Vegetable Gardening (81 page)

Chapter 12: Growing Berries and Herbs for an Edible Landscape

In This Chapter

Growing berries and other fruits in your edible landscape

Planting, harvesting, and preserving herbs

Discovering flowers that you can eat

In previous chapters, I mostly talk about your vegetable garden as a separate entity in the yard. That setup is great, especially if you're trying to grow lots of vegetables to reduce your food costs. However, another way to grow vegetables, and any other food crops for that matter, is to integrate them into your existing landscape. This is called
edible landscaping.
The concept is simple: Instead of planting an ornamental shrub, tree, or flower, why not grow a similar, attractive vegetable, fruit, or herb that can double as a food crop?

With concerns about carbon footprints, pollution, food safety, and energy consumption, many gardeners across the country are ripping out their lawns and creating edible landscapes that are both beautiful and functional. My front yard is made up of all fruits, veggies, and herbs. I love to look at it
and
eat from it.

Many vegetables such as kale, Swiss chard, eggplant, and okra are beautiful plants in their own right. They deserve places in both the flower garden as well as the vegetable garden. Start looking at your vegetables from a different viewpoint, and you'll see the beauty of their flowers, leaves, and shapes. But why stop with veggies in an edible landscape? You may want to grow other foods as well. For example, in this chapter, I describe some favorite fruits, herbs, and edible flowers that you can grow in place of ornamentals in your yard; see Chapter 3 for a sample edible landscape design.

When substituting an edible for an ornamental, the rules of selection remain the same as with any plant: Pick an edible plant that suits the growing conditions in the yard with respect to sun, soil, and climate (see Chapter 3 for details). Also, select an edible plant that grows to the proper size for the spot. For example, instead of a burning bush grow a blueberry bush. The size and shape of the shrub are similar, and it has great fall foliage color like a burning bush. However, the blueberry yields mouthwatering fruits, too.

Sweetening Your Landscape with Berries and Fruits

Many gardeners avoid planting fruits in the yard because they think that growing them is complicated. Actually, it isn't difficult at all. If you select the right fruits and varieties for your location and climate, these plants can be low maintenance and very rewarding to grow. In the following sections, I describe several popular berry types and other unusual fruits that work well in edible landscapes.

Strawberries

Strawberry plants have a nice compact habit that fits perfectly into a raised bed like you use for vegetables. You can grow these perennials in a bed along the house, in the front of a flower garden, or in a container. They're also a fast crop that provides a delicious harvest within a year of planting. And because you should replant the plantings every few years (they develop diseases or become unproductive if you don't), you can move strawberry plants around if you want.

Space the plants 12 to 18 inches apart in full sun and keep them well watered. Strawberries spread by sending out little runners that end with new baby plants. After these young plants have formed obvious roots, usually in a few weeks, cut the runners and move these young plants around to start new beds. It's important to thin the plants so the young plants don't fill in around the older plants and crowd them (refer to Chapter 13 for details on thinning). Make sure to plant varieties adapted to your area, and mulch heavily in cold-winter areas.

While most strawberry varieties are called
June-bearing
because they bear fruit in early summer, some newer varieties are
day-neutral
or
everbearing
(they produce fruit throughout the summer). One of my favorite everbearing varieties is the alpine strawberry. These berries don't produce runners; they stay compact and bushy and produce small, sweet berries from summer until frost. They're great for eating out of hand or tossing on cereal in the morning. These small plants make excellent container plants and often are planted in a
strawberry barrel
(a container with holes on the side for growing strawberry plants).

Blueberries

I don't know why more people don't grow blueberries. What's not to like? They thrive in full sun and grow on handsome, perennial shrubs that range in height from 2 to 6 feet, depending on the type that you grow. You can choose from
low-bush
(1 to 2 feet tall),
half-high
(2 to 4 feet tall), and
high-bush
varieties (5 to 6 feet tall) that can fit into many locations in your yard. They have pretty white flowers followed by large clusters of tasty, blue fruit. Berries appear the second year after planting. The attractive green leaves turn bright shades of red, orange, and yellow before dropping in the fall. Blueberries make an excellent foundation plant grown up against the house or grouped to form a hedge between properties.

Blueberries must be grown in acidic soil (with a pH level between 4.5 and 5.5), so if you don't have that kind of soil, you need to make some adjustments. Amending your soil with a lot of peat moss and some sulfur is one easy way to lower the soil pH; see Chapter 14 for more on soil pH and amending your soil.

Plant at least two different blueberry varieties to ensure good pollination and fruit set. Variety selection is the key to success. Blueberries grow best in areas with cold winters and mild summers. In hot-summer areas of the South, grow blueberry types that are adapted to the heat, such as Southern blueberries or rabbit-eye blueberries. In cooler climates, all other blueberry types are fine to plant.

Blackberries and raspberries

If you're looking for an edible plant to double as a barrier for animals and people, grow some blackberry or raspberry brambles. Both are fast-growing, thorny plants. They grow to 6 feet tall and spread wildly from
suckers
(new shoots) off their roots. If you don't watch out, the plants can easily get out of control. However, if you train them to a sturdy trellis and are diligent about pruning them, blackberries and raspberries can be very productive, hedgelike plantings.

In the first year, most blackberry and raspberry canes (shoots) produce only leaves; they bear fruit in the second year (see Figure 12-1). Plant brambles in spring, spacing the plants 1 foot apart in rows in well-drained soil in a partly-to-mostly-sunny location. Amend the soil with compost and mulch yearly with hay or straw. Bramble roots love it cool and moist, but not too wet.