In many of the gardening magazines I have read lately there seems to be a trend to plant vegetables with perennial flowers. I had first heard of this about quite a few years ago at a Master Gardener conference at OSU. The keynote speaker was Rosalind Creasy and she told the story of planting vegetables in her front yard because that was where she had the best sun. The audience was surprised to hear such a “radical” thought, but it surprised us even more when Rosalind went on to say this practice was actually illegal in her California community. So she got creative and incorporated the vegetables into her garden by surrounding them with perennials. The town fathers and mothers either didn’t notice the veggies tucked in with the shrubs or they decided it was silly to take Roz to court over such a trivial matter.
Regular readers will remember my vow to stay away from vegetables because of the lack of sun and warmth in my yard. But along the lines of “never say never”, I was taken by the lovely lettuces our son and his wife were growing in their Portland front yard gardens. They could be considered to be ornamentals in their own right, but have the added blessing of being edible.
As you may remember, I am not very good with planting seeds so I will shop at the Master Gardener Plant Sale this coming Saturday, May 6th from 9 AM to 1 PM and try to find some lettuce starts there. There are a lot of really pretty loose-lef lettuces, chards, and herbs that would be lovely in a front garden. I will plant mine in hanging baskets, though, which are located in what little sun my garden gets. Also in that hanging basket will go a little coriander/cilantro, and maybe even snow peas to droop down. A hanging basket has the added benefit of keeping the slugs away. They don't seem to want to work that hard to get into the baskets.
And if you like a bit of color in with your green salad, Nasturtium ‘Night and Day’ might be your treat as they are a combination of light cream and dark mahogany. I like the Nasturtium ‘Empress of India’ whose edible flowers add a peppery flavor to your salads. These are easy to grow from seed, and I usually pop six seeds or so around the inside edge of the hanging basket.
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