Edible Landscaping

Yesterday, two of my friends and I attended an “edible landscaping” class at Longfellow’s Greenhouses in Manchester. Lois Stack, from the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, taught us how to plan our landscape to maximize vegetable and native edibles growth and “make the most of our growing experience.”


The class was fairly well attended, and the slideshow of pictures of her garden (and a few other gardens) made me want to jump up and start planting...even though it was 36 degrees with 10-15 mile an hour winds yesterday.  


The class gave me many good ideas that I will most definitely be employing this summer.  Like how a Cranberrybush Viburnum will grow up to 12 feet high and wide and makes a great privacy hedge, plus you can make the berries into a jam.  How incorporating edibles into your perennial beds gives you more food, but doesn't take away from the sense of beauty in your flower gardens, but adds to them...like Scarlet Runner Beans.  Not only are they edible, but attractive. Same with garlic, when planted at the back of a flower patch. AND, I never realized that artichokes grow well in Maine.  It's just not something I had ever tried.


Originally, my intention was to have the 8x20 garden out back be my sole vegetable garden and the 4x6 garden by the shed and the little garden in front of the house would solely be flowers.  But now I'm thinking of incorporating herbs into the front of the house garden.  And the Kohlrabi that I left for dead in the 4x6 wintered over nicely and already has green leaves, so I think it’ll stay.  I think I may put in some other edibles there, too.  Might be a good place for pumpkins and watermelons.


I also think that I'll get rid of the scrub by the road and bring in sugar maples that I will be able to tap one day.  And the area behind the shed that's mostly scrub and tall grass, I'm thinking fruit trees: pears, plums, apples.  I need to clean out the blackberry bushes, the raspberries and the old apple trees to get rid of the dead stuff.  I feel like I should have done this last fall, but I didn't.


After the class, we wondered around and picked up some herbs and I bought an artichoke plant.  Not that we could plant any of these things outside mind you, with the temperatures still dropping into the high 20's and low 30's at night, and the threat of frost still present.


On the way home, Melissa and Vincent indulged me and we went looking for the Black Crow Bakery in Litchfield, where they make old world stone baked breads.  Talk about amazing bread!  I'd like to bring my camera next time and take pictures of this tiny room with the giant, wood-fired oven, that large, old school stand mixer and the rack of bread in the corner with the handmade name tags for each. There's no one there, it's strictly the honor system.  It might become a every Saturday morning stop, until I can learn to make bread like that!