With the right landscaping your home can increase in value and be that much more inviting.
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For a long time, Cincinnati landscaping was the sole domain of flowers and foliage because they are colorful and pretty. But in recent times, many people have also been using vegetables and fruits for landscaping around their Southern Ohio yards.
Just like flowers, vegetables, and fruits are also colorful, and make a pretty picture. Using the right fruits and veggies for the season to landscape not only looks pleasing but also has a number of advantages.
Landscaping is often done where there isn’t enough space for a full fledged garden. Landscaping utilizes the available space to create an appealing yard or garden complete with flowers, veggies, or fruit trees.
You can even change the design of your existing yard with the use of landscaping. While simpler tasks can be handled by yourself if you have some knowledge of landscaping, more complex designs are for professional Cincinnati landscapers.
However, for decorating your yard with vegetables and fruit trees, you don’t have to hire a landscaper. With a little careful planning, you can easily boost the beauty of your yard with fruit and vegetable crops.
Benefits of landscaping with fruits and veggies
No matter the size of your yard, you can create a scalable vegetable garden with ease.
Grow organic food right at home and have amazing ingredients for salsas and salads.
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Planting fruits and vegetables means you get to grow a portion of your food at home. Not a bad deal! Fresh veggies and fruits grown organically without extensive use of pesticides or other harmful chemicals are tastier and healthier. You also save money on food, while enjoying the colorful decorating of nature’s bounty.
Edible landscaping also offers money and energy saving. Growing veggies and fruits takes little effort, and bringing them to your house doesn’t require gas, unlike going to the market. Aside from these savings, you can also grow medicinal plants and use them for overall health and minor ailments.
What fruits and vegetables to use for edible landscaping
There is nothing like growing your own healthy food.
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There is no end to the types of fruits and vegetables that you can use for your yard or garden. However, the ones that work best are plants that don’t need a lot of space or care. Vegetables and fruits are seasonal, much like flowers, and can also be perennial.
Southern Ohio has a wide varirty of soil types ranging from hard clay to rich top soil, Determine the soil-type in your garden before starting to best guarantee a bumper crop at harvest time.
It isn’t easy to grow vegetables or fruits in extreme weather, when it’s scorching hot or freezing cold, but some plants can survive it all. Vegetables and fruits that grow in tough conditions require little efforts and space. Some of the best suited for Ohio are:
Tomatoes: Now who doesn’t love tomatoes? This popular fruit (yes, it’s a fruit) is also one of the most expensive in the market because of the high demand, but the taste and nutrition of ripe home-grown tomatoes is far better than the store-bought ones. Even when you lose some crops to disease, you can still have a good yield. Because tomatoes can grow in every weather, it is best for edible landscaping.
Asparagus: A perennial vegetable, asparagus is both nutritious and easy to grow. Each year, you can grow thousands of shoots and consume them whenever you like. Once you plant asparagus, it keeps growing and spreading. Given the cost of the asparagus available in the market, it is a long term investment that yields a lot of produce for the whole year with little effort.
Apples: If you have space for big trees, consider planting apples. Although they require some amount of work, every summer, you’ll get to enjoy apples blossoms and then delicious apple pies, custards, and jellies.
Strawberries: This is another summer favorite and grown by many people at home. What can be more delightful than picking fresh strawberries from the yard and slurping on them? Smaller strawberries are usually of better quality than the bigger ones.
Rhubarb: This is another perennial plant that requires little effort. Just plant it and you will keep getting significant yield throughout the year. Keep in mind only the stalks of the plant are edible, not the leaves.
Peppers: For adding color to your vegetable patch, consider growing bell peppers. They come in green, red, and yellow varieties, and are really useful and tasty, besides being highly nutritious. On the downside, red and yellow peppers take several weeks more to mature compared to the green ones. In those weeks, you also risk losing some of the yield that have already matured.
Lettuce: If you love your leafy green salads, consider planting your own lettuce. From iceberg to aragula, leafy plants grow best and require the least effort. Lettuce grows in cooler temperatures because heat makes them bitter.
Tips for edible landscaping
A kitchen garden has lots of room for creativity and adds colors to the landscape.
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Get creative – Landscaping is a way to decorate the outside of your house. Plant contrasting flowers and vegetables, or create fancy raised beds with gravel-lined paths in between. Take inspiration from photos of old French and English gardens that were both beautiful and robust.
Mix garden and pots – Some plants grow better in our very fertile Southern Ohio earth, while some grow well in pots. Mixing the two can lend awesome variety to your edible garden.
Adjust to size – If you don’t have space for big trees, plant smaller crops like tomatoes and strawberries. Smaller plants can also be used to line the edges of your yard or garden.
Go seasonal – Planting the fruits and veggies of the season adds color and variety to the landscaping, while letting you enjoy homegrown produce.
Add focal points – When adding fruits and vegetables to your home’s landscaping, don’t forget to decorate with little focal points like a bird bath or a stone rabbit.
The more fun you have with your Cincinnati residential landscaping, the more variety you add and the more appealing it looks. After all, edible landscaping is as much about growing food as about boosting the curb appeal of your property.
