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Well top of the morning or evening whatever it is to you gardeners and homesteaders we hope everybody’s having a fantastic day and we’re just so happy to be here with you we’re hope you’re having a great holiday season right now bavia and myself are planning our Gardens for next year we’re getting our
Seeds started our seeds in order getting everything going and we want to just give this opportunity first of all for you guys to hear the top five episodes from last year so these are the episodes that you listen to the most commented and enjoyed on so be sure to enjoy these
I’m excited to relisten to them myself and also we have a couple of an announcements one is I am starting to do uh seed starting date profiles for people so if that something you’re interested in and you want we can do a seed starting profile for you just email
Me at Sandy Bottom Homestead gmail.com and the first 10 people to do it are going to get a 50% off discount and this will be geared for you and your area to give me your state and your city that you live in and we’ll get you a customized seed starting schedule for
You because what I found out in the past couple years is in fact I was starting my seeds way too late and I wasn’t taking proper precautions and using the seeds to the best of their ability to grow bigger stronger plants and Thrive more rotate my crops out so I can get
Three to Four Season gardening out of it depending on where you are you can get that fourth season little disclaimer there but definitely reach out at Sandy Bottom Homestead at gmail.com and we’ll get one made for you and also we are proud to give you our sponsor which is
Planter app and like I said this is the time of year where we’re going to be planning our Gardens and we will be using the planter app it is an amazing app and it’s just it’s grown so much over the years it’s amazing but you can
Create profiles on it you can make all your different Gardens and layouts and it’s drag and drop interface it has all the details you need for your plantings for your plants for your Frost dates your days to go out it has everything you need gives you pest controls companion combative plantings just it’s
Got it all I mean it’s something that I have really fall in love with over the year and I accredit the success of my garden to this over the years to definitely check it out there’s a link below that will get you a hefty discount on it so please take advantage of that
Because this is the season and which we’re going to be starting our Gardens and planting them and we want you to take advantage of it so you can get off to a great start for the year and it is available on Apple and Google you can
Use it on your PC you can use it on your tablet and your phone so anywhere you are you can use this app so check it out that’s the planter app the pla a n t r app and make sure you use the link below to get your
Discount and that was a mouthful everybody so without further Ado we’re going to play these episodes and just know we are planning our Gardens just as hard as we can CU we are ready for the new year and well and also new bavia if you know what I’m saying but also the
Next gardening season so everybody as you listen to this remember we’re going to learn to grow and grow for change if you like growing food then you might like eating food and if you like eating food then you might like cooking food well go check out the first season of Backyard
Kitchen available on tub for free available on all smart TVs and online that’s Tubi all free first season of backyard kitchen so you’ve been on this wild ride of expanding a garden with us you’ve thought about going vertical you’ve thought about containers let’s take it one final step further let’s
Talk about edible landscaping planting food within your your entire yard but making it look pretty right here on the beo Gardens podcast to have a good harvest one must plant good seeds and must also use the right kind of fertilizer the carrots have grown large and firm how good they will
Taste welcome to the backyard gardens podcast where we talk about all things gardening we are your host Ben and bavia and you can find me gardening in the country and you’ll find me gardening in the city get ready as we dig deep into this wonderful world of gardening where we
Learn to grow and grow for change all right everybody you know the deal if you would like to support our show and help keep us on the air please sign up for our patreon link is down below you will get two extra episodes a month and one of them is our community
Gardens podcast which is has a different feel would you say bavia it does it’s more raw we shall say and the other thing is t-shirts mugs fanny packs cups anything backyard gardens related is in the link below it’s at Teespring 25% off that’s right everybody 25% off we’re
Celebrating spring all the way until the last day of spring all you got to use is the code byg spring and you’ll get 25% off so without further Ado ado back to the regularly scheduled program without further Mountain [Laughter] Ado what can I say what can I say I like
A bad joke man I I feel like I invented that just now you did and I like it I’m stealing it it’s over so um do you do you edable landscape I don’t know I think we’ll figure out in this episode if what I’m doing is edible landscape esque edible
Landscape light Oh see now that’s fancy talk when you start throwing eses in there that’s fancy talk I don’t know about that yeah I want to I want to make one thing clear before we get so this is a very serious statement during this episode we are in
No way encouraging you to dig up your entire yard and plant food throughout it we’re doing quite the opposite we’re encouraging you to be open to the possibility of planting food within the spaces you have within your normal Landscaping that you have fair enough fair enough I’m begrudgingly agreeing um that that’s
What we’re going to be doing um I’ve been mulling over in my head like the reason why I react to Edible Landscaping the way that I do um yeah so I’m team it I’m team it what is it like you know plug in some things I
Um I feel like my focus has been so much what did you call it the other day a food factory like my backyard’s a food factory yeah you know I turn my front yard into a food factory and I may be taking a step back and so when we talk
About edible landscaping it’s like if you have this yard already let’s add some some something you can eat plants that you can ually eat you know and I may be doing the reverse of it you know with every year this front yard has plants that I can eat from and maybe
I’ll be peppering some other things in there I don’t like to use the word eat I like to use the word consume okay there’s differences so when we say eat the first thing that pops in my head I give you one guess what the first thing that pops in my head is how
About that okay what’s what’s your guess oh I’m not going to guess because I don’t like this this train of uh of thought at all like I’m sitting here like is he really going to tell me that cuz what that comes across as is you’re
Telling me that you don’t want me to use the word eat and in see at you something else no what I’m saying is I don’t like it because the first thing that pops into my mind and when you’re talking about gardening is like a tomato and that’s not really at least
What I’m talking about it’s stuff you can mix into other food drinks stuff like that so that’s why I say consume but I get your point was fancy and then here you come with the whole let’s not talk say eat let’s say consumed hey look we’re fancy in our own
Ways how’s that yeah but what is edible landscaping that’s the question are you going to answer it for us now or are we going to wait well our definitions might be two different ones so we’ll see if they if they Collide just right as long as it
Doesn’t have eat or consume in it I think we’ll be okay yeah you know what what I’m going to do I’m actually going to get a technical um which is technical the first thing that pops up under uh Mr Google is that the technical definition yeah I’m asking the
Doctor what is edible landscaping called oh never mind I don’t know how to say that word so basically what it is it’s planting food within your existing yard without like like bavia said a food factory without having like tomato cages and crazy trellises it’s a low lower maintenance Dual Purpose consumable food
In your garden so a lot of people and this is this is one of the rare episodes where we’ll go into the front yard a lot of people’s front yards are you know more decorative curb appeal type stuff and then your backyard’s typically I know but typically your food
Factory So within you know if you get let’s say the average house will have like a bunch of Evergreens and stuff like that you know nothing like above and beyond but there’s things that we can plant and squeeze in certain areas that can be disguised as food but also
Be beautiful and the benefit of it is most of these that we will recommend or just in general that fall into this category are a perennial type plant so they will feed you for years and you plant them once yeah the way that I and I had to we
We um actually did an episode on edible landscaping like two years ago like in 2020 and it never made it out of the editing room and into the public uh so since then I’ve really kind of gone back and forth with what it means to me like what I feel edible
Landscaping is and so I have two versions of it first it’s incorporating is the word right incorporating that’s a good word man good yeah yeah I know right somebody hit a bail um incorporating you know vegetable plants um edible flowers uh herbs you know incorporating these things into uh your
Landscape into your your home your area where you’re growing things and it could be anything right and then what it’s not when I think about and for this episode let’s talk about what we’ll call traditional gardening uh traditional vegetable gardening your traditional backyard garden I think containers I
Think you know rows depending on how big your property is I think raised beds um I think very intentional you know growing for the purpose of this is me playing nice consuming right growing for the purpose of consumption right um and that’s not what an edible landscape is
Um so that’s I have to always go over both of those pieces like defining what I believe it is and then defining what I believe it isn’t to reconcile it in my mind so that’s why I’ll pause here and there because I’m going back through that exercise so first thing I really I
Know what I need to title this show but I really want to title it next level vocabulary show cuz we’re just we’re on fire with our vocabulary today oh wait pig that’s the word you you looked up and you said you didn’t want to say I knew it I could
See it in your face I didn’t want to say it I was like I don’t know how to say that so yeah it looks like I was looking up just real quick when I was looking it up it was sometimes it’s referred to as a kitchen Garden or a Poe Garden um
Which again is one of those things that I have to kind of file in my head and process um so yeah I feel I feel like edible landscaping basically just sums it up really well so we’re just going to stick with that for for the show but
It’s you know like I said it’s mostly it’s perennials it’s trees it’s you could I I shudder to say this especially to you yes there are edible flowers but we’re not really talking about planting edible flowers because the majority of people do not go get a plate of flowers and eat them
So yes you can eat flowers and you can I mean if there’s like a specific flower that you were grown to like this is just really good I’m going to plant it well that’s fine but we’re we’re actually stepping out of the flower box for this one but we’re talking about stuff that
You can incorporate with your flowers that are are sightly that you know that will enhance your front yard versus something that would not enhance it you know what I mean that would hinder the the visual appeal the curb appeal of your your property I won’t fight you I
Won’t fight you in this moment that’s good that’s the one time I can that’s my one go for saying something bad about flowers okay well I mean I just don’t know how this is going to unfold so I can’t guarantee that you know there won’t be a fight later on but for right
Now I’ll go with you oh there’s a fight no but I mean it’s it’s all those things and it’s actually a lot easier than it sounds because when you use the word Landscaping to me it’s like okay I’ve got to till and dig up and move and chop
Up and redesign and for some reason and maybe it’s because there’s landscaping companies that it just for me that’s what it brings into my head and that’s not what it is at all so we can you know we’ve been doing it in our yard for a
Number of years and I’m going to go ahead and tell you right now where I heard it from one guess everybody if you’re a longtime listener to the show my man P Allan Smith if you’re a gardener and you don’t know who this gentleman is where have
You been for 30 years check him out but he’s a big fan of it and he’s a big fan of it in small baby steps you know he doesn’t really push the food factory portion of it and his style of gardening is 100% about making it beautiful so I
You know I tend to kind of gravitate towards that and I personally grew up with edible landscaping in a roundabout way we had one tree in my backyard and that one tree was this giant pecan tree and we ate pecans off of it all year long I
Don’t know how who PL I mean that tree must have been hundred so or so years old and the sad thing is is the people that bought the house after my parents moved out they cut it down like day one so you know that’s a tragedy but in
Itself that was kind of how we grew up with that and I didn’t realize what it was at the time I just knew that I had one tree in my yard and and I loved pecans or pecans however you want to say it peans yeah is it peans for you uhhuh
It’s PE tomato tomato potato potato we’re not that is it more like potato potato yeah mhm it’s potato so look let’s do this what sound like in my head it is so now that we know what edible landscaping is let’s go to a break and
Then we’re going to break down how to do it the challenges of it and then we going to give you some excellent candidates to enhance your yards with edible landscaping hey everybody thanks for checking out the backyard gardens podcast if you like what we’re doing and you want to continue to support the
Podcast head over to our patreon page to sign up you can also make a one-time donation using PayPal both of these links are in the description with your support we can continue growing and helping others in their Gardens see you we want you to be a part of our
Gardening Community DM us a picture of your garden at backyard gardens TV on Instagram and we will share it with our listeners when I run out of my cup of water bavia I might have to um break the rules and drink the Selzer water I have
Right here but I’m going to try not to just FYI all right so because it’ll make me burp every time I won’t Panic if I see you doing it it’s okay okay so how do you how do we we let’s let’s do this how do you start by edible
Landscaping what do you think I think it I think it’s very similar to how we talk about you know how do you start a traditional Garden you know what are the things that you enjoy um so if I detested pecans I would never plant a pecan tree in my Edible
Garden you know or my edible landscape you know so um I do think that if you’re thinking about things like trees and bushes and berries and you know those things while while we definitely definitely look at our regular Gardens and say we want to eat as much of what we produce
From it like that’s our intent it’s not exactly the same when it comes to the edible landscape like it’s hard for me to separate the idea of yeah you definitely want to eat everything but the reality is you don’t have to some of the things that you produce can be you
Know ornamental an ornamental cabbage you know so you can do that you know or you could decide to harvest and eat the cabbage um so if you don’t like cabbage though you know that wouldn’t be a thing that i’ plant in it so let’s decide what
You enjoy what you like what you like to eat but also what you like to look at yeah I agree with that but one thing that I think um that I need to be clear about is I think that that was a trick question cuz there’s a of course I mean
They almost always are no it’s a two-parter because that’s exactly right but I think at the same time when you do this it’s really important that you walk through your area and see where you can put stuff as well because that’s going to help you you know when you’re
Starting your food factory Garden it’s like okay I want my tomatoes to go here I want my Peppers to go here my beans will go here blah blah blah but when you’re trying to fit stuff into your already existing land Cape or you know something like that you you might like
You know for instance you might like okra and you may be like well let me put an okra there you know it gets nice and big but is that really going to fit into to that design of it cuz the the only complicated part about this and this is
Kind not well yeah I’ll say it is the design portion but this is the fun part of it too you know what I mean there’s different different elements that you can use in order to enhance these areas so I agree with what you said but I also
Think you need to look and see where you can fit stuff in as well you know do you need a ground cover do you need a bush that kind of thing because a lot of times when you edible landscape the food Portion the consumable product portion whatever term
We’re going to stick with for the show which is obviously going to be both is the byproduct versus the other way around where the actual shape of the plant as the byproduct does that make sense yeah yeah yeah yeah well I mean it definitely makes sense I think if you have an
Existing growing space like if you already have things in your yard right but if you’re starting with a blank slate um you could be planting out you know ornamental things as often as you plant out things that can be edible you know um yeah and this is going to be one
Of those episodes where there really isn’t a real right or wrong there’s no hard right or hard wrong so I won’t say that I disagree with you and you know you should not say that you disagree with me because that’s just not wise um it’s just a different view of it you
Know so I think that perennials are winners for Edible Landscaping but I don’t think that it’s a requirement you know no I think it lends itself to it a little bit better mhm mhm and maybe it’s just because of my experience with it you know like for instance I’ve got two
Well now I’ve got three fruit trees in my yard and I also have um a bunch of uh six blueberry bushes and those were planted to to kind of form a hedge now they’re not really going to form a hedge but they will get bigger and bushier and
They will block out some areas that we don’t really want to look at or what we’re really using it for is to Define our space MH so that’s the main goal of it but then the second goal is like Hey we’re going to get some blueberries you
Know are we going to get enough to make jelly off of it no but my son can go out and pick his blueberries and put them in his cereal for the month of May and June you know we can put them in you know we can make muffins and put them in or
Pancakes or something so there’s that little bit that aspect to it that’s such a great example such a great hold on Bell worthy example of how you can look at something and say I could grow blueberries in my backyard you know and that doesn’t turn it into an edible
Landscape but if I grow it along the fence in my front yard for the purpose of creating a little bit of privacy and door shade creating a this aesthetic that looks like a hedge right that now I’m in the realm of this being more edible landcape esque I’m sorry I had to
Do it a second time but that’s exactly exactly right so the benefit is we do get blueberries but that not is the purpose of it now if we do a second row of blueberries maybe we are talking a different story but we’re not planning on doing that yet we’ve we’ve toyed with
It you know but just stuff like that um my mom she did blackberries in her front yard and she had an the difference is though she used a trus that was de more decorative than functional I guess is the termite because you know my trellises that I build are not
Necessarily decorative you know the cattle panel trellis is pretty but other than that it’s not like a fancy trellis it’s usually some wire you know the concrete grids or something that you put in so but when you do it in an edible landscape then you can use a more
Decorative which is going to cost you more money but it’s that you know now yeah I don’t know how I feel about that sometimes I feel I like like trellising flowers so there’s that but it is an option you know yeah I think um you know
Kind of your Arbors and some of like your wood uh trellises you know there other other material as well but really for the purpose of it’s inviting right like it’s it’s created to elicit a certain feeling where what you and I have used like up until like this moment um
When it comes to trellises it’s really really functional right because it serve the whole purpose is to produce the most food make it most available to us and this trellis is going to help us do that we’re definitely different with what your mom is doing and and raspberry
Bushes from what I understand can get pretty big and they need some support that’s why she’s using a trellis yeah yeah so you want to hear my raspberry bush story this is either a Prince song that didn’t get released or it’s a dirty joke but yes I hear it no
It’s I wish it was a print song that didn’t release that I was only person that knew that would be amazing but no it is um I had a neighbor he had a giant bush in the corner of his yard he you know he wasn’t a gardener at all he he
Did have like 18 chickens and Two Goats but that was a different story but in this corner he had this giant blueberry bush and it was pretty but it filled up the corner rounded out the bed just right did I say blueberry I meant raspberry and I remember going over
There one time and trying to you know I noticed that there were birds and didn’t know what it was and I walked up to I was like oh that’s a raspberry bush and it was probably 5T high and maybe 5 six feet wide that big and it was just
Something that he had there didn’t even really care that there were raspberries but I benefited from it because I’d go over and pick him until I saw him spraying it with poison because it got taken over by poison ivy but he said that while he was doing it you know I
Was like why are you doing that and he told me and he’s like man I don’t care he’s like look all around the yard there was raspberry growing everywhere from the birds eating it and pooping it out and stuff but it was it was one of those
First really it was one of those first times that I had really seen something that made an impact on me like that where I was like okay I like the way it looked before I even got there and then I got there and I saw that it was raspberries it’s like a win-win
Situation and in that specific situation one Bush will give you a lot of uh raspberries enough to make jelly so there was that but it was old you know so that’s you know that was another option that we have I don’t even know how the raspberry plant got there but I
Know it got there I’m I’m guessing the previous owner planted it there no he had the house when he when he owned it so I don’t know if it was like a wild raspberry or what it was like he was the when it was built he was the first one
That lived there and maybe he did put it there I don’t know I never had the conversation with him so I should take that back but it was one of those good situations where you could actually see the functional portion of it growing you know what I mean so that’s
Where so so go back to that guy though but he liked it just because it was a bush he didn’t get he didn’t he told me he’s like I don’t give a damn about the The Raspberries yeah I’m like you crazy cuz I love the raspberries
So and you know that was a big bush and I I like the big bushes and stuff MH it makes sense to me to do use those utilize those plants as you know an edible landscape material and I think that kind of going back to the the note
Of you know maybe it’s if you’re able to consume something from it it’s a benefit it’s a bonus um but it may not be you know the prime reason you think about some of the other um other things we plant you know especially for me there’s this whole level of protecting it you
Know so I don’t have blueberries out in the open because I know birds and and other things would eat them right you know so if it’s a part of my food factory then you know I’m going to take some measures right whereas if it’s a part of my edible landscape maybe I’m
Okay with the birds coming in you know yeah jumping away and and moving about well not only are you going to take some measures to protect it if it’s in your food factory but also those measures could very well be something you would not want into your front yard or
Somewhere where it’s visible by the public you know covering it with netting and stuff like I mean you can get netting that is kind of disguised but it’s just easier in my mind to you know it’s like last year we planted um we didn’t get any rain for the whole month
Of May and so while we were we were waiting on on our blueberries to come in and they were just drying up and the birds were crushing them but there was nothing we could do so we just let them have them but otherwise we just go out
There every day and you know pick whatever’s on there and kind of get them before the birds do so there is that option but you want to I would say if you you’re talking about how to edible landscape and you know if we go back to
Plant um plant selection I would try and stay away from like massively fruiting like big fruits like watermelons and you know anything that really needs to be staked um Tomatoes I would not really recommend I mean I don’t think I mean you could probably do it I just would
Not recommend it yeah I think that there’s some things that vine that could be beautiful in any landscape including an edible landscape I think the idea that if it then produces some large fruit you know that’s when it kind of you know you’re kind of back to you know
A food Garden right you know I think that similar to there’s some flowers that are absolutely a part of you know some um landscape and it’s beautiful and they take measures to make sure they’re trellis but again it’s often times on this beautiful trellis right and there
Is some um it’s manicured you know there’s definitely some maintenance there but it’s to have this certain look and again that’s not necessarily the way that we grow squash you know when we’re trellising squash and I think that you know I often times I’m brought to
Berries and kind of your citrus when I think about if I’m going to insert something that’s edible inside of an edible landscape you know so I think an orange tree a lemon tree a uh I even think things like apple trees things like that can absolutely for those that
Have the space be a part of an edible landscape um kind of to fit the criteria if you will I was at a uh I I shot a music video a couple years ago and we were at the house and in the front yard they had
One tree and that one tree was a really big pear tree mhm and dude there was pears all over the ground like and I remember I walked out there was about 3:00 in the morning and I was tired hungry and I sat and I just I walked out
And I reached up and I just grabbed two pairs and sat down and ate them and they were like the most delicious pears and I was like hey man y’all y’all keep any pears in the house he’s like what do you mean pears like you know there’s a par
Tre in your front yard right he’s like oh that’s pears I didn’t know you could eat them I’m like what you talking about you didn’t know you could eat them so it was just one example of like instead you know usually you buy a house and there’s
A maple tree or something in the front yard and it’ll be like a really small one why not pull it out and put something else in there you know yeah I mean the problem can be that those trees like as they if you don’t harvest the fruits and they drop it
Is messy it will it can be unslightly and it can also bring in animals to consume it but it’s it’s a apple you know how how hard is it to go out and pick out pick up some apples I would rather pick up apples than
Leaves but I think here here but I think that the point that you bring up though is um kind of the maintenance element you know so let’s consider how big this book or this tree is going to get this thing that I’m planting um especially if it’s perennials because as we’ve seen
Most all perennials year over year they’ll get bigger at some point they’ll top out you know but um you look up and as you think about you know kind of my number one was determine what you like to look at determine what you may like to eat if it’s something that’s going to
Be edible like that’s how you start and your kind of First Step was let’s walk your your yard let’s walk your space and see kind of where you have room to put things and with that it’s where you have room to put things and considering what they’ll be like from the point of
Planting versus what they’ll be like once they’re mature and then you fold in the part about you know if it’s going to produce something you know that’s going to drop you know whether it’s leaves or whether it’s actually some fruit how does that affect the look and the design
You’re going for is that going to introduce more um maintenance or more work than you really want yeah you know and it’s like do you need a ground cover cuz there’s stuff you can use for ground covers do you need a bush do you need I
Mean do you need a flower you know there’s some stuff that flowers uh so there’s there’s a lot of different options and it’s about you know if you move into a house and you already have a front you know usually you have like a front foundation planting and you’ll have what are called
Anchor bushes the the big bushes in the back m like and they’re nice and developed and you know whatever it’s not about pulling those out it’s about incorporating them with them yeah so maybe you you know maybe you’ve moved in somewhere and they’ve got some nice box
Woods so you look at it and you’re like okay now what can I do well let me add I can start at the bottom and say let me start with a ground cover and throw in some time you know and then let me look at this part and then there there’s this
Section and I have you know you have some kind of rows in front or something I mean I’m just creating this random Garden in my head but then you need to pick something else that’s like a little bit bigger so maybe that’s where your blueberry bush would fit in you know it
Gives you a different contrast color with the gleaves it can form a different shape so you can do you know you can add those kinds of things as well so it’s you know making sure you have a well thought out plan is good because if you plant the time for instance it’s going
To grow and it’s just going to keep growing you know um Lavender is another good one that you can do too you know I mean it’s like okay well is it edible no but it’s consumable a lot of people drink lavender tea a lot of people use
The lavender to make sachets to put into their drawers and their chest of drawers not their underwears um in North Carina we call them draws so you know there’s all these different ways you can use lavender so it’s it’s about if you think um you know
This may be the time where we kind of swear off mint and we talk about containing mint this could be the time where you have space where you want something to get big and bushy and to spread year over year right you um exactly no would do that with caution
But yeah yeah like when people grow mint it’s almost like I remember I was having some work done a couple of years ago and I was like trying to give it away and I’m like hey take take this with you you know so uh you how you get people to
Take it how’s that and they’re like now what am I going to do with men be like you can make all the mojitos you want got it and then they’ll take it that’s always my first response yeah yeah yeah but you know it’s like I had three
Bushes in my front yard I had knockout roses came with the house they look like crap for four years and then everybody on the other side of the road that had them were just amazing and it was because of the how much sun we got so we replaced them with
Pineapple guava bushes we went with a more tropical feel because we just get such hot summers here and it just that particular bed just gets cooked so we went with the pineapple guava now we may get a guava maybe and that will be great but if we don’t it produces a pretty flower
And it’s an evergreen Bush that’s going to fill that space nicely so that’s kind of where we sat with that and it was extremely cost efficient but there’s another good point there as well you know when you think about um what’s the joke with us like I’m like oh these shade loving vegetable
Plants and you’re like none of them are are shade loving like that doesn’t exist right but also think about kind of the um the sun requirements and the spaces that you’re considering planting things in to you know create your edible landscape same idea like you need to think about that um especially because
We’re depending on the direction you go we we may be dealing with some plantings that are more expensive you know so generally perennials are more expensive than annuals right um when you’re talking about bushes and berries you know absolutely um there are opportunities for you to get them on the
Low on the cheap you know like fall seasons are a great example of that I was actually looking in h starting seeds well I don’t know about for an apple tree but I mean yeah yeah sure um but I was just looking at uh one of my
Local garden centers and they are they have like a 50% off hey they’re basically trying to get rid whatever the rid of the things they overwintered you know so it’s a lot of like Shrubbery and things of that nature um but if you move to so that’s that’s one side of it but
If you move to things like absolutely using your regular vegetables as a part of your edible landscape like I saw online there’s video it’s like these big beautiful collards of course I was drawn to them as a part of the design along with some kale along with some large
Char along with some cabbage I think I’m not certain I may be making that piece up um but that could be a part of an edible landscape absolutely and so that you know obviously is a little bit cheaper than let’s say an avocado tree you know but all in all let’s just still
Consider um how much sun your spaces are getting and then if that blends well with the space you’re planting or the things you’re planting and one other node um because now we’re combining things that may not be traditional we just want to make sure that they in
Addition to having you know Sun needs similar Sun needs that maybe they have the same needs when it comes to watering and fertilizing um or at least you’re aware that they’re different you know yeah and I mean that’s you know as we dovetail directly into challenges that’s
A good point is you know I think personally the biggest challenge is design you know um you said it correctly but I want to say one thing when you’re planting Within These beds flowers are completely different you know bushes are completely different some of them don’t need full
Sun and you may not realize that as you go to put these things in and one thing like my mom taught me which is I I really like what she says I don’t like a lot of what she says but I like this is she goes if you don’t want something to
Get out of control give it less sunlight it will grow especially a perennial and if it’s nonflowering or something it’ll grow but it won’t get as big and I like that you know so it’s like a lot of these plants like Moon flowers and stuff like that which is totally off subject
But they’re known to be invasive and go crazy but if you eliminate a portion of that Sun instead of giving it 6 hours you give it 5 hours or 4 hours then that can happen so I have a lemongrass that I plant throughout my yard
Um I use it for teas and I use it to make a tomyum soup main ingredient for the flavoring but I spread it throughout my yard and I put it in one place that gets a little bit or a lot more shade and in return it only got half as big
Now I don’t know truth moment I don’t know if over time that will hinder the health of it but for right now it seems to be doing good I am going to move it just a little bit because I want to do something different but that’s kind kind
Of the idea is like hey you can eliminate it you can you can control it by the amount of light that it gets now I would not put it in full shade and say I don’t want to get very big I’m put it in full shade because it just won’t grow
It’ll end up getting all laggy and linky and stuff so but design is I think like you said is the biggest challenge there and it’s something that needs to be a little bit more thought out than a vegetable garden yeah especially when um a lot of our vegetable gardens are annuals which goes
Back to the idea of some of our edible landscaping may be perennial and in that case like it’s not to say once you’ve planted it you can never move it you know I’m always moving things around right um but again since this is about kind of more so the visual
Appeal um you once you’ve done the thing you kind of want to move on to the next thing I think the idea of you know what your guy P Allen Smith does and kind of his approach of taking smaller steps helps with that because what you can do
Is as you know year one year two year three goes by you can determine all right is this in a good space um you know you can see how things um look and feel as they get larger and you can decide if you want to put something else
In that space one of the things that I uh um it’s just classic with me it’s planting things forgetting how big they get and then struggling even walking around you know whatever I’ve planted like you know I’ve basically let things grow into my walkway you know and so that again is clearly a
Real issue too yeah clearly something that when we’re talking in some cases about bigger plants as well um not always but you know in an edible landscape you may have bigger things growing you definitely want to consider that as well well one of the things you know
Since we’re bringing up my man he um he really pushes stuff like putting time and walkways and you know using it as a design element to fill in cracks and crevices but then when you walk on it it’s it’s really it can take you walking on it it’s resilient but then it
Releases that scent as well it activates another one of the senses which is something that really I’ve been trying to do in my garden is activate more senses and you know smell is something that I would really like to have more of which is why I’m doing a Jasmine artch
But that’s another one and then you know how much time are you going to use I mean really you know so grow it somewhere where it doesn’t matter and cut it when you need it and walk away you know it’s perennial it comes back I’ve had it come back when it got below
Zero no issues I mean it’s just kind of one of those things you know I use rosemary as a bush you know and I mean that’s a great one because it in my area it’ll keep growing and get bigger and bigger it’s a very slow growing plant
But how much Rosemary am I going to use I don’t use much you know what I mean like I don’t come across a lot of recipes that require Rosemary but it’s it’s a unique look it is um it is uh as you’ve described once it’s gotten big you know um it is it’s
The equivalent of some of the bushes that we actually may buy from a store to plant for a certain look and then there’s the aroma you know so another one of the senses yeah I mean you just brush up against it and it releases that scent same with the lavender yeah when
You were describing the um the time I was just thinking you know there’s there’s definitely something whimsicle about an edible landscape and it it makes me feel like you’re you’re creating an experience right that look the vocabulary kicks in again ohuh hashtag it um you’re creating this experience
And I think it it allows you to become creative in a different way than you would you know know not more or less necessarily but a different way than you would in your kind of food production you know Garden right yeah so this is expanding the things our space this is
Expanding the things that we’re growing um and it’s expanding kind of it for a slightly different purpose which is the reason why I think it kind of snuggles right into this expansion series that we have um and I’m glad that this was kind of like the closing out of the you know
The series as well um and I finally will say um that I was not team add this episode in I had to be definitely were not you definitely were not Leonard notes yeah at like 400 a.m. saying okay this is another reason why I should be
Added and I was kind of like I’ve been up for an hour and a half but you know I still don’t see it you know but now after I take my nap I’ll tell you after I take my nap that’s that’s what I got I
Got to take my nap think about it yeah like I need think about the first thing AV Ed I promised you before we recorded I uh we like okay we’re going to court this time I’m like all right so I set my alarm and when my alarm went off I set
My alarm for a nap and when my alarm went off because it was in the middle of the day I was so confused and disoriented I was kind of like wait a minute oh wait am I late like late thinking like for my work day then I’m
Like wait is it the weekend and I’m like oh no it’s none of these things so and that same instance uh I know I thought you I know you thought there was something more to that story but not really um I was I knew that it
Was in your head there was I knew in your head there was yeah I wasn’t dreaming about edible landscaping either you should be you should be no I was I had a thought and I wanted to get it out before I forgot it a lot of this is
Think about it as building textures within your garden so different foliage folage makes different textures so it’s like me intermixing my lettuce and my chard to build out textures and colors and stuff like that so you can use stuff like basil like groups of Basil to to make it
Would appear to be a bush it’s not a bush but it would appear to be and you could intermingle two different types of Basils to get like a more yellow leaf with a green leaf you could do stuff like that Fern uh not ferns um Dill is
Another good one you know what I mean it’s it’s a and the reason why I would say Dill is because as it shoots up it creates movement in the wind and then that adds to your garden as well so there’s all these different things that
You can do with it which is important to think about and it’s you know the design element I mean you can have a challenge for anything and I know you know we just got refresh off of the you should grow Series where we talk about like pests
And stuff like that and that’s not really going to be as much of an issue you I don’t think because generally speaking these plants that you’re putting you’re adding your edible landscape to don’t have the same pests as your food crops do right what do you think well I think
That’s actually a really I don’t know that we you and I have talked about this piece of it you know kind of in our various conversations and we talk about so much I can’t keep up with what we talk about but it absolutely is a consideration so
Um I believe that this is kind of the best version of um what’s the the one that I always hate um kind of companion planting you know kind like so a part of this is you’re you’re not planting things in the same way that you would in your food Garden
Like you’re not necessarily planting things together in that same way so you may be tricking some of the pest uh um I I’d say that especially if you’re you’re buying something that’s expensive to put into your yard you know quck couple of searches to make sure that it doesn’t
Compete with something else that’s there um I think that that’s going to be important but I do think that you know we were talking about this a few days ago I was thinking about are you more inclined to spray when I use the term spray I generally mean some type of pesticide
Like spray this Garden because of you of you wanting it to be more um pleasing to the eye right you know so when I saw going back to the the video that I saw with um you know your collards and your your cabbage and things and I’m just
Like there’s nothing I mean these look pristine there’s nothing attacking these you know I’m just wondering like hm well that’s the I I think that’s the in my mind the final aspect of challenges would be you know don’t plant something that requires a lot of Maintenance and don’t plant something that you were
Dependent on getting that food out of it I think those are the the other two you know what I mean so I wouldn’t put something out there that constantly needs to be trimmed you know because how much of a pain in the ass is that to
Like go work in your food factory and then turn around and come back and then go out in your front yard or whatever and start you know trimming and pruning and all that you know it’s like you have to dead head stuff you know if if you
Even decide to do that and if you do plant something that’s going to require that same kind of Maintenance you know what I mean so while you’re out there deadheading and say you know what let me go ahead and get a a huge handful of
Basil take it in let me get a huge handful of dill and start drying it you know and then just walk away from it and then come back I think that’s really the trick behind is keeping it low key yeah I think it’s to each its own though
Right so this could be your way to start diddling with it things like you know you you want to have that maintenance but I also my way is the right way I also think I’m just going keep moving on I also think that that kind of goes back
To some of the other things uh that are your traditional or in your traditional Garden like some of your other Vining crops things that you need to train that you need to pick often like that’s the reason why this doesn’t necessarily fit in an edible landscape right um it
Should be the idea is it should um you should be able to uh stay away from it and it just should still look good like that’s that’s the goal or one of the goals I should say um you know you’re gone for a week and a half on vacation all right
You got your sprinklers on a timer and you’re all good you know um because again there’s still watering needs you know when it comes to these things we’re planting um yeah but as they get to be perennial the watering needs are less and less yeah good point good point you know and
I mean I think you know the first year is always the toughest but if you’re planting like trees and stuff like dude I after the first year like you don’t really have to water a tree unless it’s like a time of drought mhm and I I don’t want to sleep on the
Trees portion either well are you talking about non fruit bearing trees or just trees in general I’m talking about edible trees of some sort you know nut trees uh fruit trees I generally talk about fruit trees I mean I know I grow up with a pecan
Tree but my mind like I have a peach pair and fig tree in my yard so I had two pair of trees but one of them I think is um I did an accidental cut last year and I think that’s all she wrote but we’ll see which tree was that it was
A par tree that I had I had two parat trees and I don’t know if the other one will produce now because I think it takes two to tango but there’s a par tree down the road so I don’t know if like a I I don’t know how it works so if
Not I got a tree that’s just going to be there yeah yeah now don’t you have a couple of fig trees I have a fig tree okay mm yeah we put put in a brown turkey fig we got last year and I put in a peach tree so the peach tree in the
Front yard it separates the common area from my yard and then the Fig Tree is in the back or in the sidey yard where it can create some shade for the blueberry plants in late afternoon and then the blueberry plants are right next to that obviously so and then we have you know
We have strawberries as ground cover in one area which are looking rough this year I got to I got to mess with those I got to figure that out your which one again my strawberries okay yeah yeah it’s such a sad story I’m I’m actually on the fence I I may give strawberries
Another go um but strawberries are we we’ve not moved on to I’m ready to move on to the the candidates I’m getting excited about them I’m sorry yeah well let’s do this let’s take a break and then we’ll come back with the recipe of the
Day B what question do we get asked the most I would have to say it’s probably more something like what are the products we use in our Gardens the most ding ding ding ding that’s the correct answer hey there’s an Amazon link below when you get over to the Amazon store
Know that you’re going to be supporting the podcast but all the products both bavia and I have used in our Gardens we want to see you all over on YouTube so check us out at backyard gardens TV to watch our podcast and other gardening videos since it’s spring why don’t we just go
Ahead and highlight the radish real quick so this is a recipe that I did not create for the record but it’s basically I would say it’s a side dish unless you eat a lot of it which is okay um it’s quick it’s 15 minutes to make it
20 minutes tops so we’re going to use Greek yogurt lemons lemon juice olive oil and then I would use I would say it depends on if you’re growing your radishes which we’re going to assume you are I would and depending on how big they are if they’re
About maybe a quarter size I would say maybe 15 or 20 of them mhm which as you know is less than a square foot um half a teaspoon of cumin half a teaspoon of coriander uh dried chili flakes and Dill and then mint okay so you’re going to chop up the
You’re going to chop up the radishes you’re going to coat them in olive oil and then the spices which would be the corander the chili and the cumin and then you’re going to roast them for probably I would say 10 to 15 15 minutes in the oven at
4:25 and then you’re going to mix the lemon and the yogurt in the dill together so you could even get like a pre-made like yogurt dill dip and use it if you wanted to mix that up and then take out the radishes put it on top and then slice up the mint
And put it on as a garnish just to kind of give it a little bit extra flavor and I would because I’m addicted to Salt I would put a little bit of salt on it as well it just gives it that nice bite you know what I mean but it’s pretty simple
Yeah I like the um I thought you were I thought we were going to dip the roasted radishes in the sauce which you obviously can do um but I like the idea of drizzling it I like a sauce in general so creamy anything is most times
Good although I made a really bad creamy like cilantro dressing like salad dressing if if you put it you would put it on a bed of um yogurt is what you would do and then serve it with a spoon okay that’s how you would do it
Technically but you could use it as a sauce too I mean hell I don’t care how you use it just use it yeah I thought you were saying drizzle it on on dire but yeah all of that all of that you know all of that is delicious yeah cuz
Now what you have in my mind is it I thought you were going to say a bed of of lettuce which I think still works I think it does too I’m a big fan of roasted anything as a part of a salad um so yeah that’s um way to bring in the
I mean you should be pulling those radishes out like right now you know from your garden like it’s starting to get warmer so I’m I still got yeah I got to plant I got one more round of radishes to put in then I’m done for the
Year until the fall or are you not doing them in the fall oh of course I’m doing them in the fall I meant for the season okay so um let’s go through some candidates real quick let’s do our top five each oh jeez Louise I’m going deep
Okay well why don’t you it off as I write down my top five let’s take it down to three just to make it a little quicker um so you can lump fruit trees in I think they’re a great addition they are typically not giant trees okay and they may get giant but
Not in your lifetime so you know it’ll be the next person’s problem but you’ll get a lot of fruit off of them some stuff like um peach trees for example they actually have a limited lifespan so there’s that as well so if you can try that for a
Couple years then you could switch it out you could do something like that um basil again any kind of herb you could use but basil is another one that I would really take advantage of the only thing with that is as it starts to bolt you just got to make sure you trim
The the flowers off and if you keep them trimmed you know every you know once a week or you know even once every two weeks go out and just trim trim them they’ll be bushier and bushier and then you’ll get a bigger plant so I think
That’s another good one and then uh I’m a big fan of blueberry bushes because they grow well in my area I like blueberries I like the look of them they’re not as full as they could be here but that may be my doing because not trimmed them a single time so this
Year my plan is my older ones I did them in two I I planted three and then I came back a year or two later then planted three more so the the original Three I’ll probably go out and trim this year after I get my berries and see if that
Will help them Bush out and it should because of the way the plant works you know you cut it it’ll shoot the energy up and then the energy will stop and it’ll come back and it’ll cause it to back butt and Bush back out so I’ll probably be doing that as well
Okay those are my top threes all righty so I’m going to go I’m just going to agree with you on fruit trees and agree with you on herbs you name basil I think any kind of larger kind of uh herb that can get to kind of your your knee or
Waist I think those are good candidates um I’m going to go with for my three sunflowers um in a yeah in an organized way right so there are so many varieties of sunflowers and for the record well two records one I’m not afraid of everything but sunf flowers while I love
Them freak me out a little bit why the head of the sunflower when it starts to produce the seed yeah kind that look of it it it weirds me out um but I still think they are amazing amazing flowers and obviously I I harvest I’m still eating sunflowers from the the plants I
Grew last year but there are a bunch of varieties that maybe don’t get kind of huge and Droopy you know there are a bunch of varieties that um you know put on multiple heads and there’s nothing I love more than a sunflower than one that puts on multiple you know flower heads
Um different colors different heights and all of that so I think you can get really creative with that um I’m going to go with I know I know what you’re thinking as much trouble as I have with them the brasas right so you see them in the stores ornamental cabbage is
Absolutely a thing um but I do believe especially when you’re looking at some fall plantings I think that that can add some texture some appeal to your gu your garden um maybe for those there’s less pest worry than there may be for some others um I think lettuce heads and
Lettuce is absolutely for kind of your smaller space your borders and things so I’m putting all of that under the uh leafy greens um I am going to for the sake of um sacrificing these the fruit it produces I’m going to say strawberries again as a border um because those plants can get
Tall um at some point they have flowers and then ultimately berries so I’m going to go with those as my top three since you took some of the better ones yeah the only one I don’t like that you said was the head lettuce and the only reason why is cu once you harvest
The head you’re kind of left with scraps yeah I I do think so let’s but this is the way the part where we kind of differ in the leave it there forever versus is I like the way that you’re bringing this up at the end because you
Know we’re going to have to cut it so go ahead yeah so this speaks to my desire to um change a design right to pull things out to replace things and so you’re at a very good point where it’s not going to stay there and look good
For the entire year you know so and it’s not going to necessarily produce heads the entire year depending on where you live and a lot of our spaces get warm enough for those lettuce heads not to produce um so I do think you consider that but it doesn’t mean that you can’t swap
Something else in for that space yeah I I just think that you know our choices show how we feel about edible landscaping and what our plans would be you know mine is a more low maintenance Everlasting and yours is a really like a here and now very literal choice but I
Will say this the sunflowers is one of the most important choices you could pick because and I honestly I was like damn I should I got that answer wrong like I failed the test you know what I mean it like the bonus question you didn’t get right but if you think about the
Nutrition that’s included in sunflowers and the fact that everybody grows sunflowers everywhere I mean every what Gardener doesn’t really like sun I know there’s somebody out there please don’t send us hate mail um you can feel free to tell us you don’t like them but just don’t make it hateful I understand that
Um a lot of people grow them and the the amount of protein and healthy fats that are built into that flour make it an excellent candidate because not only are you getting the food but you’re also getting the seed for next year too yep seed for next year and it’s a major
Impact on your garden mhm absolutely I think that um I grew them very late in my garden life and that first year I had so many uh problems with squirrels eating them like not Birds but squirrels like eating the face of them I sing them
Off but then I had like a [ __ ] ton of seeds so I’m kind of like all right let me give it another try and last year I think it was the second second or third time I had tried it and I had great success with it I’m hoping for the same
Success this year um and and so that is something to consider like for some of these things will you know animals that come in to enjoy them turn that into an unsightly thing so consider that you know um and sometimes you don’t know what’s going to come into your area into
You Planet there um which I think I was the Everlasting description that you gave of yours I kind of felt like I don’t often feel less than but I felt a little less than like Everlasting I just wanted to wrap myself up in it like yeah well one thing seriousness as as
You know in the last three minutes we were talking one thing really wrung true to me about this is this is a good opportunity to play with variet ities M and really experiment with other types of vegetables or other varieties of your favorite vegetable you know like head lettuce different um different varieties
Of sunflowers you’ve got white sunflowers yellow sunflowers red sunflowers giant sunflowers bushing sunflowers you got all kinds of stuff you can do different varieties of basil basil yeah I mean like I said you can grow um like last year I did a Thai Basil and then just your regular basil and the Thai
Basil had smaller thinner yellow leaves yellowish leaves and then the regular basil was what we all used to the green and when you put them together it was very contrasting and it was very pretty and as they grew into each other a purple basil I have a friend that’s
Grown a chocolate basil yeah which or maybe was it a chocolate mint H and I mean let’s just you know we can hone in on the difference of like like Dills for since you’ve got your your Mammoth Dill you’ve got your small Dill you’ve got your Fern Leaf Dill you’ve got all these
Different options yeah and generally speaking I don’t know about you but sometimes when you’re like look I want to grow basil I just need a pack of Basil seeds doesn’t matter what it is you just know that you need to grow that basil so it’s it’s an interesting
Thought but I mean this is really a time where it will shine you know the different varieties so test them out and I don’t want to wrap up before we say um kind of the growing medium it’s it’s what you decided it to be right so it could be directly in
Ground as a lot of the things we talk about you know when you think about your typical landscape is you could have borders like actual materials borders you know this could be some some of the space could be you know these plants could be in raised beds again not like
Your 10 foot tall raised bed no really not like your you know your Yeah couple of your one foot raised not necessarily that um but it could absolutely and this is the part that um I wanted to make sure that we got out was you know vertical gardening still applies um but
More specifically it can absolutely be an edible landscape using containers it can absolutely be incorporated into your design cracked that saler water yeah took me a second to realize yeah so that’s my last word water it got me no it’s um that’s a very good point and I
Think a lot of times you’re going to be putting stuff inside of a inground bed mhm but you can make little raised bed step up beds inside of that raised bed inside of an inground bed too coming soon in Ben’s front yard Garden that is actually my plan for this
Year is to do that some uh a listener sent me some borage seeds mhm so I’m going to try that in my front yard this year as well I think it might fit my design we’ll see but um yeah there you go people you’ve got it you’ve got all
You need to know about expanding your garden from the beginning of things to consider to Vertical gardening container gardening and now edible landscaping or pottage or porridge or whatever it was P look we’re both you know we’re both pronouncing it wrong right that’s the funnyest part I’m sure I’m sure and I’m
Okay with that I’m totally okay with pronouncing things wrong I’m actually known for that in my family but everybody thank thank you so much um you know expand your Gardens if you want if not come see ours we’d like to have you here um thank you for listening to us
Check out all our links below everybody have a good beautiful day enjoy spring get get your hands and stick them in the ground and get all the dirt you can under your nails cuz that is your trophy for your garden and remember learn to grow and grow for change all I got is
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