Your garden looks great! Another benefit to this style of gardening is that it seems to retain water in the soil better since the ground isn't exposed to the sun as much. You'll have to let us know how much you harvest.

I love this method of gardening and have been using it with my herbs for a while now. All the herbs I grow are mixed into my front flowerbed scattered throughout the more ornamental plants. I'm growing creeping thyme, lemon thyme, fennel, several types of basil, rue, garlic chives, regular chives, a ground cover oregano, mexican terrigon, and even a variegated pepper plant. Now in order to get fresh herbs for cooking I just wander around the flower bed and snip off what I need.

A friend of mine has asked me to help plan out her flower beds and I've convinced her to work various herbs into the beds as well. She's even added wild onions to her large flower bed that surround the pool screen and they are currently blooming very nicely along side agapanthus, gladiolas, and various annuals.

Hi Bill --- It's nice to see pictures of your yard. I love the edible landscape look. I read that recent magazine article about Three Sisters too. Makes sense to me. I'm very impressed with your Swiss chard. Most of mine have holes. Looks like 'Seafoam'.

Christine

Bill,your Swiss chard looks awesome. Your garden looks lush and beautiful.
Kara,I also,last year planted some herbs in the flower beds and they have done well and looks good. This year I have added some more herbs.
Felix

Bill, it looks wonderful!! I love the whole concept, though I have never tried it. I've grown very few vegetables, but that might change a bit in the future. I have grown a lot of herbs, but always had better luck with them in containers. You are making me want to try them in my beds again. I do have a couple of different sages (salvia officinalis) growing in my main garden, and I love the look of them. Some variegated ones, as well as traditional silvery looking ones. I think I will add some others, too. Karalynn, I love the idea of oregano as a ground cover!

Thanks for sharing the pictures, Bill. I'm gonna come see your "new" garden some day. I liked what you were describing to me at the swap, and need to check it out.

I'm working hard in my yard so you can come see my garden, too. Won't be too much longer, if all goes well.

Marcia

Hi Bill
Nice to see your wonderful garden!

I always saw corn with beans, it always works for me and the corn makes a good pole. I am having a great crop of Jeminez beans. Corn is looking good too, I have 2 ears on each, I also prefer varieties that are not too sweet.
In the same bed I have Delicata squash, Christine's Amaranth and some small zinnias and marigolds.

Your garden is so colorful and healthy looking! Keep up with the good work! And keep us updated on your crops.

Silvia

Wow, Nice garden!

I tried that trick last year with a raised bed. I put corn, pole beans, and sweet potatoes in it. I figured the potatoes would provide the ground cover and would take whatever spot not used by the corn and been roots. Not sure if its wise, but it seemed to work. I added an extra trellis for the beans so they wouldn't overwhelm the corn too bad. My bean output was spectacular, but I probably only got about 6 decent ears of corn. I think I didn't fertilize it enough to compensate for the sweet potatoes in the soil.

I'm trying it again this year with a new raised bed since the old one still has onions in it, but I can already tell I planted too soon. The cardboard hadn't had enough time to properly decompose and the corn is only about 4 feet tall. I'm guessing the roots couldn't go deep enough. Oh well. That's why we experiment. Next season the bed should be ready and I can do it correctly.

I never thought to simply toss a single corn here and there amongst my beds rather then line them up in rows. Its rather brilliant. I do that with sunflowers to increase my chances of sneaking them past the squirrels and to get something above the plantline. I'm going to experiment with that with my fall crops as well as see what other ground covers I can use.

Thanks to you all for the kind comments.

Kara, I love rue but I've never grown it. How does it do for you?

Christine, the chard is Lucullus. Snails and some kind of worm eat the leaves too. (I use iron phosphate? for the snails and bt for the snails but it's a struggle).You should stop by some time when you're in town anyway for work or whatever, and I'll show you the garden. Just send me an e-mail.

Marsha, I'm looking very forward to seeing your garden some day (I've been admiring it on GW for years now), and you know you're always welcome to stop by when you're up in DeLand.

Thanks Felix, and I'll keep you posted, Sylvia. (I hope to plant my cactus seeds today!)

Bill

This is the first time I've ever tried growing rue but it seems to be doing well. One plant is in the front bed in full sun with good soil and regular watering. It seems to be growing faster then the one in the back in part shade with less frequent watering. I love the way it looks in both places though.

Your garden has REALLY grown Bill ! The corn has gotten quite big .
Ah , the wonders of mushroom compost and irrigation ! Your beautiful garden and property is a testament to that .
My pitiful attempt is the before picture - sand and NO irrigation .
I am glad I know people who are great gardeners. I can live vicariously through your posts.
Thanks for posting the pictures . They were small enough that I could actually load them on my very slow dial-up . Yippee !

Bill, your garden looks great and so healthy! I find rosemary and cuban oregano very ornamental and grow it with my flowers. My veggie garden is a mess. A lot of stuff jumbled together in places, but most of the time it works out ok too. I have never tried corn, beans and squash. Looks wonderful with all the flowers mixed in. I also love the look of the less fussy zinnias and wildflowers. Thanks for showing us!

Anna

And they say mixing the garden up a bit with flowers and spreading the corn out will actually help confuse pests!!!!!

The mass planting methods might make harvest, watering, fertilizing and spraying a bit easier but it definitely leaves you far more open to attack by pests that can easily go from plant to plant and ruin a crop.

Great looking garden.

Very nice Bill, I wonder if I can do that in containers. I'm converting some 5 gallon buckets to SWCs but if using the other crops a ground cover in container culture will keep the topsoil from losing moisture too quickly then this concept might work for me too....

Tom