Steal This Idea - Pt 1 - Stuff in the Edibles

We are in the midst of the Mid-Atlantic regions garden tour season and that means I'm spending a lot of time taking pics in othe people's private gardens and not much time in my own. I don't mind though, as I always pick up at least one new idea from every tour I attend. This year, I determined I'll share as many of those ideas as I can with you here on the blog, so first up in our "steal this idea" series are edibles in containers. I'm not just talking here about throwing a patio tomato in a half whiskey barrel or stuffing a few herbs in a strawberry pot and being done with it, I'm talking about thinking really outside the box on what you can do with planting edibles in a tight space. Here are a few photos to illustrate my point.

At top, is a birdbath filled with soil and planted up with two kinds of lettuce. It almost looks like the face of a sundial. This is surrounding by a make-shift box of herbs squeezed in between the lettuce-birdbath and an iron fence. This was at a shady Capitol Hill garden in Washington, DC, on a corner lot. Go around the bend in this same garden and see these produce baskets (at left) of more herbs hanging from their tree!

In another Capitol Hill garden, on a small backyard balcony is this big copper tub of herbs. Newly planted, but nicely accessorized.

A tiny garden in Georgetown had this hypertufa of herbs up on side wall. I assume in all of these examples shown here that this is the only spot of real sunlight available to these gardeners and I applaud their use of that small space!

A small raised bed is in a garden just outside DC, in the Takoma Park, MD neighborhood of Hodges Farm. In the same garden, twine runs to the side fence and by the back porch a laundry drying rack has been strung with twine as well. The gardeners have placed pots of peas and beans underneath the strings and are training the edibles to grow up. 

Look for more ideas to steal in coming days and weeks.