lot of freedom with your edible landscape. You can also incorporate edible landscaping into existing designs by carefully replacing some ornamental plants with edible ones and expanding the landscape beds.
When incorporating edible landscaping into your yard, design is one of the most important things to consider. As with other landscape designs, plan for year-round interest. Take note of bloom time, the attractiveness of foliage, and what the plant looks like over winter. For the edible plants, you’ll also want to consider what the fruit looks like and what the plant will look like after you harvest it.
Having strong hardscape elements in the landscape can help make a wide variety of plants look like a uniform design. Strong lines from fences, arbors, and gates will help balance designs. Neat paths and stepping stones can also help unify the landscape and create a finished look.
Preparing to Plant the Garden
Before planting, make note of the sunlight levels in your garden. Most edible plants, including most vegetables and fruits, prefer full sun. Leafy greens, brassicas (like broccoli and cabbage), some herbs, and some root vegetables can grow in part sun. Even sun-loving plants that like cool weather benefit from shade during the heat of the day. Carefully plan where you’ll put each edible or ornamental plant to ensure they’re getting the amount of sunlight they need.
You’ll also want to think about access to the plants you’re going to harvest. Some plants, like tomatoes, will have newly ripe fruit almost every day once they start producing. You’ll want them somewhere that’s easy to reach. Most vegetables are also annuals, meaning you’ll need to replant them every year. It might work best to keep them near the front of landscape beds so they’re easy to replace each year. Perennial vegetables, fruit trees, and fruit bushes won’t need to be as easily accessible.
Like most ornamental plants, vegetables enjoy nutrient-rich soil. If you have established landscape beds, all you’ll need to do to get ready for adding edible plants to the landscape is mix in some compost. When you’re starting from scratch, prepare the soil for edible landscapes like any new garden bed.
Trees and Foundation Plantings
You can combine ornamental and edible plants in a variety of ways. In an ornamental garden, trees, shrubs, and perennials form the foundation of the garden design. These plants come back year after year. You can do the same thing in an edible landscape.
Planting fruit trees is a good way to start edible landscaping, and they can form a large part of your design. Peach, plum, apple, and some of the hardier figs and citrus all make good choices. If space is limited, you can train the trees as espaliers or plant columnar varieties. Plant new trees in the winter while they are dormant to minimize transplant shock.
If you want to replace some of the ornamental shrubs and perennials with edible plants, you’ll have a lot of options. Many berry bushes do better in cool climates, but you can find blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries adapted to the warmer Texas weather. Just make sure you check the USDA hardiness zone for the specific varieties of plants you’re looking at.
Asparagus and artichoke are two of the perennial vegetables that are hardy in USDA Zone 8 (that’s where we are in the Dallas-Fort Worth area). Many herbs also fall into the category of perennial edible plants. This includes chives, lavender, rosemary, sage, thyme, and many more.
Vegetables and Flowers
In Texas, you can plant cool-weather greens like lettuce and spinach in late winter or early spring in the same borders with crocus and other spring flowering bulbs. Herbs are also a good choice for the edible landscape. Many of them have attractive foliage, and their scent can help spice up the garden, especially if you plant them in borders where you’re more likely to brush against the leaves.
Climbing vegetables, like vining varieties of peas, tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, melon, and squash, can be trained up trellises alongside clematis and trumpet vines. Peppers work well in flower borders. You can grow marigolds with tomatoes, with the added benefit that French marigolds help repel white flies and nematodes that can damage tomato plants. Garlic, chives, lavender, nasturtium, and daylilies all produce edible and attractive flowers.
Edible landscaping is a great idea for Texas gardeners who want to make the most of limited space or have more visually appealing vegetable gardens. Incorporating vegetables and ornamental plants in the same garden can create a pleasing design, provide an interesting new project for gardeners, and help your family save money on groceries.
