There are many reasons to add edible plants to the garden and just as many ways to go about it. In my garden I don’t have a dedicated space for the vegetable garden. Everything is all thrown in together with coneflowers sticking out between zucchinis. I don’t set aside bed space for vegetables because there is already not enough space for all the native plants I want to grow. A grocery store variety plant has to be pretty special to earn a spot in my garden.
There are many plants that just taste better when they are homegrown. For me, those plants are strawberries and Cherokee purple tomatoes. Strawberries are the symbol of spring and I love to go out each morning and hunt for them. Store bought tomatoes just lack a lot of flavor that can be achieved with home grown, and in my opinion Cherokee purple is the tastiest so I find a space to incorporate a few tomato plants each year. Tomatoes are usually snuck in around the edge of the compost pile where they like the rich soil. Strawberries have become a ground cover around the blue wild indigo.
Every year my garden has problem areas. Sometimes an area will get so weedy that it is better to just start over. I take advantage of these retired spaces to grow crops that must be dug. Carrots and sweet potatoes are easy to grow and attractive together. Homegrown carrots are funny looking but taste better then store bought. The easiest plant to grow is garlic. Garlic is planted in fall and harvested in summer leaving space for a fall planting. Growing an edible crop as a cover crop gives me a full year to get the weeds under control and come up with a well though out plan for the new garden bed.
Some garden produce in my garden are plants that I always forget to buy at the store and only need a little anyway like cilantro, parsley, basil, arugula, swisschard, and kale. Instead of buying a big bunch at the store that slowly rots in my house homegrown lasts longer when I only take what I need at the moment and leave the rest growing for another day. Many people also grow lettuces for this reason but I have never had luck with lettuce because I’m a neglectful waterer. The herbs are sown in a small empty space between perennials and then left to fend for themselves until they are needed for my kitchen table. Often my cilantro goes to seed and reseeds itself in other areas. Parsley and kale are somewhat winter hardy, I’m still harvesting from mine well into December. When harvesting parsley always check for stripy parsley swallowtail caterpillars which can be transferred to the golden Alexander.
Another way to sneak tasty plants into the garden is to grow trailing vines like pumpkin and watermelon. The plants wander around the garden seeking out sunlight between flowers. They can also be directed to grow along the border of the garden which can look decorative. When growing vines this way finding the fruit can be a challenge. It is always a surprise when the garden starts to die back in the fall, and surprise, there is a big beautiful orange pumpkin!
I’m a big fan of growing garden snacks, tasty treats to eat while out enjoying the garden. The cherry tomato is my favorite garden snack on a hot summer day so I place a few to ramble between the taller plants. I’m a big fan of the radish. Radish are great plants for helping with soil fertility and composting. The normally eaten part of the radish is not my favorite part, it is the seed pods. I allow the radish to bloom (edible) and then go to seed (also edible). The pea like pods are spicy crunchy treats that are great for adding spice to time spent weeding.
Native shrubs can also be tasty and should never be short changed when it comes to snacking. My favorite fruit to eat are viburnum, serviceberry, and plum. The seed to fruit ratio is not ideal so it is nice to eat them right in the garden and spit the seeds on the ground. I also like to snack on hazelnut but that requires a little processing before eating. The sunchoke, Jerusalem artichoke, also makes for great snacking after processing. Sunchoke tends to form large colonies that need to be reigned in. I dig out the roots around the edge of the colony and bake them up like potato chips, delicious.
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