Landscape Vegetables: You Can Grow That!

Landscape Vegetables: You Can Grow That!

It used to be that a vegetable garden was a rectangular patch of soil in the backyard, often fenced to keep out the rabbits. Next came the popularity of the raised bed garden, and many people decided to make their rectangles smaller and raise them off the ground.  Although some still choose these styles, the range of vegetable garden designs has broken out of the backyard box!

Since growing veggies depends on full sun, and that direct sunshine isn’t always in the backyard, many now choose to grow their edibles in other locations. Here are just a few suggestions for places and ways to grow food.

1. Containers: Large pots and boxes can be placed where the sun is, whether that’s on a deck, patio, side yard or driveway. Use large containers and consider Earth Box planters that have a watering reservoir for even levels of soil moisture. Vegetable containers can be grouped or placed throughout existing gardens. Add pots of flowers around your boxes of tomatoes for a colorful collection.

2. Expand Foundation Beds: If the sunniest place you have is in the front of your house one method of growing edibles is to expand your foundation bed by about three feet. Dig up the lawn, add composted manure and turn the soil over to loosen it. Add a birdbath to dress it up and plant away! Most vegetables are quite ornamental.

3. Don’t Forget The Sides: Most side yards become passageways from the front to the backyard, but for some this is a sunny area. Long beds, raised or not, can be placed along the sides of houses with a path that runs through them.

4. Down By The Street: It’s a traditional Cape Cod look to have a small fence near the road that is planted with shrub or rambling roses. Just behind that fence you could plant a vegetable garden! Leave the roses in place is you wish, and expand the bed to three or four feet wide. Amend the soil with compost or composted manure, plant your herbs and veggies and you’ll soon be harvesting dinner!

This gardener raised the bed with large, ornamental rocks and created a vegetable garden that is modern, ornamental and a great deal of fun!

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