If you want to save money on vegetables or fruits by growing them yourself, you might want to learn how to landscape with vegetables.

Landscaping with vegetables means planting edible crops that have an ornamental appearance and mixing them with flowers and/or plants. You don't want it to look like you are growing vegetables. If the sun only hits your front yard but you don't want an unsightly vegetable garden on display, you can mix regular flower and plants with edible crops. If you pick your crops correctly, one should not be able to tell that you are growing vegetables in your garden. Landscaping with vegetables doesn't require a lot of space. Even if you don't have a front or back yard, you can grow ornamental vegetables indoors.

Landscaping with vegetables goes back all the way to medieval times when people grew gardens that had flowers, medicinal herbs and vegetables. Nowadays some of the vegetables often used for landscaping include bell peppers, kale, hot peppers, tomatoes, Swiss chard, asparagus, and Winter squashes. When mixing vegetables with plants one thing to keep in mind is they have to be compatible. They need to have the same requirements when it comes to watering and soil quality. http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/design/landscaping-with-vegetables.htm

This page contains step by step information on landscaping with vegetables to help to you when you start your garden.

MAKE A PLAN: When starting a new garden or adjusting one, it's always a good idea to make a plan. A plan is nothing more than an outline of all your ideas. Draw a blue print of your garden with its surroundings. Include trees, outhouses, underground and above ground utilities, and walkways. On your blue print, make sure to put all the different vegetables, plants, flowers or fruits you want to plant. You want to be able to look at your blue print and see exactly which plant goes where. Make sure to think ahead to when the plant is fully grown. You don't want to plant it somewhere where it will obstruct walkways and such.

ORNAMENTAL PLANTS When searching for vegetables or plants that grow ornamental leafs or flowers, it is a good idea to use a seed catalog or to go online. Look for pictures of the fully grown vegetable plants so you have an idea what you can expect. Look at the leaf colors, the textures and sizes. Try to get an idea of which plants will look nice together. Vegetable plants that mix well into other landscaping include dill, parsley, basil, lettuce, chard, kale, carrots, bulb fennel and beets. You can even plant edible flowers like nasturtiums, pansies and violas. You can mix these into salads and eat them. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/gardening/urbanharvest/6096506.html

GROWING CONDITIONS: Planting vegetables and flowers together is actually not uncommon. Often flowers are planted in vegetable gardens because they keep bugs, animals and pests away. When planting vegetables and herbs with flowers keep in mind they need to have the same growing requirements and they should complement each other. Some vegetables need more water and sunlight than other plants and vice versa. Some good combinations are roses with onions, because onions prevent aphid attacks on the roses; marigolds go well with tomato plants because they keep snails away. If you are still unsure about which plants to use, check with your local garden center. They can point out some compatible ones.

SOIL: When starting a garden it's important to start out with a good foundation. The quality of the soil you are planting in needs to be good in order for anything to grow. The best way to find out what kind of soil you are dealing with is to test it. For more information on this, visit the Mahalo page 'How to test soil pH'. You can purchase a soil test kit at your local garden center. The kit comes with complete instructions and will give you the pH level of your soil. The pH can range from 0 to 14 with 7 being neutral. (Below 7 is a more acid soil, and over 7 is more alkaline). The result of your soil test will determine whether or not you need to amend it or not. http://gardening.about.com/od/gardenprimer/a/Amending_Soil.htm

Once you have decided on the plants, vegetables, herbs, flowers and/or fruits you want to plant and you've decided where you want to plant them, you can start landscaping.

Consider these guidelines when planning your landscaping project:

• Look at pictures of other landscapes and get inspiration from them.
• Consider planting with the look and taste of the vegetables in mind.
• Instead of just planting in rows, plant in blocks or different shapes.
• Try putting some hot peppers or tomatoes in pots. They grow well in containers.
• Parsley is good to fill in empty spots.
• Flowers look great with berries and fruiting vines.
• Asparagus crops fade and their leafs turn feathery which is a nice different texture to add to your garden
• Lettuce crops look especially good at the border of your garden. Try to find different colored crops.
• Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, garlic, leaf lettuce, spinach, turnips, radishes, and beans all grow well without a lot of sun.
• Thyme, mint, and oregano make great ground covers.
• Pineapple, sage, and lavender grow nice flowers

Make sure to take care of your garden. Some vegetables might grow unnecessary leafs that you can pull. When you do this even more vibrant leafs will grow. Also water the plants according to their care instructions. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/gardening/urbanharvest/6096506.html http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/vegetable/edible-landscaping-mixing-vegetables-and-herbs-with-flowers.htm http://www.bhg.com/gardening/vegetable/vegetables/edible-landscaping/?page=2