Have you considered converting part or all of your backyard into a garden that produces a bountiful harvest? With edible landscaping, you can grow delicious, fresh fruits, herbs, and vegetables right outside your door while beautifying your outdoor space.
Below are eight compelling reasons why establishing an edible landscape in your backyard is a brilliant idea. We invite you to explore the potential of your own outdoor area as a source of nourishment and beauty.
Delight in a Low Maintenance Garden
One of the appeals of edible landscaping is that it requires minimal upkeep once established. Using perennial fruits, herbs, and vegetables along with edible garden design principles means you won’t need to dig, till, water, or sow seeds year after year. Berry bushes, asparagus, artichokes, rhubarb, and fruit trees continue producing with minimal labor on your part.
These landscapes also tend to harbor hardy, disease-resistant varieties that thrive without chemical pesticides or fertilizers. That’s healthier for you and the environment. The organic approach also reduces maintenance needs — no need to spread toxic chemicals or haul around heavy bags.
Only occasional pruning, weeding, and harvesting are required to reap over 20 years of productive bounty from your edible garden. The plants do most of the work when thoughtfully chosen and properly placed.
Enjoy the Freshest, Most Nutritious Produce
One of the best benefits of edible landscaping is picking fully ripe, flavorful produce right in your yard. Tomatoes warm from the afternoon sun, just-picked berries, and herbs with their flavor and aroma intact — these are joys you can only get from growing your own.
You also get to try heirloom and specialty varieties that you won’t find at the grocery store. Eating local, seasonal produce at peak ripeness gives you the most nutritional value from each bite.
Save Money on Groceries
Once you account for seeds, soil amendments, tools, water, and time, fresh produce grown in your edible garden costs a fraction of what you’d pay at the store. And the returns from that small investment compound year after year. Berry bushes, fruit trees, asparagus, rhubarb, and other perennials continue to produce, making edible landscaping very cost-effective.
Boost Wellness Through Outdoor Activity
Caring for your edible garden provides light exercise, stress relief from being outdoors in nature, and the satisfaction of nurturing living things. Weeding, pruning, and harvesting also help improve strength, endurance, and dexterity. Community gardens allow even more people to gain these wellness benefits.
Bring Together Family and Community
From sowing seeds in spring to harvesting the last squash in fall, an edible garden provides terrific opportunities for families to spend time together outdoors. These landscapes also help build community when installed in public parks, school gardens, or shared neighborhood green spaces.
Create Curb Appeal and Year-Round Beauty
With a smart design focused on form, height, color, and blooming times, fruits, vegetables, and culinary herbs can be as lovely as ornamental plants. Their changing foliage, flowers, and ripening fruit ensure visual appeal across all four seasons. You can create focal points, borders, privacy screens, and more, all while producing food.
Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
Transporting produce long distances from industrial farms to stores burns fossil fuels and emits greenhouse gases. But growing fruits and veggies in your backyard lessens those emissions, the need for excessive packaging, and trips to the supermarket. You also gain more control over the fertilizers and pesticides used, making edible landscaping a greener, more sustainable way to put food on your table.
Support Birds, Bees, and Other Pollinators
An edible garden welcomes pollinators like bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds when designed properly. By including flowering herbs, fruit trees, native plants, and diverse vegetation structures, you can create an attractive habitat for beneficial wildlife right in your backyard.
Start on Your Edible Garden Design Today
The benefits of converting a section or all of your landscape into a garden that nourishes the soul and contributes to the planet’s well-being are clear. Now is a perfect time to get planting!
Contact a knowledgeable landscaper in your area for help designing and installing an edible garden tailored to your climate, space, and tastes. Then enjoy nurturing nature right in your own backyard while reaping over 20 years of tasty, sustainable rewards.
