Second of two parts
When you begin to reimagine your outdoor environment as an edible landscape, don’t forget to imagine people in it and people looking at it.
In Part 2 of my series on replacing your stupid, pointless lawn with something more nutritious, I take advice from North Vancouver landscape designer Senga Lindsay, author of an intelligently structured book called Edible Landscaping.
She pointed out to me that humans may inhabit part of the space in your yard, and that simply tilling in your entire lawn for crops might not be entirely palatable for owners of a typical suburban home.
Her book contains lots of illustrations that show people in among the raised beds, trellises, fruit trees and cosy firepits.
I am such a total dude about garden design that none of my sketches have ever depicted nor contemplated the presence of a human other than myself.
Lindsay advocates – and indeed explains in some detail – garden infrastructure that defines what amount to outdoor rooms, from an elaborate gourmet kitchen in the yard to patio dining spaces and reading nooks. Trellises covered with tomatoes and cucumbers become edible walls. Wood or metal boxes define the perimeter of the living space and provide vegetables that are as edible as they are decorative.
It all starts with a pencil and a piece of paper. Lindsay doesn’t want you to muck about on your soil until it starts to dry out in spring, so you have plenty of time to plan.
Start with a list of your favourite vegetables, she advises. There is no point in planting zucchini and chard – which are super productive – if you won’t actually eat them.
“You have to be really truthful to yourself and admit what you will really eat,” she said.
Most vegetables require a minimum of six hours of direct sunlight a day, but some are shade tolerant. Each plant has to be located in a favourable environment to thrive, so know the needs of your plants.
The size of your garden should not exceed your willingness to plant, nurture and weed. If you aren’t sure, Lindsay suggests starting with about four square feet per family member. You can always add more boxes. But you could just as easily learn that you don’t want to weed.
If you are starting with a blank slate, such as a featureless lawn, you need to sketch out your plan. Make sure to include things like an outdoor eating space, an outdoor kitchen or a firepit. Envision the finished space with every element you might ever want and then take a step back and realize it might take several years to get there. Each element you add, whether a veggie bed or a bench, helps to frame the living space.
Start with a single raised bed with a sturdy trellis attached to its north side. Lindsay recommends building a box 18 inches (46 cm) high to place right on the surface of your current grade. The trellis creates a vertical space to grow vining plants.
A cucumber vine that would cover nine square feet on the surface of the soil takes only one square foot of soil if you tie the vines up the trellis, she said.
Assume your soil sucks – since most yard soils do – and bring in quality soil. Think of the current surface of the yard as the bottom of the garden and build up.
Lindsay’s book contains sketches and design advice for creating edible gardens and redefining outdoor spaces for everything from public boulevards and front yards to garage tops and tiny townhouse yards. The concepts run from highly geometric and ornamental European-influenced designs to ecologically integrated permaculture gardens and utilitarian vegetable patches designed to fill your soup pot.
You could decide to take elements from a whole variety of conceptual plans and bolt them together to suit your space. I’ll be thumbing through it as I plan for next spring.
rshore@vancouversun.com Blog: vancouversun.com/green man
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