Beautiful Vegie Gardens

We all love growing our own vegetables, and it seems the more food plants we grow the more we want to grow. Increasingly the garden gets taken over by edibles. This is a good thing, and we can start to mix our edibles and ornamentals, creating a rich tapestry full of plants with multiple purposes, which uses space wisely and makes for a rich and interesting garden. 

The idea of bringing edible and ornamental gardening together certainly is not a new concept. The French have been doing it in their potagers (vegetable gardens) for centuries, providing beauty and bounty in the form of flowers, vege­tables, fruits, and herbs. 

When gardening this way, you can live a little on the wild side. You don’t have to plant in rows or keep varieties together. Mix things up and experiment with height and forms. You can play with colour using many of the heirloom vegetables like you would ornamentals. Colourful silverbeet, purple cabbages, assorted coloured leafy greens, beetroot foliage, fruiting vegetables, can all be used in creative ways to turn your edible garden into a masterpiece.

Structures can be used to enhance the overall look - attractive enclosures, ornate and rustic climbing frames, scarecrows, and garden art can be fun to experiment with. 

Edible flowers are essential for brightening up the vegie patch. They are so good in other ways too - calendulas support the microflora in the soil, marigolds deter root-eating nematodes and nasturtium, cornflower and borage attracts bees and other beneficial insects. 

There are so many herbs that can be grown for their ornamental value alone such as thyme with its fine foliage and tiny flower clusters, sage which is a handsome plant with tall purple flower spikes and marjoram and oregano which are both perfect used as a ground cover. Annual herbs like parsley, dill and coriander add pops of green and you could add perennials used in apothecary gardens such as lavender, White Sage, Echinacea, and yarrow, which are gorgeous and medicinal. 

Ornamentals can be added to the mix simply for their beauty. They will add to the diversity of your garden creating a healthy ecosystem. By increasing biodiversity, they also support integrated pest management, supporting pest predators and providing a natural nutrient cycling system to enhance soil. 

In these edible/ornamental gardens, you are creating a healthy environment that encourages birds, pollinators, and insect predators, forming an ecosystem that works and grows beautifully together.