Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Planning A True Edible Landscape (2013)




As I was pulling the endless number of weeds in our front flowerbed last weekend, I decided that in 2013, I am going to make use of the front bed of our house.

I like maintenance free; which is why we have a couple of barrels in front of the house with perennial flowers, hostas, and some iris’ that were given to me a couple of years back.  The front flower bed is extremely simple and easy to take care of…except for the weeds!  No matter how many times I pull them each year, how much Preen I use, and how many tons of mulch we put down, the weeds keep coming back!   

In years past, I didn’t want to pull out the front bed because of how it may look.  This year, I don’t care how it will look!  In all honesty, we have 3 houses on our dead-end street and we own two of them! 

I have put my foot down (in my own mind) and plan on moving the barrels this year to another area.  I will be transplanting the hostas and iris’ as well as prepare the soil for next year.  I have big plans in my mind of planting tomatoes and green peppers in this area which gets sun from 10AM to 7PM every day.  In my dreams of eating produce throughout the year from our own garden(s), this added area will help with the production!

Rachel over at Intentionally Simple  has an edible landscape along her front pathway, and I love how it’s coming along.  Seeing her beautiful edible landscape helps to ease my mind to think that the front of the house will be booming with color of healthy greens, yellow flowers and red tomatoes next year instead of weeds!

2 comments:

  1. I've tried to come up with ways to incorporate some edibles into our front flower beds but so far my creativity has been limited to a few kale plants, and tomatoes interspersed with the hosta on the side of the house.

    By the way, the raspberries are doing great...9 out of the 11 plants have survived and some have growth on the old canes with some flower buds so we may have a few berries this year!

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    1. John, that is so exciting!!!! I am glad you may get berries this year. Next year, the canes should be in full-swing!

      The area I am thinking of making "edible" is in front of the house where the three windows are. The part to the right will be a flower garden that my gardener friend has been planning so that we have color throughout the season. When people drive up to the house, they'd see the flower garden instead of the edibles. :-)

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