No raised bed? Incorporate edible plants anywhere with edible gardening

Growing food at home doesn’t always mean planting a traditional raised-bed vegetable garden. If you are short on space or can’t commit to a dedicated vegetable garden, consider adding a few food-bearing plants to your ornamental garden beds this fall.

“Edible landscaping is using a plant that produces an edible product, like okra or cucumbers, but incorporating it into the garden in a more aesthetic way,” said Scott Douglas, director of Virginia Tech’s Hahn Horticulture Garden. “Anyone can try edible landscaping, from apartment-dwellers with limited patio space to homeowners with a large yard.”

To get started with edible landscaping, Douglas recommended that gardeners think of the crops they like to eat and expand from there:

• Consider the shape and habit of vegetable crops and choose ornamental plants with complimentary foliage or blooms. For example, if you want to incorporate cucumbers into a garden display, you might pair them with a plant that has finer foliage, so the leaves stand out from each other, such as boxwood or flowering plants like annual vinca or petunias.
• Look for vegetable varieties with interesting fruit or blooms. For example, many hot peppers produce vibrant, glossy fruits that look good among ornamentals.
• Pair vegetables and ornamentals that require similar conditions. You can add a cucumber to an ornamental landscape bed that gets more than six hours of sunlight, but for shadier areas, consider edible crops with lower light requirements, such as lettuce or kale.
• If you add vegetables to an ornamental planting, make sure you only apply fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides that are approved for use on edible crops.
• At this time of year, interested gardeners can still plant plenty of edible crops. Across the commonwealth, there is plenty of time to plant a fall crop of kale, peas, or lettuce — all visually appealing for use in edible landscaping. Visit Virginia’s Home Garden Planting Guide for more crop recommendations.
• Get started now. Transplant kale among your summer annuals. Choose a variety with purple leaves for added interest. 

“Try to find vegetable varieties that are still edible but have interesting fruit or blooms,” said Douglas. “In Hahn Horticulture Garden, we grew a variety of tomatoes called Midnight Snack with young fruit that looks dark black. That adds an interesting color to the garden.”

Douglas pointed out that even traditional garden crops can fit in with flowers and other decorative plants. Many vegetables have striking, beautiful foliage and flowers.

“Okra also has a nice vertical habit and beautiful flowers,” said Douglas. “It’s a great addition even if you don’t want to eat it — maybe a friend or neighbor will want some.”

Edible landscapes can also incorporate plants that are good for pollinators, such as native milkweeds or edible native species, such as serviceberry, or Amelanchier canadensis.

For expert advice and guidance customized for your garden, contact your local Virginia Cooperative Extension Office and Extension Master Gardeners. Extension Master Gardeners are trained volunteer educators dedicated to promoting research-based horticulture within their communities. They can provide necessary guidance on all kinds of horticulture projects, from planning an edible landscape to planting trees and maintaining turfgrass. Find your local Extension Master Gardeners by calling your local Extension Office.

About Douglas

Scott Douglas is director of the Virginia Tech Hahn Horticulture Garden, a 6-acre teaching and display garden in Blacksburg that serves as a campus destination and a living laboratory for students. Douglas is a landscape architect and teaches landscape design and landscape contracting in the School of Plant and Environmental Sciences.

About the Hahn Horticulture Garden

Hahn Horticulture Garden is a public garden on the Blacsburg campus. It provides experiential and service-learning opportunities for students and serves as a living laboratory for instructional faculty and staff to better serve the landscape, nursery, and public horticulture sectors. The garden is open to the public daily from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Schedule an interview

To schedule an interview, contact Margaret Ashburn in the media relations office at mkashburn@vt.edu or 540-529-0814.