Have a question about edible landscaping? Check the Q & A section below. If you still cannot find the information you are looking for, please email Justin.
Edible landscaping is a form of urban agriculture that places as much or more emphasis on aesthetic considerations as it does on consumable yields. Edible landscapes usually comprise a variety of vegetables, fruits, and herbs, often in combination with annual flowers.
A large number of edible plants can be grown in warm temperate or tropical climates, and most of the fruits, nuts, vegetables, herbs, and spices we buy in the supermarket can be grown in the home garden. To see an extended list of plants that can be grown in Central Texas, take a look at the Plant Menu page.
As far as what one should grow, that depends on what one wants to achieve with his or her edible landscape. For those who want to work toward self-sufficiency and a certain level of economic independence, the focus should be on the growing of calorie crops, which are plants that produce edible parts with a high calorie content, such as dry beans, grains, oats, onions, potatoes, and sweet potatoes. It should be noted that several thousand square feet (at least) of growing area are needed to produce quantities of the aforementioned plants--with the exceptions of potatoes and sweet potatoes--sufficient to provide enough calories to sustain an adult human. For those who are mostly interested in beautifying their yards and regard the organic produce they will receive as more of a side benefit, there are many heirloom plant varieties that have flowers, leaves, and fruits with attractive colors, shapes, and textures--and wonderful flavors, too, of course!
Yes. Depending on which plants one selects, edible plants can even bring more colors, shapes, patterns, and textures to your garden than traditional landscape plants.
Remember that the plant kingdom is enormous, which means that even though only a relatively small percentage is edible for most humans, there is still a large number of species that have edible parts. Moreover, many of these edible plants are highly adaptable and can be grown throughout the temperate regions of the world.
The answer depends on what you plant. Many ornamental plants require a great deal of attention to stay healthy looking, while several edible plants can be grown with almost no effort. As with all gardens, some time and energy must be spent to maintain an edible landscape. How much time a person wants to spend working in his or her gardens is an important factor in the design of an edible landscape.
Try to convince him to go organic, and be sure to tell him about Home Harvest Edible Landscaping Services--HHO customers can receive discounts for successful referrals.
On the contrary, with people's increased awareness of the wide variety of tasty edible plants, demand is likely to increase dramatically--as it is, production of organic fruits, vegetables, and herbs can barely keep pace with demand.
Although it is possible to create a garden on an average-sized urban residential plot that can provide all of the food to feed one or two people for an entire year, most people will likely want to reserve some space in their yards for other purposes and, therefore, will still need to purchase most or at least some of their produce.
Yes. The reality is that large chain stores that carry mostly conventionally-grown produce trucked and flown in from far away places will lose some sales.
The major upside here is that the edible home landscape or microfarm is a much more sustainable scenario in the long term than global agribusiness, which requires many times the inputs of energy (human, petrochemical, solar) and water to produce the same amount of food (calories/nutrients that can be digested and assimilated by the human body). Moreover, it actually takes more pounds of a particular conventional food crop to provide the same quantity of nutrients in a lesser amount of the exact same food crop that has been raised organically.
"Be Green from the Ground Up!"