Adding Ornamental Edibles to Your Landscape

The beautiful fall orange color of a blackberry cane is decidedly ornamental.

I have always had an eye toward growing my own food.  Maybe it is because my dad is a farmer.  I know where food comes from; someone has to grow it.  Maybe it is because I live in a food desert of a sort; because I live in an agricultural area, unless you grow it, it is terribly expensive, or not to be had unless you find something that is damaged falling off a truck.  Maybe I am just too cheap to buy it because I can grow it.

The decorative aspect of the savoy type cabbage which was grown in a large pot along with a canna and crocosimia  (non-edibles) is hard to deny.  As I only eat a cabbage or two a year, growing a couple in a pot is ideal.

I don't know, but I have always tried to incorporate as many edibles into my landscape as possible.

Waushara County Fair 2012 Vegetable Round Up

(This is the Open Class winner for best garden box.)

Each year I go to the county fair and take special note of those vegetables which the judges award blue ribbons.

Last year, 'Celebrity' tomatoes were hands down the big winner in a wet and cool summer. This year, nary a single plate of 'Celebrity' showed up. I think I know why. They may like it cool and wet, but in hot dry conditions they are subject to cracking shoulders and blossom end rot. Oh, I know the blossom end rot thing has to do with seedling's tiny root hairs drying out and thus limiting the uptake of calcium; however, I feel some tomatoes are just prone to that. Meanwhile, in the family garden, the heirloom 'Olpaka' keeps on keeping on. This is the bread and butter, the meat and potatoes, of all our summer sauces, salsas, and sun-dried tomatoes. It is a Roma-style tomato and has done well in hot (that should be underscored and bolded) and dry years. And, last year while we prepared to be swept away by flood did equally as well.

This year's red tomato county fair winner was 'Big Beef'.

I try and make special note of any winners of vegetable I don't grow that maybe I should or vegetable varieties which I seem to have a hard time growing. Onions is one of these I can't seem to get to any size, no matter how much research into day length varieties I do and best onions for our area. It seems the winners jump around from year to year, too.

This year the blue ribbon in Open Class went to 'Savannah Sweet', a short day variety. Now, I'm clueless, because supposedly we are supposed to be growing long day varieties here in central Wisconsin.

I entered the summer squash category and mine got 4th. Getting a ribbon of any type in Open Class is all good. The winner and I both grew the same variety to the same size, but mine growing where I grow them, always have these bumps, obviously the winner should not.

This is one entry that totally amazed me. I didn't think 'Hungarian Wax' peppers turned red.

This year, was, I think, a poor year for sweet corn.



The winner was 'Ambrosia'.

There was no amaranth or edamame on display. No one entered any blue potatoes, which have done so well for us in the family garden, as to make my brother comment we should skip the white potatoes because of their attraction for the Colorado potato beetles, versus the blue ones which were nearly pest free in our non-pesticidal, no Spinosad garden.

No one ventured too far outside the "garden box" to enter golden beets or seedless grapes (We grow 'Reliance'.)

The two grand champions of the vegetables this year were a humongous watermelon and in a year where I have heard garlic did poorly from many people, this plate of garlic.



Tomorrow, I review what was in those garden boxes; what is supposedly the best variety and specimens your garden has to offer.

Winter Sowing: Onions

Onion seeds sprouted and growing n the potager. Still green, although the ground is nearly frozen.


I'm not sure what it is all about, but my attempts at growing onions is a bit like thinking you can put your money in a savings account these days and have the interest grow your money into something worth talking about. My onions, like money in a savings account, result in onions little bigger than the onion sets with which I begin.

Always willing to try something new, I've decided to plant my onion seed in the fall, following the idea that I plant garlic cloves in the fall and that onions I fail to harvest seem fine in the spring.

Last January, I thought to plant the appropriate long day length onions starting them from seed under lights. I also started leeks. The generic sets available here are simply white, yellow, or red-- no stated day length. I thought starting my own sets might be the answer. The onions I choose were a flattish red onion and got to the appropriate size, which is to say about 1 1/2" in diameter. The leeks, I am told were harvested and eaten on a regular basis by my brother, although I didn't get any from the family garden.

So while I seem to plant quite a few, my harvest of onions seems less than I would expect. So I will dream of nice spring onions. I planted 3 rows each about 8 feet long.

I have also left some late beets and carrots in the ground with the same expectations, that I will have tender young things early in the spring for salads. My celery never amounted to much although I did dry some of the tops for additions to pizza and soups.




I've started thinking about getting some microgreens growing under lights. I have some basil cuttings I have in glasses of water that have rooted and should think about planting, too.

What herb talks about fresh more than basil?

UPDATE: Although we had an incredibly mild winter, the beets and onions were nowhere to be seen. That's a first for me with carrots; so I have to wonder if a vole, mole or some other creature didn't reap the benefits from my work. Also very few of the onions survived to the next spring. I did, however, miss one of the pitiful leeks I harvested in 2011 and harvested it at the perfect size in September 2012 to make a WONDERFUL leek, red potato, and sweet red pepper soup.