The Food Forward Garden: A Complete Guide to Designing and Growing Edible Landscapes

Landscape designer Douglas debuts with a delectable handbook on incorporating edible plants into the greenery outside one’s home. Detailed tours of eight gardens Douglas has designed provide ideas on how to decorate with crops in a variety of locales. For instance, he notes that he planted lemon-and-lime hedges to line the patio of a suburban home and strung grape vines across the arbor to provide shade. Showing how he landscaped a townhouse backyard, Douglas reports planting fast-growing salad greens in raised beds to make the most of the limited space and positioning planters filled with mint, rosemary, and lemon balm next to an outdoor bar cart for use in drinks. Offering guidance on designing one’s own garden, Douglas recommends readers layer trees, shrubs, and vines to make the space “feel more natural,” and consider how much time they’re willing to commit when deciding which plants to grow (vegetables typically require weekly maintenance, while fruit trees only need annual pruning). The sumptuous garden photos prove one doesn’t need to sacrifice utility for aesthetics, and a particularly helpful section presents tips on growing 60 edible plants. For instance, he suggests that sage grows best in arid conditions, shishitos are among the more adaptable pepper varieties, and huckleberries thrive in the shade. It’s a clever mix of kitchen gardening and landscaping. (Oct.)