Edible Landscape

With the increased interest in vegetable gardening consider landscaping with attractive edible plants today on Southern Gardening.  

In recent years growers have been introducing a dizzying array of vegetables that are at home in the landscape as well as the vegetable garden.  Leaves, stems and fruit that are as beautiful as edible.

One of the first landscape worthy vegetables to be introduced was ‘Bright Lights’ Swiss chard.  With stems of gold, orange, yellow and red this is an outstanding plant for a border planting. The leaves have a mild taste when harvested as baby greens and is a stir fry favorite when mature.  Do not cut at ground level to encourage continued leave growth.

Everyone loves eggplant and a dynamic duo for the landscape are ‘Hansel’ and ‘Gretel’ eggplant.  Gretel is pure white and Hansel is dark purple. Both are superb when picked at 3 to 4 inches. The plants are heavy bearing and the fruit are borne in clusters of up to six fruit.  Or try Kermit a small round green with white shoulders eggplant.

Another plant that is attractive in both the vegetable and flower garden is is the Mississippi Medallion winner ‘Purple ruffles’ basil.  The deep purple leaves are very fragrant. The plant will have a mature size of 24 inches high and 24 inches wide. Uses include fresh garnish, color in salads when as baby greens, and a new culinary twist with red pesto.  Purple Ruffles is a winner in the landscape when companion planted with another Mississippi Medallion plant Port Gibson Pink’ verbena.

These are easy to grow in the landscape and taste even better.  I am horticulturist Gary Bachman for Southern Gardening.