Happy June everyone. It's Brie the Plant Lady, excited to share a blog about my passion: Foodscaping. This month, I want to share details on how you can inspire a foodscape revolution of your own - right in your yard and neighborhood!
The Foodscape Revolution Neighborhood Edition
Aidan and Abby were the catalyst for our neighborhood foodscape revolution!
In mid-March, when school first closed, my awesome garden helpers, Aidan (13) and Abby (10) suggested we start installing gardens for our neighbors. With time on our hands and knowledge in our brains, we set out to show people in our community exactly how to grow food, right in their landscapes.
The first step, as always was to get the Soil³ humus compost ordered and delivered. This is, after all, our insurance policy for success! As the kids say “Soil³ makes our gardens beautiful and bountiful.”
Abby stands next to our gardening essentials: Soil³ and i must garden animal repellent. Behind her is our foodscape - a "no lumber needed" raised bed.
With the help of Jim Putnam, the famous YouTube gardening expert behind Horttube, we got busy installing three foodscapes in our first week and filming the progress! The kids and neighbors were so excited to be a part of something meaningful.
Choosing the right location is key. Focus on full sun areas in existing landscapes with easy access to water. This will ensure the crops will thrive and it will be easy to manage and harvest. The whole idea behind foodscaping is simple, just incorporate your favorite food crops into your landscape. This way you can make the most of the resources you devote to the space and have some fresh food to bring into your kitchen.
Our initial March plantings included cool season veggies like broccoli and cauliflower along with cover crops of crimson clover to fix nitrogen and buckwheat to attract beneficial insects. We also transplanted ‘Chandler’ strawberries from my garden to grow as an evergreen groundcover that produces sweet fruit all spring. 
Aidan is busy seeding cover crops, buckwheat and crimson clover, around the other plants in this foodscape.
As these crops develop and become ready to harvest, we will simply mow them back in place and start the process over for summer. With a 2-3” top dressing of Soil³ these new foodscapes will be ready for all the traditional favorites, including basil, peppers, and tomatoes!
Check out our update video showing these neighborhood foodscapes two weeks later:
What to Plant Now
After two weeks, Abby checks on this foundation foodscape where the broccoli starts are growing and the millet and buckwheat seed has germinated.
Of course, with me involved, we must add a few less common summer crops as well, including Aidan’s favorite corn! Over the years we have discovered that corn is a great crop for June planting. It will germinate quickly when direct seeded and produce fresh eating cobs by mid-July. (Here's my handy Vegetable Planting Calendar for the Southeast.)
Potatoes are another favorite crop of the neighborhood foodscapers. In the southeast, potatoes are perennial, so they can be planted anytime. But for reliable, abundant harvests plant your potatoes directly in Soil³ either in the ground or in containers in March. They will be ready to harvest in June!
Okra is another crop that we love to grow and thrives in the summer heat and humidity. Our favorite variety is an All-American Selections winner called ‘Candle Fire’. It has beautiful burgundy stalks and delicious, tender fruit.
Foodscaping is all about integrating seasonal edibles with ornamental plants in your existing landscape. Like this bed with Encore Azalea in the foreground and broccoli and cover crops planted in Soil³ behind.
Covers crops are an important part of foodscaping, as they help reduce weed pressure while serving additional purposes including reducing soil erosion, adding natural fertility, and attracting beneficial pollinators. My favorite summer cover crop is peanuts because they are a beautiful groundcover that love the summer climate of the southeast.
Callie helped Aidan and Abby with this foodscape bed for our neighbor, Peggy. We planted some shrubs (azalea, camelia and gardenia) along with vegetables - that is what foodscaping is all about!
Planting peanuts is easy - just break open the shell of a raw nut and thumb it into Soil³ about an inch deep. Peanuts are a legume that will naturally fix nitrogen helping feed all the other plants in your garden bed. They grow all summer and will be ready for harvest around Halloween. You can even grow peanuts in large containers using Soil³ as the compost to fill your pot.
Life Lessons and Time Well Spent
Our neighborhood foodscape crash team!
Overall installing and helping maintain the neighborhood foodscapes has not taken a lot of time. We spent about 2 hours installing each one, including time talking with the homeowners to understand what they want to grow and harvest- all with social distancing of course. This has been a great opportunity to get to know the people we live near and we have established wonderful relationships as a result.
With Aidan and Abby leading the way, this is a great example that people of any age can make a difference. Since they are bonified foodscaping experts, with 5 years of experience already, they take the lead and ask the homeowners what their favorite veggies are and help guide the process for deciding what should get planted where, when, and why. It is cool to watch them teach adults!
Ultimately foodscaping is a way to make gardening simpler. The results have been awesome, with stellar harvests right from our landscapes. With these three neighborhood foodscapes established and ready to be replanted for summer, we are feeling like a professional team with sights on more yards this summer. We all agree, this is our favorite way to stay active, engaged, and help the people who live nearest to us. It is my greatest hope that we will inspire others to start a foodscape revolution of their own!
The Future is Foodscaping
We transplanted ‘Chandler’ strawberries from my garden into all our new foodscapes. Along with providing fruit, they are an evergreen ground cover.
This simple idea really can be revolutionary, and this summer we will have a special guest blogger sharing her first-time gardening experiences! Ms. Flora Barrow, my intern from last summer, has been inspired by Aidan and Abby to start a foodscape of her own in her rental home in Carrboro, NC. Armed with Soil³ and the 100 gallon Root Pouch garden bags, Flora will be growing veggies for the first time and sharing her journey in a future Soil³ blog. I am certain she will find satisfaction and will have plenty of produce to share with neighbors this summer!
Stay tuned for more updates on our neighborhood foodscape revolution by subscribing to the @BriethePlantLady YouTube channel. All the foodscaping tricks can be found in my book, The Foodscape Revolution available on my website Briegrows.com.
Until next month, happy foodscaping!
Brie
All photos by Brie, unless otherwise noted.
Did this help you out? Have any questions for clarity? Leave a comment below!