Here, there and everywhere, I plant little edible gardens. You might find one in a pot at the front door, trailing into a walk way, acting as ground cover, or exploding out of a patch of former lawn. I seem to have a driving, primal voice pushing me on to replace ornamentals with beautiful and yet nourishing stand ins. Herbs, medicinals, vegetables, fruits, edible flowers are all gaining ground.
I’ve found that the large prickly squash leaves are deer resistant and offer shade and protection for the soil and other plants.
Strawberries make wonderful ground cover, and add to pots and raised beds with their flowers, fruit, and beautiful leaves.
Volunteers such as mint, lemon balm, calendula, lambs ear, and blackberries create lush landscapes and I use them to flavor and garnish dishes.
I’ve replaced hawthorne with rosemary and lavender.
Flowers that are wonderful to look at and are edible: rose petals, pansies, violets, nasturtium, day lilies, marigolds, chrysanthemums and lavender.
The master plan was to replace simply ornamentals with useful plants, those working as hard as I was on the property. I own a B&B, so I’m always in motion, always working. I wanted to provide a setting where guests, my family, the neighborhood could experience, what would traditionally be a squash, corn, tomato or amaranth in a row in the back yard, fanned out in unexpected places on the property. The more one experiences the plant, the closer one comes to knowing it, caring about it, and hopefully taking it to the next step in their own gardening adventure.
My garden no longer wins garden club awards, the heavily sprayed roses and tidy rows have vanished, but the birds, bees and butterflies have returned. The guests spend time poking here and there to see what is harvesting, commenting on how certain plants are doing this year versus last year, asking about varieties of herbs and volunteers, stepping over acorn squash as the vines continue to march forward as the days shorten and their leaves search out the sunlight. The whimsy and unexpected aspect has brought curiosity and interest, initiated many conversations and inspired many people to plant more edibles, take up some lawn, work vegetables into their flower beds and flowers into their edibles.
But, my new favorite garden has taken the prize. It is one I planted in early June after our long spring of cold snaps. I’d about given up on planting and decided to just rip up a 5’ square of lawn and tossed on my home made compost. I placed a crazy combination of over 20 different veggies, melons, flowers, grains all together thinking the shortened growing season would dwarf them. Something happened. A few blasts of hot sun and the leaves fleshed out and covered the soil. No weeding was ever required. And very little watering. And at some point they all just exploded into a giant green saucer-like forrest with a 7’ amaranth in the center and then sloping down like a tent of vegetation, each plant entwined with the next, cucumbers dropping off tomatoes stalks, and melons scrambling over eggplants and peppers, and beans dripping down over herbs and who knows what’s in the center anymore?
The vines and leaves stretched over the little fencing I’d put up to give the neighborhood kids and dogs a sense of boundary and took over the whole yard, walkway and garden hose. In order to get at the tomatoes I have to be lowered in like a gang-way plank coming down and held in place by my belt. My hands explore the depths of the rain forrest while I cautiously call out “Don’t drop me! Don’t drop me!”. I am hoisted back up with armfuls of cukes, and Early Girls, Romas, herbs, squash, bush beans, and peppers and what the heck is this anyway? Is it green turning red or red turning green?
The important thing has been that as I run by this alien garden pod no less than 30 times per day, back and forth to the inn from my house, I smile. It brings me joy, humor, hope and something to eat.
There is much talk and action around the world now on reviving the kitchen garden and old victory garden, the organic garden, the sustainable garden and the bio-dynamic fertile garden. I’ve read the books, taken the classes, written papers and been very diligent on becoming educated on food scarcity issues, length of time necessary to learn real farming skills, impacts of agribusiness and large scale farming and loss of nutrition, the threat of GMOs and the impending doom of unsustainable, oil-infused agriculture. And now, quite unexpectedly, I’ve found great solace in a wild-eyed humorous explosion of a garden with bright daubs of flowers poking up everywhere, warm red tomatoes, purple eggplant, alligator skinned melons, dripping beans, leaves and blossoms are everywhere, like an edible kaleidoscope.
No one looks at this tangled Eden without a smile, a gasp of delight, a step forward to explore. It is really a joy. A smiley face come to life. The surprise of digging down to ‘find’ dinner is thrilling. What’s in there? The possibilities….the treasure hunt, the exploration, the ah ha moments, the shock that we all get when a 3’ zucchini emerges, but these have grown UP the tomato cages and what hydraulics in their vines allow 10 pounds of pulp to push upwards into the air and remain there until I cut them with a large knife is just one more thing at which to marvel.
If I have a bad day, or moment, I can walk out to the garden pod and do my best to climb over the vines and try not to fall in, and search around a little and come up with a berry or cuke or bean and pop it into my mouth and sniff a flower and avoid a bee and marvel at the butterflies and what was the issue of the moment? I no longer recall or care. How bad can it be when a few simple starts and some home made compost do all this? We all work so diligently to learn so many important aspects of growing food. It is serious business in serious times. And sometimes, with heavy heart and sagging shoulders, we need something to lighten our very real loads. Sometimes it’s about a silly, raucous abundance, a joyous plant party raging with life and the smile it brings. And that might start an edible revolution on its own.
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The Southern Oregon Permaculture Institute (SOPI) is located in beautiful Ashland, Oregon. We teach the Permaculture Design Certificate course (PDC), Advanced Permaculture Design: Edible Forest Gardens, and Teachers Training. 541 941-9711 • [email protected]. Chuck Burr is the author of Culturequake: The Restoration Revolution.
