Sustainable Edible Garden Design

Created on 9/6/2009

It’s true- kitchen gardens are not low maintenance gardens. Edible gardens require soil and bed preparation, annual planting, weeding, watering and harvesting. A bountiful vegetable garden requires intensive commitment. A lush green lawn free of every kind of weed also requires intensive commitment. I prefer to devote my energy to producing something to nibble on or flowers to cut than a perfect flat boring expansive greenness. A kitchen garden that is well designed and blends seamlessly with your property is a tremendous source of joy so grab your shovel and dig up your lawn. But do it in a way that makes sense.

Use trees, flowering and edible shrubs to create the boundary of the garden. These large plants will form the visual space of the garden. Large shrubs can provide some privacy too. They can be placed in such a way to create mystery so all the garden is not revealed at once. This is important if your new kitchen garden is going in your front yard and you want to screen some of the garden from the full view of your neighbors.

Use annuals, perennials and small flowering shrubs near the vegetable garden to attract beneficial insects and add fragrance and beauty. The flower nectar will attract either pollinators like bees and hummingbirds or insects that attack the bad bugs like aphids. Flowers and flowering shrubs can be cut so the dazzling delights of the garden are brought indoors and plopped in vases. In my late summer garden as I harvest beans, tomatoes and okra, I am also picking bouquets of perennial sunflowers, asters and zinnias for the table.

Use edible ground covers for the lowest layer of planting. Strawberries can be planted beneath fruit trees and flowering shrubs in spots where they will receive full sun. Fiddlehead ferns, ramps, and wintergreen can be planted in shady parts of the garden.

The photo shows part of a garden I designed that incorporates layers of trees, shrubs perennials and annuals for a sensible and beautiful useful garden. We used ornamental trees and large shrubs to create the form of the garden. We put the kitchen garden in a special place near the kitchen door and surrounded it with currant shrubs and perennial herbs. Every level, from the high canopy to the mid shrub layer and low ground plane was used to incorporate edible, useful or flowering plants.