This is the fifth of seven Field Notes articles by John Marek focusing on sustainable living, community agriculture and food security. These “Summer of Sustainability” columns feature practical advice on growing, harvesting and preserving your own foods, as well as more philosophical essays on life and how we live in the modern world.
One of the many quirks of the “little house on the highway,” my attempt at sustainable rural living in my 20s, was its placement on the lot. The house was built dead-center on the one-acre property, effectively making the front half-acre a lawn. While there were a couple of trees and a small flower bed skirting the sidewalk, the vast majority of that half-acre was grass, or a combination of grass and whatever weed happened to be thriving that year. It was a constant headache, a black hole of labor and resources, and marginally attractive on its best day.
Everything is clearer with the benefit of hindsight, but knowing what I know now, I have a pretty good idea of how I should have used that space; I should have planted it in edible landscaping.
For some, the idea of edible landscaping evokes awful images of suburban lawns with corn and soybeans next to a Lexus SUV. The reality is a well-designed and adequately maintained edible landscape will barely be noticeable to the neighbors and will not violate the rules and regulations of most suburban homeowner associations.
As with any gardening project, planning and educating yourself on the subject are vital. It is also essential to understand that you do not have to do it all at once. An edible landscape plan can be implemented over a number of years, swapping out ornamentals and building new beds as time and funds permit. That’s what I’ve been doing at my suburban homestead, from cultivating ground cover beds in strawberries to planting dwarf apple trees to bordering my driveway in lavender.
There are several online resources to help you plan your edible landscape. I recommend you start at ediblelandscaping.com. In addition to selling the appropriate plants, they offer workshops and a Facebook page devoted to the topic. If you prefer books to websites, “Your Edible Yard: Landscaping with Fruits and Vegetables” by Crystal Stevens is chock full of helpful advice.
From my own experience, I can offer a few simple, low-cost ways to get started with edible landscaping:
- Some flowers, like hibiscus, nasturtium, rose and pansy, more typically grown for their appearance, are edible and add an unusual, even exotic, flare to salads, soups, and even baked goods.
- Dandelion, that scourge of suburban lawns, is edible. Both the flower (before it goes to seed) and the leaves can be used in salads, and the leaves can be sautéed for a light spinach-like side dish. Having said that, I do not recommend you begin cultivating dandelion in your lawn, lest your neighbors show up one night with torches and pitchforks.
- Rosemary and lavender grow as evergreen shrubs and can capably take the place of the indelible hollies and boxwoods commonly used as foundation plants. From a practical standpoint, a single full-size bush will provide more rosemary than even the most die-hard home chef can use, but it is still nice to know you can walk out the front door, snip, and add a dash of flavor to your cooking.
- For an even more edible “flower” bed, consider Swiss chard. A warm-weather plant that produces prolifically in the summer heat, it doesn’t bloom, but the stalks of some varieties are brightly colored, creating the same effect. The entire stem and leaves are edible and can be used like spinach in recipes.
- Chives are an allium related to onions and garlic, but unlike those plants, chives do not need to be dug up, so they are better suited to edible landscaping. They also spread quickly in small clumps, making an attractive ground cover. The stems are used like green onions, but the tiny purple, pink or white flowers have an even more distinctive flavor. A handful added to a salad will imbue it with a distinctive garlic-onion taste, but my favorite way of using them is to add a few to a jar of apple cider vinegar. After a few weeks, the vinegar will be infused with that subtle flavor and can be used for cooking or making salad dressing.
- Blueberry bushes are another great alternative to shrubs that accept pruning to shape well. Dwarf varieties like Top Hat make excellent low borders. Eversweet, Elan and Ruby Ann strawberries have a strong trailing habit and make attractive hanging baskets. I have two on a pole adjacent to my deck and just reach over and pick a handful to enjoy with my morning cereal.
- Any gardener who has ever “experienced” mint will tell you that the issue isn’t so much getting it to spread as it is controlling that spread. Unchecked, a single mint plant will quickly take over a flower bed, and it can be extremely difficult to get rid of once established, so it needs to be planted with caution, but it can be a good choice as cover in discrete areas where other plants are difficult to grow, so long as the site is well-drained and gets at least six hours of sunlight.
This is not an exhaustive list. Everything from peppers to pole beans can be part of an edible landscape. The only boundaries are your creativity and the specific limitations – sunlight, soil, drainage, etc. – of your growing space.