Thinking about Design at the End of the Season

First and foremost I am not a landscape designer. Having admitted that I trust you will take the following suggestions with a grain of salt. I have a background in scenery and graphic design, so I have a pretty good sense of design concepts. Many of these apply to most areas of design, from theater to web design, landscapes to interiors (although looking around my office you'd never know it). I don't mean to step on the toes of any landscape designers with this post, so I will tread carefully.

I approached the design of the Edible Landscape from the position of a homeowner who has some sense of colors, forms and textures and how they work together. But of course it can't stop there when designing with plants. I also spent a lot of time in choosing my plants based on plants I like to eat; their size, color and habit; their required growing conditions; bloom time; and so on. Chances are, if you're planning to plant a few edibles here and there in your garden you're not going to hire a landscape designer. But you will want those plants to look as good as they can. Afterall, that's the whole point of this edible landscaping thing, right? Early on in this blog, I provided a few pointers, and recommended some books for guidelines and inspiration when planning and designing your edible landscape. These will help you if you are starting from scratch, or if you just want to add a few things here and there in your existing landscape. Click on the keywords "design" and "planning" on the right to find these posts.

Now that we're getting near the end of the season I've been mulling over the choices I made and spending time in the garden determining which choices worked and which didn't work so well. In the next few posts, I'm going to describe some of these along with photos and simple sketches of plant combinations.

To start out, here's a list of some things that worked well in the Edible Landscape this year:

• Lavender interplanted with garlic chives: textures worked well together (spikes of lavender among the umbels of the garlic chive), great fragrances, nice colors, lots of bees!
• Lavender on the edge or corner of a bed means that every time you brush past it the air is filled with wonderful fragrance!
  
• Alyssum interplanted with thyme: alternating clumps of each made for a fragrant and attractive border.
• Various basils planted in masses behind chives. This looked really neat, the spikey chives along the edge of the bed were backed by tall and sturdy basil. I liked the contrasting textures.
• Mint in pots scattered through the garden worked great. Added a little structure and height, and kept the mint from becoming invasive. Pots placed strategically in the garden can add a really nice touch. Look for interesting shapes and colors.
• Mizuna mustard was great as a border. It's fringy leaves arched over the edge of the bed, softening it with an exotic touch.
• Peppers, sage, and small-flowered trailing petunias made a great combo. I liked the contrast of the cool silver sage in front of the dark green shiny leaves and fruits of the pepper. The petunias rambled among the sage and peppers, and the coral color I used really popped.
• Parsley made a great, hearty border interplanted with dark blue petunias. The parsley gets really dense and the petunias pop their blossoms up through, which looks really striking.
• Strawberries planted under eggplant. The strawberries will be done fruiting by the time the eggplant gets big and bushy. When it's eggplant's time to shine, the strawberry plants send their runners out and create a lush carpet underneath.

There's a lot more that I'll add over the next few days, but now for a few things that didn't work as I used them...

• Nasturtium and peppers. Depending on what type of Nasturtium you plant, it may end up dwarfing the peppers and trying to knock them down. That's what it did here. The plants didn't look that great together either.
• Borage. Ok, more specifically TONS of borage. I went a little crazy with the borage because it was new to me. I planted it in masses in the center of beds, and didn't thin very much. It was great early in the season. 1-2 foot tall mounds of the fuzzy stems put forth beautiful blue flowers which attracted bees like crazy. But by late-July the plants were so tall and heavy they flopped over all their neighbors. Borage is really nice, but use it in moderation and along with very sturdy plants.
• Sunflowers should be kept in the back of a planting where they'll be appreciated for their height. I scattered them in masses among squash vines in a star-shaped bed with a giant sculpture in the middle of it. It didn't work so well. Keep 'em in the back where they can peek their showy heads over all the other garden residents.
  

There'll be more ideas coming in the following days and weeks.

Native Plants in the Edible Landscape

So you've been intrigued by the idea of using edibles in your home landscape. But you're conflicted because you are a savvy, modern gardener and know the benefits of using native plants in the home landscape. (Check out this UM Extension bulletin if you need a refresher.) Well, who's to say you can't do both? Native perennials intermixed with fruits, vegetables and annuals can add a lot to the Edible Landscape:

• First, of course, they are well-suited to your particular location, if you've chosen plants properly.
• They have few insect or disease problems.
  
• They improve soil organic matter and soil structure.
• They can help reduce/prevent runoff and erosion.
  
• They generally require little maintenance.
  
• They attract beneficial insects and provide food and shelter for birds and other small creatures.
  
• They provide a reliable, permanent foundation for the garden.
• They offer long-lasting color.
• Lots of textures, heights and forms to choose from.

There are a few native plants in the edible landscape including Echinacea, Monarda and Rudbeckia, and I hope to incorporate more as the project progresses.

The Minnesota DNR is a great resource for Minnesota gardeners interested in working native plants into the landscape. There's also a nice book titled Landscaping with Native Plants of Minnesota by Lynn Steiner, in which you may find inspiration and information about many of the species native to the state. Here are a few other UM Extension sites that may be helpful:

• Common Questions about Wildflowers and Native Plants
• Plants in Prairie Communities
• Establishing and Maintaining a Prairie Garden
  

Navigating the Sea of Gardening Information

The web is a great resource for information on gardening. It can become overwhelming however when you start searching for planting guides, pest and disease information and so on. It is important to remember that just because you find it online doesn't make it true. It is best, when seeking such information online, to look for sites owned by universities and extension services. The information they provide is based on research and is the most reliable. It is also usually best to find information from a university in your region, because climate and zone can make a big difference when it comes to garden advice. A great resource is www.extension.org. It is a cooperative extension system, bringing together extension information from land grant universities across the country. One of the great features is that the system will automatically determine which is your closest extension service, and connect you to information relevant to your region. Be sure to check it out.

The Numbers Are In

After entering all the harvest data from the last month, here's the grand total to date with a few totals from individual crops.

Total harvest from the Edible Landscape: 388 pounds
Chard: 79 pounds
Zucchini (1 plant): 38 pounds
Lettuces: 33 pounds
Eggplant (7 plants): 46 pounds
Tomato (5 plants): 28 pounds
Cucumber (2 plants): 26 pounds
Carrots: 23 pounds
Peppers (8 plants): 24 pounds

We're still harvesting lots of eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, chard, zucchini, yellow squash and herbs. And as the days grow cooler we'll be harvesting winter squash, kale, radishes, beets and more lettuces.

Raspberries!

Last week I harvested the first of the raspberries...15 to be exact. They were beautiful and delicious! From the looks of the plants there will be a lot more to harvest in the coming days. There are two varieties of raspberries in the Edible Landscape this year, Autumn Britten and Caroline, both primocane bearing raspberries. More about that in a minute. According to U of M variety trials, Autumn Britten is a fairly hardy, early season variety with good productivity. It produces large, attractive, firm fruit with excellent flavor that freezes well. Caroline is a later variety which is also fairly hardy. It is a good producer of large, attractive, relatively firm fruit with very good flavor that freezes well. There are many other varieties that can be grown in Minnesota, and the U of M conducts variety trials on these and many other fruits. The results of these trials, and a wealth of other information can be found on the U of M Commercial Fruit website.

Now, Raspberries 101. There are two main types of raspberry plants: "floricane-bearing" (aka. "summer-bearing") and "primocane-bearing" (aka. "ever-bearing" or "fall-bearing"). Floricane-bearing raspberries have fruit only on the second-year canes. This means the canes grow only vegetatively for the first year. In the second year, these canes produce flowers which then become fruit in the summer. These canes then die. Primocane-bearing raspberries can produce fruit on the first-year canes as well as on second year canes. Fruit on the first year canes will be ready in the fall, after the second-year canes have finished up their summer crop...hence "ever-bearing". Make sense? If not, keep reading and you'll be directed to some helpful links.

You have to be a little careful when growing fall-bearing raspberries in Minnesota because our occasional early frosts can wipe out an entire crop. However, if you prune them correctly, you can get a nice harvest in summer and another in fall, hopefully before the frost hits. Pruning is essential to maintaining a controlled raspberry patch, especially in an edible landscape. Trellising will also help keep raspberries under control. Be creative with trellising and it will even add an ornamental aspect to your landscape. However, if the natural, rambling, thickety raspberry patch is your thing, by no means let me dissuade you. Except for this one thing...you might be inclined to pick a lot more if they're easy to access and relatively tidy. With that said, raspberries are a wonderful treat in the edible landscape, offering height, texture and color to your design in addition to all that delicious fruit! Click here to learn How to Grow Raspberries in the Home Garden.

Other helpful tips on growing raspberries and using them in the landscape can be found at the following links:
Raspberries in the Home Garden (Cornell Univ.)
Raspberry Diseases (U of M Extension)
Raspberry Insect Pests (U of M Extension)
Small Fruits for the Home Landscape (Colo. State Univ.)


Books:
Landscaping with Fruit by Lee Reich
The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping by Rosalind Creasy
All in One Garden by Graham Rice

Wondering when it's the right time to pick those tomatoes? Peppers? Winter squash? Here's a link to a series of articles that may help take the mystery out of harvest time.

Harvest Time

This week we will be harvesting lots of good stuff from the Edible Landscape. Here's a list:

• Eggplant (4 varieties)
• Zucchini
• Yellow crookneck squash
• Peppers (5 varieties)
• Tomatoes (4 varieties)
• Chard (tons!)
• Mizuna mustard greens
• Raspberries
• Cucumbers
• Okra
• Onions
• Basil (3 varieties)
  
• Mint
• Chives and garlic chives
  
• Sage
• Thyme
  
• Oregano
• Rosemary

Plus many colorful and fragrant flowers to liven up the kitchen table.

Videos from the Edible Landscape

Here's a short video of a very hungry grasshopper.

Powdery Mildew Arrives

It has happened. Powdery Mildew (PM) has come to the Edible Landscape. Thankfully we have many resistant varieties in the edible landscape, so plants such as petunias and zinnias (which are commonly susceptible) have gone unharmed. The trouble is primarily with the squash. The winter squash and melons have it the worst. Zucchini is next. I also noticed it on the Red Lake currant. The cucumbers look ok so far, as do the yellow summer squash.

Good cultural practices can help prevent an outbreak. These include:

• planting resistant varieties (not too helpful if you like to grow heirlooms)
  
• locating plants in a sunny area (minimizing shade)
• maintaining good air circulation around the plants to keep humidity low
• avoiding excess fertilizing (too much and you'll have so much foliage that air circulation will be reduced)
  
• removing infected material to reduce spread (although once powdery mildew is out there, it seems impossible to stop it)
• using drip irrigation, and avoiding excessive irrigation

Many extension bulletins go on to say that regular applications of fungicide may be necessary, starting at the first sign of infection and every 10 days thereafter. This is rarely necessary in the home garden, and should be avoided. PM generally doesn't arrive until late in the season when plants are declining anyway. It is also very season-dependent, so just because you had it this year, doesn't mean you will next year.

There are some organic home remedies and a couple of commercial products out there that I have not personally tried, but may offer prevention and in some cases control of a powdery mildew infection. As one reader found, a mixture of milk and water is often recommended on various gardening websites. One of the few commercial products for organic control of PM is Green Cure, a product developed by a plant pathologist at Cornell University. It is a potassium bicarbonate-based substance, and the manufacturers claim it can be used as a preventative and also will control existing infections. Be sure to do your homework before applying any type of treatment to your plants.

The Late-Season Shuffle

It's getting to that time of year when the edible landscape starts to look a little....tired. The former sea of golden calendula is now a sea of developing seed-heads (keeping up with dead-heading seems futile). The cosmos are leaning and looking a little spindly. The dill has completely gone to seed and is beginning to flop over due to its magnificent height. And while I should perhaps have pulled it out weeks ago and put something else in, I love its height and the copper color it has attained. Besides, the void would be tough to fill. So with the help of Erin (my diligent garden assistant) I stake up the thick, woody stalks to allow the dill to enjoy the rest of the season as the garden's loftiest inhabitant.

Some of the annuals, so vigorous throughout the season, have overgrown their allotted space or simply overgrown their ability to hold themselves up any longer. Take for example the borage. Having grown to about 4 feet, with stems almost 2 inches in diameter, these fleshy plants are so heavy that staking has proved useless...they simply take the stakes down with them. So I've been pulling some, mainly to keep them from smothering some of their neighbors like the yellow squash and various peppers. To fill the voids left behind, I moved a few containers with blueberry and mint from their original spots (which were so filled with kale you could barely see the containers anymore), added a little mulch around them and, voila! This tired, overgrown bed now looks fresh again.

The Edible Landscape is getting a makeover in other areas too! Mustard greens that have bolted were removed, a few woody and dry summer savory plants were pulled, the chervil and cilantro which both have flowered and become ragged were removed...all to make way for the planting of some autumn vegetables. Stop panicking...yes, I said "autumn". But don't be afraid. Late summer is the perfect time to plant some new crops for fall. And it is strangely satisfying to pull out a few of those tired summer plants to make way for something fresh and new. Adding a little compost and preparing a bed for late-season beets, radishes, lettuces, chard and kale has a rejuvenating effect. And it is heartening to know that when the last of the glorious tomatoes have been harvested, there will be something new to look forward to as the days grow cooler. All these plants appreciate the cooler days to come, and their flavors will be sweetened by the crispness of autumn. And since this is an edible landscape, we can be cheered by the thought that these new additions will offer stunning color and texture long after many flowers have begun to fade. Wouldn't you know it, the University of Minnesota Extension Service has a handy guide for planting vegetables for fall harvest. It's not too late to add something new to your edible landscape! If you're having trouble finding seeds locally, here are a few online sources I've had success with.

http://www.cooksgarden.com/
http://www.seedsofchange.com/
http://www.seedsavers.org/