How to design a garden including edible plants.

  • Topic: Edible Gardens
  • Author: Robert W. Ross, Jr.
  • Keywords: design, edible, landscaping, Garden Design, gardens, culinary
  • Date: March 2004

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In my second year of plant design in the Landscape Architecture program at Iowa State University, I realized that my grandmother was a woman on the cutting edge in her own garden—not necessarily a small feat in a traditional Eastern Iowa farming community. No neatly organized backyard vegetable patch for her. She brought edibles and ornamentals together in all parts of her gardens, and created wonderfully exciting visual spaces as well as memorable tastes.

I remember how she planted asparagus in between her white peonies. The result, of course, was stunning with the white blossoms of the coarse textured peonies serving as foils to the finely textured and light green asparagus’s fern-like foliage.

Typically, my grandmother harvested several shoots of asparagus in the early spring for delightful meals then allowed the rest to bolt three to four feet and develop their pretty red berries. She just liked their ornamental effect. Then there were those rhubarb plants across her front yard planting beds. Not just one or two, but a whole group—perhaps 12 or 15 plants. And not in rows but in a continuous and free formed sweep. It looked almost tropical, back dropped with ornamental dark green yews.

She got a few raised eyebrows for this. But I didn’t care. I loved her garden and the picnics we’d have. I also learned early on that a well-designed ornamental landscape could have the added benefit of being a source of food as well.

Here are a few thoughts to keep in mind when exploring the idea of edible gardens:

  • Don’t be timid. Gardens are for experimenting. They are very forgiving and they don’t hold grudges.
  • Make a preliminary list of items you’d like to try in your edible garden—favorite vegetables or fruits that you and your family especially like or fruits that you might make jellies or jams from to tide you over into the colder months. Look through those seed catalogs that you’ve been receiving for the last several weeks.
  • Consider the basics: form, color and texture. Just as with ornamental planting schemes, these elements are equally important when adding edible annuals, perennials, trees or shrubs to your landscape.
  • Think through the sequence of bloom and fruiting events and contrasting color and texture strategies. Make a few simple sketches or diagrams to help explore ideas. These don’t need to be to scale or done in detail.

Using simple wooden contractor stakes and a marker, I find major elements or massings in the garden to affirm best locations a day or two ahead of planting.

  • Start thinking about edible plants as design elements, not just food sources. Get them out of the traditional rows and into bold blocks or free-formed sweeps of color.
  • The wide variety of colors and textures now available in lettuces, chards, kales and cabbages make for great visual appeal.
  • Also think about taking advantage of fences, trellises and arbors for dramatic vertical effects when planting peas, melons, tomatoes, grapes and cucumbers.

Designing an edible landscape or incorporating one into an existing ornamental design can be a rewarding experience. While you’ll probably turn a few heads with the purple Japanese eggplants tucked in among the coreopsis grandiflora in the front perennial bed, the color and texture contrast will be exceptional and the eggplant parmigiana will taste wonderful.