Happy Thursday! True confessions here. Do you want to know what scares a garden designer? Vegetable gardening. Yes, those little green (and other colors) edibles. I know many landscape architects that don’t have a garden. True story! They draw landscapes and live in a condo without even a container planted at the front door. I know a botanist that works on restoration of state lands and wants to put landscape fabric, bark and gravel over all exposed ground so it doesn’t grown weeds. I know (intimately) a garden designer that is learning to plant ROWS of plants with different cultural requirements, with no thought of color palette.
Although I have grown everything imaginable and transplanted , pruned, stooled, espalliered, divided, and conquered most things in my garden, I have feared vegetables. Having now planted vegetables for many years I’m now ever expanding on my varieties. I started out with just lettuce, beans, and peas. Easy to grow, requiring the same conditions. Sometimes the peas would have to be planted twice (inoculant might help- who knew?) or I would plant too many beans and they would overwhelm everything (why don’t they stop growing when they reach the top of the pole? Can you prune them? Do they come in semi-dwarf? To be honest I’ve asked these questions at the nursery and it’s one of the few times the answers were not there, they even look at me strangely.) The lettuce would taste bitter in July. (it is a spring crop for a reason). I would usually find out about it after I had given my surplus to a neighbor. Little by little I have learned more and more about these scary plants. I usually do plant in a color scheme now (black tomatos, black beans, black peppers one year) just to feel like I’m managing it better. But I learn something new every year.
So, how do we get over our fear of growing food? I like to get the gardening magazine ‘Gardener’s world’ from the UK. The gardeners in that book grow vegetables I’ve never heard of. They are shown actually digging in the soil, talking about the soil, and have muddy knees and dirty fingers. They are in the horticultural profession and are garden designers and they have a vegetable garden. Amazing.
One of the best things about my job is getting to garden with my clients. In gardening nobody knows everything. Some of my clients are great vegetable gardeners and they help me. They tell me not to bother with red plastic tents over my tomatoes, just plant them out in a sunny area with good air circulation after most of the spring rains (in June sometimes) have ceased. Sometimes you will have a good crop sometimes you won’t. Just talking about gardening is fun and sharing experiences makes everyone a better gardener.
Heres a couple of pictures of stylish vegetable gardens and my little plot. Join us tomorrow for a Q&A session!
