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Plant edibles in your front yard |
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Written by Niki Sullivan, McClatchy-Tribune
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Friday, 06 April 2007 |
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Shady back yards might be relaxing on hot summer days, but they won't cut it for avid vegetable gardeners.
Rather than cut down all the trees in her yard, Sue Goetz bucked convention and planted her vegetable garden in the front yard, where it gets full sun.
The catch: As a garden designer, she considers row crops boring and visually unappealing. So she built a potager, or kitchen garden, with raised beds, an arbor, fencing, a garden shed and other decorative features.
It sounds offbeat, but more and more homeowners are experimenting with ornamentals doing double-time as edibles - and vice versa.
There are even a few who go to the extreme, eschewing a front lawn entirely.
"In our gardens, the whole point is to remove all of the front lawn and replace it with an edible landscape," said Fritz Haeg, who created "Edible Estates" as part of a grand art project. Part art installation, part potager, "Edible Estates" are front yards that Haeg selects and designs (see related story for more on Haeg).
While that may be a bit extreme, that's part of the point: He wants them to "vibrate against everything else around them" so a small potager "seems not as extreme in comparison." Radical movements aside, more and more people are incorporating edibles into their landscape, according to Sue Williams, a production manager at Watson's Greenhouse in Puyallup, and Josh Kirschenbaum, who works in product development at Territorial Seed Company in Cottage Grove, Ore.
"Especially when people don't necessarily have as much space to plant a garden bed, why not plant an edible that's attractive?" Kirschenbaum said.
Goetz agrees, and finds her garden is functional and pretty.
"I put in a lot of decorative things so that when there aren't veggies it's still pretty, and when there are, it's fabulous," she said.
Last year, she grew everything from Cinderella pumpkins to lettuce, cauliflower and cabbage in her Gig Harbor yard. She arranged the plants in a design to make it visually interesting, with a bamboo-tepee bean trellis and bamboo tomato supports.
The key is "thinking outside of what you really think your veggie garden should be," she said, and evaluate the garden as much for decorative goals as for gastronomic ones.
There is one danger to an edible front yard, though: Goetz was so fond of the dramatic look of the purple cabbage that she could bring herself to eat only one of the four she planted.
But she's not so sentimental about all the plants.
"I love all the different color lettuces and use those as borders around my beds," she said. "You'll see part of the border hacked out every so often," she said, evidence of a fresh dinner.
Karin Williams doesn't just limit the edibles to the front yard of her North End home. There's thyme sprinkled throughout the flower garden, cilantro here, rosemary there and fruit trees to round it out.
"I like organic food, have since the '70s," the Master Gardener said. "I like fresh. I like the benefits that herbs provide." Williams has made a hobby of fixing up rough yards in homes she's lived in throughout the years, often taking them from a moonlike landscape to lush retreats — and she uses edibles in all of her gardens.
This year, she'll be working to improve her back yard, which has four raised beds, a small greenhouse, espaliered apple and pear trees and what will soon be a thyme lawn. She'll grow the usual suspects, along with figs, thornless blackberries and a whole host of herbs — more than 30 types of edibles in all. She'll also enjoy an edible that she doesn't have to plant — dandelion, which can be used in salads or made into wine.
When it warms up enough, she'll bring her potted orange tree out of the greenhouse and center it among the four raised garden beds.
While a whole yard full of edibles — especially annuals — might mean a bit more work, there is a silver lining: It means you get to redesign your garden every year. Even better, you'll finally have an excuse for all those dandelions in the yard.
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A DOZEN TO DIG
You can incorporate any fruits and vegetables into your decorative landscape, but here are a few favorites. The following are suggested by Sue Williams, production manager at Watson's Nursery in Puyallup.
1. Blueberries: A "good shrub with great fall color," Williams said.
2. Columnar apples: The straight up-and-down, small trees are good producers that can be kept in decorative pots or planted alongside shrubs.
3. Espaliered fruit trees: The dwarfed trees that are trained to grow on an arbor or trellis make a good natural fence line, Williams said.
4. Thyme: There are many kinds of thyme — some culinary and others decorative. The short varieties can be used as filler or lawn replacement.
5. Chamomile: The small, "ferny" leaves and white daisylike flowers can be used as a grass substitute. Bonus: It smells great when you walk on it, as does a thyme lawn. Drawback: Neither are as durable as grass, Williams said, so don't plan to play soccer on your chamomile field.
6. Grapes: The vines make a great landscaping plant, Williams said.
Especially for arbors. Ditto for peas and beans.
7. Rhubarb: The bright red stalks and broad green leaves make rhubarb a "statement plant," even if you don't like to eat it, she said.
8. Nasturtiums, pansies, dandelions and violas: The flowers are pretty and edible — perfect for any edible landscaping.
9. Strawberries: Williams said that, because the leaves stay green year round, strawberries can make a good ornamental, too, either in pots or planted alongside flowers and shrubs.
10. Hops: Goetz grows hops in her Gig Harbor garden because the fast-growing, lime green vine is beautiful and fragrant and can be used to make tea or beer.
11. New wave veggies: Whether it's broccoli with a spiked head, purple or orange cauliflower, green and white tomatoes or speckled eggplant, the "new" vegetables are as visually interesting as they are tasty. Ditto for heirloom varieties.
12. Peppers: Any pepper can be dramatic, especially the smaller varieties, which are sometimes sold as border plants, according to Josh Kirschenbaum, who works for Territorial Seed Company in product development. One of his favorites is one with variegated leaves, called "Fish."
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DO IT YOURSELF
If you're ready to transform your own garden, here are a few tips from those who have been there.
• If you like your existing landscape and plants, simply incorporate vegetables into the mix. Try a border of lettuce or some peas growing on the fence, or devote a bare corner to herbs.
• If you're starting from scratch, choose a mix of perennials (like blackberries, a cherry tree or a blueberry bush) and annuals so there will be more than bare ground during the winter, Goetz said. For the annual section, create some structure with raised beds or add details — like decorative accents — that will last year-round.
• When planting, consider colors, textures, heights and shapes of the plants. Short, colorful plants make good border material, while a larger plant might make a good anchor. Play around with some scratch paper to see what you can come up with.
• If you're worried about what a half-eaten front yard might look like, use successive planting to ensure there will always be something growing. For example, you could plant a border of lettuce, wait several weeks, then plant another row near it to act as a replacement. If you find there's a midseason hole you didn't anticipate, pick up some starts and try out something new.
• An edible front yard will probably require more work than a low-maintenance native plantscape, but think of it this way: You get to eat the former, while the latter will feed only the deer. Happy gardening!
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SO YOU WANT AN EDIBLE ESTATE?
Fritz Haeg created the Edible Estates movement as an assault against the sprawling American front lawn and the water and chemical waste that often accompanies it.
The result of his art projects are beautiful, functional and delicious front yards.
But don't expect to hire Haeg as your garden designer. And don't hold your breath to be selected for his next project.
"Each garden is really carefully considered," Haeg said. To date, he's created two Edible Estates: One in Texas, another in Lakewood, Calif. "It took me seven months" to find the Lakewood family, he said, because he's looking for the right home, family and area. The next gardens are in London and New York. "I'm using regional prototype gardens as a catalyst for people to do their own," he said. The prototypes are needed most in areas where the idea of an edible front yard is the most radical, like in suburban L.A. or Middle America.
In other words, in an area that's already granola, the art aspect of the project wouldn't make as big of a splash.
The good news is, you can be a part of "Edible Estates," the book. Haeg is releasing a book next year with profiles of people who've transformed their front yards. One person will be chosen from each of the 10 USDA hardiness zones. For details on the contest and for more information about Edible Estates, visit www.fritzhaeg.com. | Only registered users can write comments.
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