Mixing edibles with ornamentals in your urban garden

One of the best ways I have learned to grow edibles (veggies, fruits and herbs) in my garden is to mix them with ornamentals like flowers, grasses, shrubs and trees. I didn't come up with this idea on my own; rather, I fell upon a wonderful book titled Designing and Maintaining your Edible Landscape by Robert Kourik.  In spite of its first publishing being a few decades back (1986), the book has become more popular in the recent years, as urban gardening surges.  Rosalind Creasy has written the forward to the book, a notable and prolific edible gardening author in her own right as well.  

Nasturtiums can also be eaten.

Among my favorite chapters in the book, is the chapter on beneficial insects and insectary plants (a term used in the book). It's a surefire method of gardening know-how since adept design should involve both functionality and beauty.  For instance, Kourik identifies nasturtiums as nurse plants because they offer places for beneficial insects like ladybird beetles to lay eggs; and in turn, the aphids which are already present on the leaves, will serve as a source of food for the young when they hatch.  Then the cycle will continue and the beetles will go about eradicating insect pests from your yard and beyond (probably more likely in your neighbors, unfortunately). 

Echinacea or coneflower is great choice for pollinators.

There are many more beneficial insects listed in the book besides the well known ladybird beetle (aka ladybug), which I won't mention here because this blog post is about edibles and ornamentals.  The main idea that is taught in the book is to plant nurse plants and plants with a high pollen count within the confines of the yard.  Nurse plants tend to go around the perimeter of the garden (to prevent aphids and such from infesting prized crops) and flowering plants for pollinators are intermingled between veggies and fruits to improve yields.  As a rule of thumb, wild flowers and herbs are the best choices for pollinators in the garden.  

A bee on an allium, a flowering bulb related to the onion.

Companion planting was another important concept that I learned from the book.  This is the idea of planting particular plants with one another for the benefits they provide to each other.  For example, marigolds are known to be insect repelling plants (the smell is averse) so it is recommended that you plant them around vegetables like tomatoes.  Herbs can be used in the same way, as they are pungent and ward off pests, even deer. 

Marigolds and lettuce are planted together in a window box.

There is also the type of companion planting whereby you can plant some vegetables together to maximize planting area based on the size of your crops and when they are harvested; such as many gardeners do when they plant radishes, carrots or onions (radishes on top, carrots on bottom).  That's another blog topic for another time...

Creating a garden with edibles and ornamentals combined is not only fun, but it provides an asethically pleasing "punch" to the senses.  The neighbors will definitely notice your curb appeal, and you can sneak in a few of your veggies into the front yard without the Homeowner's Association getting after you (Sadly, some cities have ordinances against food being planted in the front yard).  In other words, gone are the days of planting crops and fruit trees only in rows.  You can get creative and work with the design principles of scale, color, or texture; or you plant freestyle and just throw flowering seed bombs around your food crops and trim out any interfering ones later.   

The ease of having a garden of this type is one of its perks.  For example, only one trip out to the yard will be necessary to prepare for a nice evening meal at home.  All one has to do is gather some cut flowers (Dahlias are super) for the table, pick off some tomatoes and lettuce for the salad, and snip some select herbs for the main entree; eliminating trips to the various markets and also allowing for the yard to still look like a mesh mash of loveliness (no gaping holes when intermingling veggies and flowers).

Can you find the edibles?

Some favorites of mine:

Collect some seeds from the sunflower and flowers for the table.

Among my favorite vegetables to plant with in containers with ornamentals is chard. Chard is easy to grow from seed and the large leaves come in an assortment of colors, making it an excellent choice for adding height to potted arrangements.

Herbs are another standard for me when combining edibles with ornamentals.  Many herbs have delicate leaves and pretty flowers available in many shades.  Some trail and others tower, but I like to stick with the more compact varieties such as basil, oregano, sage, chives and cilantro.

Strawberries are another favorite choice of mine when mixing edibles with flowers.  Strawberries trail in a delightful way and the sweet berry smell is a bonus.   

To conclude...

If you didn't know about this type of gardening, I hope that I inspired you just a little to try it out.  You can learn much more about edible landscaping by reading the book I made mention of, which I highly recommend.  Enjoy the dirt and sunshine my fellow (urban) gardeners; and remember, the more interesting you make your designs, the more others will say "Now, there's someone with a green thumb." 

  

Portland (Oregon) let's build a bee highway, too.

Norway leads the way in bee highway implementation

I like how Oslo, Norway is building the world's first bee highway. I live in Oregon and I would love for Portland to start up a bee highway that could potentially go down the I-5 corridor through Salem, Albany/Corvallis, Eugene; and perhaps, all the way down to Roseburg. The concept of a bee highway isn't a major feat, as all it really involves is getting people together for the common good of planting bee friendly plants down a route that facilitates bee traffic and encourages their populations. Bees are in greater need of protection than ever, especially with the rise of chemical use in the agriculture sector and increases in urban sprawl, so bee highways may be a positive addition to urban land use by providing the bees with hospitable environments.

Summer losses outweigh winter losses 

According to a recent survey by the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture, there were greater losses in bee populations in the summer of 2014 than in the winter of 2014-2015. Of the 6,000 beekeepers that responded across the 50 states to the survey, approximately 42.1 percent of their colonies were killed off over the course of the year.  Summer losses for 2014 were at 27.4 percent whereas 23.1 percent of honey bee colonies were lost during the winter of 2014-2015. This is an increase from the summer of 2013 at 19.8 percent while it is a slight decrease for the winter of 2013-2014 at 23.7 percent.   

Colony Collaspe Disorder may be blamed 

Why so many bees dying during the warm weather months?  This strange occurrence may point out that something was introduced to the environment that is lethal to the bees. Colony Collaspe Disorder (CCD) is a phenomena that is killing off bees and leaving hives without workers. It is connected to various sources, but pesticide use is the leading concern. Experts will claim that this phenomena is not visibly apparent to the recent bee die offs, but I would beg to differ. Granted, varroa mites take a good percentage of bees each year, however we also know that one of the primary culprits for commerical die offs are neonicotinoids. Their use has become so rampant for wheat, corn and soy products along with vegetables and fruits that I don't see how bees are able avoid these pesticides' paralyzing affects. 

Mankinds' future is linked to the bees'  

So we may not be able to stop the perpetrators (as of yet) from poisoning the bees in our nation's crop fields, but we can lure the bees to more harmonious sites filled with nectar rich flowers. A bee highway utilizes the best flowers, herbs and weeds (bees love flowering weeds). Instead of chopping down all the grasses along highways and eradicating all the flowering weeds, government agencies should see to it that bee habitats be protected for the sake of not only the bees' future, but also for mankind's. Much of our food is dependent on bee pollination, which means that without the bees we will not be eating the foods we love that are also healthy. 

Sichuan, China is a great example of what happens when you don't protect the habitats of living things. A non profit called BioProfit did a study and found that over-extensive farming contributed to the loss of natural bee habitat in the area. Consequently, commercial bees were sent to the fruit farms to fill in for the indigenous bees, but the pesticide use killed them. So each year, thousands of villagers come to pollinate each and every blossom on the fruit trees by hand using chicken feathers, an arduous process that must be done within less than a week's time.

Build it and they will come

According to the Bee Conservancy, bees love single flower tops over double flower tops, as these make it easier for bees to reach the pollen. Moreover, hybrid types don't always provide enough pollen for bees. They also recommend planting at least three different types of flowers that will offer a constant food source for bees through the seasons.

• Crocus, hyacinth, borage, calendula, and wild lilac = spring
• Bee balm, cosmos, echinacea, snapdragons, foxglove, and hosta = summer
• Zinnias, sedum, asters, witch hazel, goldenrod = fall                                             

Flowering restaurants can be anywhere

It doesn't take much construction to build a bee highway. Rather, a bee highway is built upon the interconnections of locales that provide "flowering restaurants" for bees.  These feeding stations can include rooftop gardens on top of hotels and corporate buildings, balcony container gardens of apartment and condo dwellers, flowering yards in suburban neighborhoods, community gardens that incorporate pollinator plants, and all the other places in between...

Bybi, an urban bee conservation group is helping Oslo, Norway with their bee highway by offering an online map that indicates where more bee plants are needed. This ingenious method of bringing a community together for a common good should be encouraging to other cities around the world. It is my hope that America will create bee highways for not only our beloved honey bees, but for all the other pollinators as well; such as our bumble bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds too.