Tea & Toast:: Working Gardens

 

Here we are again, on this sunny January Tuesday. I absolutely forgot about Tea & Toast last week. The week’s are melting together like sugar to a flame. Agh!!!

But I’m here today, with lots of gut-churning excitement for the new year gardeny creations I am about to embark on in my new nest in the vines.

I am so inspired by people like Charlie Nardozzi when it comes to gardening. Charlie is into incorporating edible plants within flower gardens. The true cottage gardener!

In my purple nest I used fruit trees for not only a food source but also as shade trees  for the garden. I had a separate vegie garden for vegies and a herb area where I also grew citrus and flowers which I called my Mediterranean garden. It was a mix of sorts but on the whole, the majority of my gardening and efforts were put into flowers.

As much as I love flowers, I really want to set my next garden up to be way more edible and food orientated. I want a true working garden. And although I will have 3 times the amount of space I once had I plan to have a more compact, workable space to garden in.

Being an aesthetic, visual person though, I of course will need my garden to look pretty. It’s a really key part of gardening for me and I get so much joy from the visual impact of a garden. But, I also want to put more of my efforts into things that I can get the most out of. So, for me, making my garden as edible as possible will be the absolute focus of our new nesty space.

So for today’s Tea & Toast I thought I’d take you on a little  journey  around some pretty, pretty edible gardens to get all inspired and ready for new creations this year. I hope you’re right there with me.

Got your tea & toast?

You ready?

I’m going to keep reasonably quiet this morning so we can take in the whole sensory thing, that, for me, is such a huge part of a working garden. It’s the space where I drift away into my own little dream world, where everything is tranquil and still and oh so lovely…

Shhhh…{to me, not you!} Let’s go a wandering…

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Perennial edibles can provide a frame for your annual vegetable garden, or they can be used for their ornamental qualities throughout the gardenscape. L: The complementary blues of annual cabbages and perennial blueberries. R: Creeping thyme, along with creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia) softens stonework.

Make sure to include your perennial edible plants in a Master Plan of your whole property. A semi-dwarf apple tree, for example, has as much physical presence as a Cornus kousa and should be given as much aesthetic weight in the overall design. The espaliered apple tree pictured above lends a beautiful design element as well as delicious fruit.

via JMMSD’s site

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And last, but definitely not least, my favourite working garden – Foxglove Spires. I could sit all day in this working section of garden and not be able to take it all in. It’s the  ultimate feast for the senses–  the smells, the taste, the textures, the sounds, the gorgeous, gorgeous aesthetically pleasing beauty.

I love, love , love it! {these images don’t do it justice either}

 

You like?

 

Happy Tuesday!

Kim xx