Planting food plants in flower beds

[macmex]

One of the things I have enjoyed doing, from time to time, is slipping food plants into ornamental beds. Some food plants are indeed ornamental, albeit neglected by the flower gardening community. So, there is the "beauty factor," another factor in considering the use of food plants in an ornamental garden might be "availability." Have you ever noticed that flowers and bedding plants become a lot harder to find after April and May? In our area they were kind of limited even during the peak season. I was informed that MANY greenhouses have changed over to the production of marijuana. as it is more profitable than flowers and ornamentals.

Last year, at work, the majority of flowers in one of my gardens died, due to over watering. It was already July, and suitable bedding plants would be expensive and limited in selection. I looked at the five or six surviving geraniums and tried to image what I could do with this garden. It hit me that I could fill in around the geraniums with sweet potato vines. The next day I brought in 6 slips of Ginseng Orange, which I had left over from my slip production and sales. I spaced them around the garden and in only a few weeks we had a pretty showy looking garden!

   

Since it was an ornamental garden, and they remained showy until late October, I left them in the ground longer than normal. The day I finally dug them it was cold and rainy and we were expecting a freeze that night. Here's a picture of the harvest. Remember now, these are from slips, planted July 15 and grown with a little bit of shade. I'd say this was an impressive harvest!




Sweet potatoes are definitely a good option for food production in a flower bed. This is especially true in light of the recent development of ornamental/edibles, with the Treasure Island Series, out of LSU in cooperation with Israel. 

Here's a picture I took, last night of Kaukura, one of the varieties in the Treasure Island Series. It's actually much more striking than the lighting of this photo shows.

[macmex]

This year, so far, I've got three little schemes going at work, in our ornamental gardens. First, I planted two small planters/garden areas primarily with peppers. The idea is that the peppers turning color will be just as beautiful, but more useful, than flowers. I have Frank's Thai Hot, for a taller variety. It gets about 3 1/2 tall and produced upright mini cayenne type fruit.


Frank's Thai Hot

In front of Frank's Thai Hot I've planted Las Tablas Ajicito, which tends to be a bit short, yet gets covered up in colorful fruit.

Back in the round fountain garden, where, last year, I had sweet potatoes. I made a point of reestablishing some flowers. Some of our lilies have revived, and I have worked to encourage that. But still, I slipped a few food plants in there. First, I planted a couple plants of Las Tablas Ajicito. I believe they will be strikingly beautiful growing among the zinnias. 

Here's a photo of Ajicito Las Tablas, from last year.



At this point the little plants are just beginning to grow, but I'm pretty sure they're going to do well.



By the way, because of the shortage of some bedding plants I got into zinnias this year. I'm sold on them! They flower quickly and constantly on top of loving our climate. I will be saving seed!

Finally, boiledpeanut sent me some peanut seed which motivated me to dig through my own seed stores and see what peanuts I might have. I found an 11 year old ziplock bag of "peanuts," which probably came from our local health store. I bagged them in 2010 and froze them in 2011. When testing their germination rate I got 100% germinaton (only tested 5 or 6 seeds). Still, I hated to throw the sprouting seeds away. So, I snuck them into that fountain garden and another nearby garden. peanuts have ferny foliage and beautiful yellow flowers, which somewhat resemble snap dragons. 

I also planted most of the packet of Negrito Manduvi peanut seed which boiledpeanut sent me. This I took to a very neglected, hot garden by one of our buildings. The only way to water there is to carry the water to the garden. I cleared out about 8' of weed barrier and put in a little plantation of this small black seeded peanut. Am looking forward both to the flower show and later, the harvest!


This is a peanut seedling in one of our gardens.

[chrysanthemum]

That sweet potato vine looks great with the geraniums. That was a great way to improve the bed.

I’m also really impressed with the peppers. I do think they are a very ornamental plants. Your work is blessed to have you caring for its flower beds.

[macmex]

The first thing I did, several years ago, when I entered this position, was to plant a hardy Japanese Fiber Banana by one of the walk ways. It doesn't make edible fruit, though the leaves are great for both making tamales and animal forage. I planted it there just for effect. Many have commented in amazement that one can grow such a thing here. I believe folk are rather fond of it.


This is a picture of the banana in its little walkway garden. I took it today. A year ago it was already higher than the wall behind it. That arctic blast in late winter, this year, really knocked it down a notch! Still, it's doing well.

To the right of the banana plants are some of my pepper plants. They're in danger of getting swallowed up by the banana plants. We'll see. At least when one saves and grows from seed they have plenty to play around with. 

[chrysanthemum]

I meant to mention earlier that we love zinnias in our gardens as well.

Glad the banana plant survived the freeze in February. What is the exposure it has against that stone wall?

[macmex]

That's a southern exposure. Temperatures dropped well below zero for several days, going as low as -16 F. I'm sure the top part of the banana root was killed, but the fiber banana makes huge root, which apparently goes fairly deep.

[heavyhitterokra]

That's awesome, George! Those sweet potatoes look better than flowers to me. They made some really good ground cover. That fountain looks way better as a flowerbed than it ever did as a fountain. The peppers are showy too.  Kudos on the banana tree.  It looks like it belongs there.  I've seen a few of those growing down at Diamond Head floats on the Illinois River.  I haven't checked to see if they survived the winter this time though.  I imagine they did, as they were almost 20-year old plantings, plus, maybe the close proximity of the River may have regulated the temperature there somewhat.  That cold snap killed the banana I had growing here. There's just a big hole in the ground where the root used to be now.  Reading your comment about the fiber root kind of explained were the big hole came from.  It almost looked like an animal dug the hole because it was so large, but the banana was growing inside a cage, so the deer wouldn't eat it, so that made no sense to me.  Now, I can see where a large fibrous root would have rotted away and had that kind of effect.

[macmex]

Here's a shot of my peanut patch, along the sidewalk of the NSU Optometry building. These are from seed boiled peanut sent me. The variety is a small black seeded peanut called Negrito Manduvi. The seed and pods are less than half he size of regular, store bought peanuts.




My thinking is that first they will make an attractive, ferny planting, which will then burst into pretty yellow snap dragon like flowers In the fall I'll dig peanuts 

[macmex]

Somewhere else, I mentioned that the peanuts in the frame above bit the dust. The university grounds people hit them with herbicide. Oh well.

Here's a photo of an Las Tablas Ají sweet pepper growing with zinnias, in another garden. The zinnias are really growing now! Peppers look good too.

[heavyhitterokra]

Herbicide should not be a thing in a groundskeeper's arsenal. When I worked there, we kept our grounds by hand, hoe, and hard work. Herbicides make me leary; what sort of residual will there be in that spot later, as a guy is bare-handed, planting new flowers or weeding the same beds?

I do want to comment here though, that the fountain that was transformed to create a centerpiece flower bed sure is a lot more attractive now, than when it was a fountain.  That old thing was always an eyesore of algea, corroded fittings, and disrepair.

[macmex]

Agreed. Studies which show the effects of herbicides may not show much, but that's probably because of who pays for them. It's shocking to see how long some herbicides linger and hard to imagine what effect they may have on "non target recipients."

Folk at the College of Optometry seem to get great pleasure for the "fountain garden." There are actually two fountains on the grounds. Both have been converted into planters. The other is under the care of one of our professors. He has turned it into a wetlands type exhibit with no surface water at all.