A Vegetable Garden to Beautify your Front Lawn

Hanging Vegetable Garden by me’nthedogs

I wrote a post about putting a vegetable garden in your front lawn, if your neighborhood allows it . There are horror stories of cities not allowing it. (see here )Â Remember vegetables and herbs need sun- a full day of sun, so these are not suggestions for shade gardens.

What would be some pretty plants, plants that have attractive flowers or look like flowers, to plant in your front lawn vegetable garden or among your flowers?Â I have a list of some vegetables (I include herbs in the vegetable category) that either have pretty or interesting foliage or pretty flowers or both. I have chosen 10 that I think are particularly pretty. These plants add another dimension to any garden.

For example, I love Caladium plants. Their leaves are extraordinary and add color to my garden.Â But pet owners shouldn’t plant them because Caladium plants are toxic to pets.

I love hosta lilies with their large leaves in my shade garden; but some gardeners who have sun want plants with large leaves that are more sun tolerant.

If you want a plant that has interesting stems with large leaves, a vegetable plant that TheGardenLady recommends is Swiss Chard “bright lights” or “neon lights.”Â Burpee seed catalog describes them as “A rainbow of color in a seed packet”. Their “stunning chard seed mix has stems in gold, pink and crimson. A few plants will be white and pink striped, orange, scarlet, purple, green and white.” And the veins of the leaves have the same color as the stem. What could be prettier?

Then there are the herbs. I believe this Garden Lady has told the readers about how people have stopped and asked what some lovely lacy green flowers with the feathery leaves were that grew among my flowers. They were surprised when I said they were dill.Â And fennel has lovely, and what one catalog describes as, frothy leaves and comes in purple as well as green leaved varieties. I have numerous herbs from the mint family planted among my flowers. They attract pollinators to their flowers as well as give flavor to my cooking and baking.

Even though people consider a nasturtium an herb, I counted it separately. I am talking about the nasturtium whose Latin name is Tropaeolum majus.Flowers, leaves and, I even read, the seeds can be used in your salads. It is said to be used medicinally.Â It can be considered a flower for the flower garden because of the showy flowers. And the leaves are unusual in their unique shape. It can be a ground cover or it can be used on a trellis.I had written about sunchokes or Jerusalem artichokes Helianthus tuberosus in a previous post.Â The pretty sunflower looks good in your garden and in your vase and you can later harvest and eat the roots. It is sort of like “having your cake and eating it, too.”

Here is TheGardenLady’s list of:

Pretty vegetables.

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Swiss chard

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â sweet potatoes

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â hot peppers

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â herbs

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â nasturtium

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â leaf lettuces

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â alliums

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â artichokes

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â sun chokes

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Romanescu cauliflower and purple and orange cauliflower

I can add more to this list, but since I will be writing about each plant on the list in future posts, I have limited it to ten. Do you have a favorite vegetable that you would grow in your flower bed or as part of an attractive front yard vegetable garden?

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