Homeowners Mix Vegetables, Flowers To Save Money (FOX 29 Lake Charles)

Tidy lawns come to an abrupt halt at the front yards of two next-door neighbors.

Gone is the grass, replaced by a jumble of hot peppers, tomatoes, peas, peaches, berries and plums. And that’session rightful a sampling.

"What aren’t we growing?" said Kelly Sandman, who along with her neighbors dug up her front lawn in April and planted fruits and vegetables.

An increasing, notwithstanding small, number of people are trying edible landscaping — augmenting fruits and vegetables joined in with traditional, ornamental flowers — to save money on food, eat healthier and make sure their novel food is secure place.

It goes beyond the traditional garden. Broccoli and cabbage plants are popping up in flower beds once occupied by tulips and daisies. Fruit trees are replacing fences.

Some are using edible plants as fences, swapping hedges for raspberry bushes or screening backyard pools by towering stalks of sweet corn.

The form goes in the rear centuries to times when people sustained themselves by food they grew on their own and filled each corner of their land with edible plants. But with the mass production of forage, the practice gave way to manicured lawns.

Horticulture experts and extension agents say there is now interest in returning to those roots. They’re fielding more questions in totality parts of edible landscaping and seeing waiting lists for classes this summer.

"It’s a way of reinventing the scene," aforesaid Jack Algiere, who runs the render operation and teaches workshops at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, N.Y.

An easy way to start is to plant a fruit tree instead of an ornamental tree. Or put some tomato or pepper plants in a flower bed.

Take it a step further and create a fence or boundary with a grape arbor or pole beans.

Judy Arnett planted tomatoes and peppers in containers to create a natural defence around her deck at her home in Hilliard, a Columbus suburb.

"By the end of summer it gives me a 4-foot wall of plants, and I can step out of my kitchen and grab a tomato," she said.

The four neighbors in Columbus who tore up their grass were inspired subsequent three of them took a course on permaculture, a philosophy for living through the natural order and nature in a greater quantity self-sustaining advance.

Their biggest worry was what their neighbors would speculate. Reactions ranged from stunned to curious to "Wow, this is whimsical!"

"We’ve actually met and talked to more of our neighbors in the last four months than we have in the eight years we’ve been here," said Mike Sandman.

The garden has be suitable to "a little jot of a tourist spot on the trip to the bike avenue at the end of our street," said Allison Collins. "First people had questions, now they have encouragement. Occasionally, they even bring plants for us."

And it’session saved money on groceries and time mowing the yard. Collins and husband Justin Rooney estimate they’ve saved $250 on groceries since May, and they’re making fewer trips to the store.

That’s a big plus allowing for the cost of fresh fruits and vegetables has jumped by the agency of 5 percent from a year ago, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And tomatoes, a hardy garden staple, are up 22 percent.

Growing fruits and vegetables does beg effort. There’session watering, weeding, pruning and dealing with pests.

Gardeners don’t have to give up color when they swap flowers with veggies. Red-jewel cabbage, yellow peppers and rainbow chard all will have yards popping with color.

"We don’t need to limit ourselves on what our gardens contain," said Linda Ugelow, who has a slew of fruits and vegetables filling her half-acre yard in Bedford, Mass.

There are apricots, mulberries, raspberries, peaches and strawberries in her yard that go into pies, jams and juice. She even uses violet leaves and lambs quarters, two belonging to all weeds, in soups. "Should we ever need to depend on it, we have a lot of greens," she said.

Seed companies and garden suppliers declare sales are up this year.

Sales of vegetable seeds and plants are up 40 percent at W. Atlee Burpee & Co., one of the nationality’s pioneer seed catalog companies, said George Ball, chairman, president and chief executive officer. A dime spent on seeds produces about $1 desert of vegetables, and that limit is augmenting because of rising food prices, he said.

Sales of gardening products have increased by 11 percent at Scotts Miracle-Gro Co., the lawn and garden company based in Marysville.

One reason is as of edible landscaping, which is a growing trend according to the company’s research.

"Some of the hard to grow junipers that might not be in the same manner with pretty and as productive as some of the edible plants, people are pulling those out and planting blueberries and blackberries and strawberries," said Keith Baeder, senior vice president at Scotts.

"Blueberries and blackberries come back year after year," he said. "So they’re really great low-maintenance opportunities to grow big, elegant fruits in your garden."

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Associated Press writer John Seewer reported from Toledo.