Kitchen Garden Forum

Well it is nice to have a pretty front garden but it is also possible to sneak some edible plants in there too. For the front of the border, consider some low lying plants like chives, pretty pom pom mauve flowers,, garlic chives have delicate white flowers I found a pink flowered strawberry today and put that in the front garden - first pink flowers then red fruits should still be attractive. Thyme and lemon thyme and lavender can be culinary as well as attractive short growing plants and will attract bees to your garden. a little taller ruby or multi coloured chard is quite attractive, and for the back of the border red orach has pretty red leaves and can be used like spinach or in salads. If you have space for a a tree then a cherry or almond gives pretty pink blossom in spring. and fruit or nuts later, but be sure to check rootstock for height.. Saffron crocus are a culinary treat and an expensive thing to buy, they flower in autumn. I am planting a couple of honeysuckles that bear edible fruits similar to blueberries, other honeysuckle berries are poisonous so be sure to have the right type, and some blueberries have pretty red leaves in autumn. Remember some flowers are edible too, marigolds, pansies, nasturtium,carnation, borage, lemon verbena, violet and sunflowers to name just a few. Please feel free to add any ideas I have missed!

I had a few spare beetroot and they have gone in and against the yellow Erysimum Gold Rush are looking good and I must have emptied some trays of compost with Little Gem lettuce seed still in and they look very pretty now.

Beryl.

My neighbour next door has all his front garden for veggies..looks great as well, apert from the local cats!!
He now has managed to get an allotment so he might change back to lawns and borders.

As well as herbs, how about Amaranth - spectacular tassels and (borderline IMHO) edible seeds. Or Globe artichokes - especially the purple ones. Or sunflowers ?

My dad once grew potatoes in his - not very pretty though !

Hi NB,
Sweetcorn is quite a statuesque plant in the front garden rear of bed. Several people in this area do just that and IMHO it looks very well but as a vegetable grower I may just lean towards bias!
Ruby Chard actually was origionally in the flower section of the seed catalogues as a foliage cover plant and Purple Ruffles Basil looks wonderful and provides a really good background to most things.
I dislike Basil to eat but am very happy to entertain it as a background plant.
I have a friend that grows his runner beans up his rose arbour and he grows multicoloured varieties like Painted Lady but I think he has of late moved to a more modern bi-coloured vatiety which is more prolific and I do not know the name.
My front garden of late grows a great variety of wild flowers called weeds to us gardeners!
JB.

Wonderful suggestions , thank you everyone.

Our front garden has mostly been a soft fruit garden for years. When the roses fell to rust & black spot I replaced them with blackcurrant, redcurrant & gooseberries bushes. A grapevine is planted against a south facing fence and the rest of the gooseberry bush border has been turned into a strawberry bed. The neighbours may think it a little unconconventional but it works for me.

Apart from a lawn & car parking, the front garden doesn't get any leisure use so it seemed to me that for all the council tax we pay, it might as well earn its keep!

Good for you Primrose, I would do the same if space was a problem! Luckily we have a large back garden so most veg are grown there. It's enough for me to manage!

NB could have mentioned sage, too. There are the well-known variegated and purple varieties, but we grow what I think is called the Spanish, narrow-leaved variety. It's a good culinary sage, and the rooted cuttings we brought with us to our new house 20 months ago are about to be covered with blue flowers.

Thank you Ken, yes sage is so useful mine is in the base of a stacked herb tub, all the herbs are so early this year, I'm going to cut and dry some and hope for a second flush.

Hi NB,
I suspect that any of the normally grown herbs would look wonderful in a front garden and when I wrote before I was thinking more on the vegetable side of things.
JB.

Rereading what Johnboy said originally reminded me that we went to Wisley two or three years back and came across a trial of annual decorative climbers. Among them was one we thought very striking, took a note of the Latin name and looked it up when we got home. It was, indeed, runner bean 'Painted Lady'...