Ornamental Edibles
I planted my first garden from seed. I was too ignorant back then to realize that while annuals may come up and bloom quickly, perennials take longer. I thought they hadn't come up at all. Desperate to have something resembling a real garden, I hastily scattered a handful of wildflower seeds throughout the bed to fill all those giant gaps.
That handful of seeds produced, among other things, one leaf lettuce. It grew boldly at the front of the border. A cool, pale green, it so surprised me with its beauty that the next year I ordered lettuces in pale greens, deep greens and burgundies and used them on purpose to edge my flower bed. I tucked in purple opal basil and let lemon thyme creep among the rocks that edge the bed. Nasturtiums tumbled about and spilled onto the paving. I soon found that I spent a lot of time in my "flower garden" harvesting ingredients for dinner.
The first time I tucked nasturtium blossoms into a salad my husband was taken aback -- but he bravely sampled them, and discovered that he liked the peppery taste. I liked the beauty they added to the salad bowl, and soon discovered a huge range of other blossoms that were edible: pansies, roses, violets, daylilies, chive blossoms, lavender and more!
Everyone thought mine was a flower garden. I knew better. It was an edible garden. I grew old garden roses, because they are more disease resistant than the newer hybrids and so didn't need spraying. I could sprinkle their petals in salads and use their hips for tea or even jam. Or I could cook with them. Around the roses' knees I grew lavender, because its strong scent seemed to keep the critters from making my edibles their lunch. But lavender, aside from making wonderful sachets, is useful in Provencal cooking and makes a pretty mean ice cream to boot.
Bronze fennel, with its feathery foliage acted like a living, growing equivalent of a florist's fern in that garden, as did the equally feathery fronds of dill. I tucked in garlic chives, with their blue-green foliage and white blossoms -- the flowers for my salad bowl, the chives themselves much more intriguing than ordinary chives in a baked potato. Daylilies, edible in every part, lent a spiky contrast to the bed. I edged things with lettuces and alpine strawberries, backed by arugula. Violets flourished in the empty spaces, uninvited but not unwelcome. All in all, it was a very pretty, but very useful garden.
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