Move Over Bedding Plants...and Try These Edible Garden Plants Instead
Replace some of your bedding plants with edible plants! Find out how to choose suitable crops to use as bedding plants.
by Steven Biggs
A Few Plants for Edible Landscaping
Attractive? Check.
Low maintenance? Check.
Edible? Check.
The peppers were the finishing touch in my front-yard edible landscape. Right by the sidewalk. A nice pop of colour.
What had been my front lawn three months before was an edible front yard—edible plants including salad greens, herbs, vegetables, fruit bushes, and edible flowers.
I was enjoying the mix of colour, height, and texture as I popped one of those peppers into my mouth.
Sound the fire alarm. My face lit up scarlet. I grabbed a basket and, between hiccups, plucked all those hot peppers…worried about hot-pepper misadventures with the school kids that go by twice a day.
So the hot peppers were not a home run.
But with those little scorchers harvested, I left the pepper plants. They had dark green leaves and compact form. Nice bedding plants nonetheless. Just not next to the sidewalk.
If you’re interested in edible plants for edible landscaping, keep reading. This post gives you design ideas and top crops for using as edible bedding plants.
What’s a Bedding Plant?
Bedding plants are display plants for seasonal plantings. Here’s a good example, at Butchart Gardens in BC.
Bedding plants are display plants for seasonal plantings. Garden bling. So choices usually combine fast-growing, colour, and resilience.
Some, like coleus, have fabulous foliage. Many have showy flowers. Commonly they’re flowering annuals—though not always. Others, like fuchsia, are tender perennials.
But what they have in common is that they’re typically transplanted into a garden to give an immediate show. Then they’re yanked out at the end of the season.
Lots of common vegetable-garden and herb-garden plants can fit the bill as bedding plants in an edible landscape.
What Makes a Good Bedding Plant?
A good bedding plant is low maintenance. It doesn’t need pruning or staking. You don’t need to hold its hand.
For summertime plantings, a good bedding plant also performs well through the heat of the summer.
Why Use Edible Plants as Bedding Plants?
Using edible plants to make ornamental plantings—instead of traditional bedding plants.
I have nothing against flowers. I go overboard planting flowers every year.
But like many home gardeners, I never have enough space to grow all of the plants I want to grow.
So if I can kill two birds with one stone—edibles for both eating and appearance—count me in. Give me space in the flower garden for some veggies…I'll make it into an edible landscape.
Bedding Plants Through the Seasons
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Most ornamental bedding plants are planted after the last spring frost, but there are exceptions. The most common is pansies—which shine on despite a frost.
(If you didn’t know, pansy flowers are edible!)
You might see plantings of ornamental kale and cabbage in the fall. They soldier on through fall frosts while most bedding plant snivel.
(You can eat ornamental cabbage and kale—though they’re bred for looks, not as gustatory delight.)
Just as plant choice can keep the curtains open longer for a flower garden, choosing the right edible bedding plants keeps an edible landscape looking tip-top into the fall.
Designing Edible Landscapes with Edible Bedding Plants
Swiss chard hanging out with some ornamental bedding plants.
The way you use bedding plants depends on the situation and your taste (sorry about the pun.)
My advice? Be wildly creative and do something that your neighbours aren’t doing. Gardening can be more than practical; it can be creative, too.
(It should be creative, that’s the fun part!)
To get your creative juices going, here are three broad ways of using bedding plants in your edible landscape:
Formal. Think of public display gardens with formal flower beds and symmetrical patterns. (If you’re a detail person, this might be up your alley.)
Informal. This is where you’re getting playful with colour and texture and not constrained by having one big formal flower bed. Like icing on a cake, you “ice” the garden bed…a smear of bedding plants here and there.
Carpet. I once worked at a company where we made the company logo from bedding plants. That’s carpet bedding. We’re talking about a tightly planted, intricate pattern. Like painting with plants.
5 Edible Bedding Plants to Start With
Here are five edible bedding plants you can start with. There are lots more (including the pansies and kale I mentioned above.) But these five edible plants are all work horses, easy to find, and give a good mix of colour and texture.
Swiss Chard. Such an underrated plant. While so many of its leafy-green brethren make haste to flower and die, Swiss chard just grows leaves all summer. And along with green varieties, there are red, orange, yellow—even striped red-and-white varieties. Find out why Swiss chard is also a great choice in the fall garden.
Swiss chard. This underused leafy green makes an excellent bedding plant.
Parsley. The world needs more parsley. Seriously. Beyond garnishing a cheese tray or bulking out your bruschetta mix, parsley is a performer in the edible landscape. Great for edging borders. Planted in larger blocks, curly-leaf parsley is a brush-stroke of texture. And it lasts nicely even as fall frosts fell heat-loving crops.
Parsley. A top-notch bedding plant.
Cardoon. How many edible plants can you describe as elegant? This one has a touch of class. I was riveted when I saw cardoon punctuating the landscape of the historic Spadina House mansion in Toronto. What a bold beauty this plant it! Find out more about cardoon.
Cardoon. An elegant bedding plant!
Basil. From compact, little-leaf varieties to more gangly family members, you can choose from quite a range of plant and leaf sizes. And for leaf colour, remember there’s red and purple, as well as green. The compact basils are great for carpet-style designs. Keep in mind that basil, after a spell of cold fall weather, will quickly pack it in for winter.
Basil. So many choices…here’s a shot from a trial garden.
Eggplant. Compact plant. Attractive flowers. Beautiful fruit. Eggplant can be front and centre in an edible landscape. I love the small-fruited varieties with interesting colours, such as red-fruited eggplant or the skinny striped ones. Eggplant as a bedding plant? I bet your neighbours aren’t doing this!
Eggplant. Even if you don’t love eggplant, you have to admit it’s beautiful!
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Here’s a course that guides you through creating an edible garden you love. It’s my ode to edible gardening. You’ll find out how to think outside the box and create a special space. Get the information you need about a wide range of edible plants.
Planning a Kitchen Garden that Awes (in Purple!)
Make a kitchen garden with a mix of your favourite crops.
By Steven Biggs
Grazing the Kitchen Garden
How to make a kitchen garden you love.
My family doesn’t think it’s unusual to hear the back door open and close as I cook supper.
They see me come in with a fistful of herbs. Or a colander with vegetables, fresh fruit, and edible flowers.
I think of it as grazing: Picking what’s ready from my kitchen garden: Small portions of a wide variety of ingredients for our meal.
What’s ready in the garden inspires what I make for supper.
Along with a varied, continuous harvest, there’s something else I think about when planning a kitchen garden: Creativity. A great kitchen garden touches the senses. Taste is obvious, smell too. But there’s also touch, sound, and sight.
If you’re looking for great kitchen gardening ideas, keep reading. I have ideas for you about how to make a kitchen garden you love.
Planning a Kitchen Garden – and Having Fun Doing it
The planning stage of gardening can be intimidating. There’s crop spacing, crop timing, succession crops, crop rotation, and more…
So before I throw out ideas for you, here’s my top advice: Have fun. The compost pile takes care of things that don’t go as planned.
Next suggestion: Be playful with style and design because it’s a personal thing. A kitchen garden plan is a personal creation. (And the fun part is that every year you can create something new!)
What is a Kitchen Garden?
How is a kitchen garden different from a vegetable garden? It depends who you ask.
When I think of a kitchen garden I think of a mix of edible plants including herbs, vegetables, fruit, edible flowers, and flowers for cutting. That sets it apart from a traditional vegetable garden geared towards large harvests for canning, freezing, and storing.
Create Your Own Unique Edible Landscape
That fits for your yard, and your style!
Creative Kitchen Gardens
More than a Vegetable Garden
It was late fall and this kitchen garden was getting tired, but the playful design and colour theme still shone through.
However you define a kitchen garden, don’t just make it functional. Make it something that gives you a jolt of delight when you see it.
For example, this fall I took a trip to the William Dam Seeds trial garden. It was late in the season and things were past their prime. But I was still riveted by what remained of their playful purple-themed garden. It was a mix of flowers, veg, and herbs.
Purple kale, purple basil, purple cauliflower, purple beans…and more.
There were lots of edibles. There was also a hefty dose of flowers. And the garden gave a wallop of colour. It had height. It was fragrant. And it was a playful pinwheel design.
My daughter Emma and I were intrigued by the use of patterns and shapes in the Food Garden at the Montreal Botanical Gardens.
I’m not suggesting a purple-themed garden for everyone. I mention the purple-themed garden to help you think about making your kitchen garden special for you.
So think about:
Colourful crops
Texture
Shapes and patterns
Plant-themes (e.g. lots of lettuces!)
Here’s a fun idea…a dragon-themed garden for kids (seriously! See below.)
Creativity is what makes kitchen gardens shine.
Don’t be afraid to play with texture in the kitchen garden! Here’s an X of celery between cabbage plants at the Food Garden at the Montreal Botanical Gardens.
Purple-Themed Fun
The purple trial garden reminded me of the purple-themed kids garden my daughter Emma included in her book Gardening with Emma.
From the book Gardening with Emma.
The gardener, Oliver, was 7 years old. He told his parents he wanted a purple-themed garden.
When Emma got in touch with him for the book, Oliver was growing these purple crops:
Eggplant
Kale
Basil
Broccoli
Peppers
Chives
Tomatoes
Beans
More Colourful Edibles
I was thinking about Oliver’s purple kitchen garden, and jotted down purple crops in my garden that we can add to his list of purple crops:
Lavender
Purple peas
Purple mustard
Purple bok choy
Bronze fennel (OK, looks purple to me!)
Purple-leafed elderberry
Purple asparagus
Purple might or might not be your jam. If it’s not, think about what delights you.
Where to Put a Kitchen Garden
Every yard is different. Every gardener is different. So there’s no one-size-fits-all answer when it comes to the best location for a kitchen garden.
But my top advice is to think about how you use your yard. Here are questions to think about:
Can it be somewhere close to the house if you want to dart outside for ingredients?
Do you want to see the kitchen garden from the house?
Where do you have growing space available?
Where in your yard are the growing conditions suited to a garden?
Kitchen Garden Plants
My own kitchen garden has annual vegetables, perennial vegetables, herbs, edible flowers, cut flowers, and fruit trees.
I’m a big believer in weaving flowers into a garden. They looks nice. They attracts pollinators. And they attract beneficial insects (small parasites and predators that help to keep pest populations in check.)
A summer succession crop of lettuce between established cabbage and artichoke crops.
Some crops (e.g. lettuce) don’t last the whole season. As you choose crops, take these short-lived crops into account and plan for succession crops to follow them. (Here’s a guide to succession crops.)
Most importantly, grow things you like to eat. Then add in a few new crops to broaden your palate.
Interested in edible perennials? Check out these edible perennials.
Growing vegetable crops in containers? Here are my favourite container vegetable crops.
Kitchen Garden Layout
How to Start a Kitchen Garden
Layout is a personal thing. I geek out at the mention of traditional French potager gardens.
My kitchen garden doesn’t look quite like a potager—but I took inspiration from that style as I added brick walkways, terracotta pots, and a mix of edibles and flowers for cutting.
Your kitchen garden layout might include raised beds, a cold frame, and large containers. It's up to you.
What is a Potager Garden?
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Think of it as a traditional French kitchen garden. Potager gardens blend colourful flowers, salad greens, fresh fruits, and herbs. There's often symmetry. There's often a focal point.
Oklahoma garden designer Linda Vater loves to create elegant edible gardens. Her work is inspired by the tradition of the potager garden. Get Linda’s tips for making an elegant edible garden.
I love this: Landscape architect Jennifer Bartley says, “The potager is more than a kitchen garden; it is a philosophy of living that is dependent on the seasons and the immediacy of the garden.” Get Jennifer’s tips for designing a kitchen garden.
Spacing in a Kitchen Garden
Experiment with Spacing
Recommendations on seed packets are often geared towards field-scale production, and towards fully mature crops. If you’re planning to harvest baby lettuce, it needs less space than a large, mature head of lettuce.
Another way to look at spacing is through the lens of rows versus blocks. I talk about rows and blocks in this article with 7 garden layout ideas.
Top Kitchen Garden Tip
Be wildly creative.
More Fun Theme Gardens
Fun Kitchen Garden Ideas for Kids (and Adults too!)
In Gardening with Emma, my daughter has a rainbow spread of veggies. Perhaps a rainbow planting in your kitchen garden?
From the book Gardening with Emma.
How About a Dragon-Themed Garden?
Emma and I gave a talk about kids gardening once and the next day a parent emailed to say that her son came home inspired to grow a dragon-themed garden!
Any kids you want to inspire to garden? Get ideas for dragon-themed plants.
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More Kitchen Gardening Ideas
Articles and Interviews
For more posts about how to grow vegetables and kitchen garden design, head over to the vegetable gardening home page.
Courses: Edible Gardening
Want more ideas to make a great kitchen garden? We have great online classes that you can work through at your own pace.
Kitchen Garden Consultation
Book a virtual consultation so we can talk about your situation, your challenges, and your opportunities and come up with ideas for your kitchen garden.
We can dig into techniques, suitable plants, and how to pick projects that fit your available time.
