Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: cc85 on February 12, 2008, 21:08
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Hi there , i'm interested in growing my own . I was wondering what varieties of vegetables and fruits can be quite decorative and floral ? Does anyone have any pictures to show me some examples .
Thanks
Craig
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Strangely enough one of my neighbours does ornamental cabbages, and very nice they look too.
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Hello Craig
Last year I grew ornamental gourds - they were quite easy to grow:
(http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s197/dawninspain/DSCN3831001.jpg)
Dawn
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-Runner beans used to be grown for their flowers rather than their fruit.
-Nasturtiums are supposed to be nice in salads (peppery).
-Courgettes produce nice looking flowers, which are also edible, plus you get the courgettes themselves.
-Cardoons are very decorative
-Rainbow chard has bright stems in different colours
Sorry no piccies but go to a seed site and search on those veg to see pictures.
You can sow red and green lettuce in blocks and give it a patchwork appearance.
Not sure what you want to achieve but you could make a kitchen garden potager-type thing where you grow your veg among flowers all higgledy-piggeldy.
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I'm actually designing a self watering container . Hopefully it will become something that is a feature in the garden. What purple carrots? not quite sure what they are.
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Asparagus peas are pretty and unusual, and they have lovely red flowers that lasted months last year.
http://fothergills.co.uk/en/asparagus-pea-602.aspx
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Purple carrots are exactly what they say they are - purple! Above the ground they look like ordinary carrots but when you dig them up they have purple skins. The ones I grew year before last were orange inside the skin so if you peeled them rather than washed them they were no different to ordinary carrots. They're not especially decorative while growing.
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Try reading The Great Vegetable Plot by Sarah Raven - that has lots of ideas! I am growing quite a few decorative vegs eg courgette "tromboccino" the only climbing courgette and also growing companion flowers such as marigold, nasteurtium and ones that attract beneficial insects.
Sarah Raven's website has ornamental veg seeds for sale and pictures too!
(yes it's the second time I have recommended her site this morning but I am completely in awe!)
Jaye
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Sarah Raven's website has ornamental veg seeds for sale and pictures too!
Jaye
....at a price. Products for the discerning (ie rich) gardener only. I like the lady's writings, but her prices are a joke, surely. :shock:
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shhhhhhhh :oops:
Jaye
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Rainbow chard is quite pretty. I just plant a few flowers around the plot. My cosmos last year were fantastic.
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I want to grow some chocolate cosmos - for obvious chocolate smelling reasons....
Jaye
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I don't know about the chocolate smell, but they are sure pretty dark chocolate brown. :D
Vegetable wise, I find kales very ornamental, so are a lot of herbs and fennel and also think red cabbages are handsome, not talking about chickory or allium flowers or flowering fruit. Lovely. 8)
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Hello Craig
Last year I grew ornamental gourds - they were quite easy to grow:
(http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s197/dawninspain/DSCN3831001.jpg)
Dawn
it should be said for people that dont know you cant eat gourds
they are toxic
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Dawn[/quote]
it should be said for people that dont know you cant eat gourds
they are toxic[/quote]
I am glad you said that-I was thinking mmmm... they look good! LOL oops! :oops:
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As far as I know only the bitter gourd is toxic, whatever that is. :wink:
Same as people confusing almond with bitter almond. Anyhow, as far as I'm aware all cucurbits can be toxic to life stock, and the toxin, cucurbaterin something(sp)will be found in the sap of stalks, same as with some brassica and euphorbia, etc.
Must be pointed out though that plants developed for cultivation don't contain anywhere near that much toxins as their ancestors and gourds probably won't hurt you much but are not worth trying as they make pretty bad eating. :lol: :lol: :lol:
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it dose say on the seed packets that they are toxic and not to be eaten
also says it here on T&M :lol: :lol:
http://seeds.thompson-morgan.com/uk/en/product/4472/1
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Yes, it says non-edible, not toxic.
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Yes, it says non-edible, not toxic.
By the time you peeled it, if you could, there wouldn't be anything left to eat anyway :wink:
CC85 - yellow and white carrots are now available, but you'd never recognize them by the tops.
Gobs, are chocolate cosmos available by seed there or by corms? We can get only the latter here and boy, do the shops charge for them.
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I can't remember where I got it from, mine don't seem to bear any seed though. If it's a sterile hybrid or just the climate I do not know. :?
Sorry, will have a look though.
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All I could find Trill is people drooling about the seed but serious sources tend not to mention or say does not set seed so, can look for some rhizomes in the autumn if you want. :)
I don't want to lift them now, as very frost tender.
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Sorry - I did not intend to try to encourage anyone to poison themselves :!:
As Trillium says by the time they are ripe they are really just a hard shell so you'd be hard pushed to find any part that could be eaten anyway.
Dawn
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Gobs, we can't get any fleshy roots or bulbs shipped here without the phyto-whatever certificate. I can find the roots here if I look hard enough. Just wondered if anyone had seeds at all for them. Guess they just don't produce seeds. Makes you wonder how the first plant came to be.
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Apparently you can coat the ornamental gourds with polywhatsit varnish, so they last for ages.
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Yes scribbler - I didn't do that and I have gradually had to throw them away as they go mouldy. This year I will varnish them.