Gardeners makes room for veggies among the flowers

Courtesy Photo The top, leafy part of the plant grows in the first four to five weeks after planting, according to the National Gardening Association. Then, the main stem of the plant stops growing and produces a flower bud. Gardener and author Nan Chase said potato plants don't look bad in a landscape.
Courtesy Photo The top, leafy part of the plant grows in the first four to five weeks after planting, according to the National Gardening Association. Then, the main stem of the plant stops growing and produces a flower bud. Gardener and author Nan Chase said potato plants don't look bad in a landscape.

There are varied reasons for those with green thumbs to plant their own vegetable gardens. But the biggest reason, according to Tontitown gardener Gail Pianalto? "If you grow them yourself, then you are in control of what you put in your family's body."

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COURTESY PHOTO Nan Chase will speak at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Northwest Technical Institute in Springdale.

Nan Chase of Ashville, N.C., will speak on "Eat Your Garden, Drink Your Garden" at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Northwest Technical Institute in Springdale. Admission to the Flower, Garden and Nature Society of Northwest Arkansas presentation is $15, which also gives participants membership in the society. Chase is the author of two books on the subject, "Eat Your Yard: Edible Trees, Shrubs, Vines, Herbs and Flowers for Your Landscape" (Gibbs Smith, 2010) and "Drink the Harvest: Making and Producing Juices, Wines, Meads, Teas and Ciders" (Storey Publishing, due out June 28).

"My idea is to to eat and drink your landscape," Chase said in a phone interview.

Instead of a traditional vegetable garden and fruit trees, Chase tucks those edibles in small portions among her landscape plants. She said she likes to present beauty up close and from a distance. "Your eye sees the flower bed. You trick the eye."

Some edibles even mimic landscape plantings. "They are trees, shrubs, vines -- and some have flowers," Chase said. "A lot you can use as ornamentals. Onions and asparagus are gorgeous in the fall. They are beautiful in the off-season. And the paw-paw is a beautiful tree, although it takes years to get food off it."

Chase said her urban home is surrounded by a yard only one-tenth of an acre, but she has 50 or 60 varieties of plants. She guessed the weather in North Carolina is similar to that of Northwest Arkansas, and can be harsh, she said.

Chase had plans last week to plant potatoes, but snowfall prevented that. She said she would put them in among some roses. "(The look of the potato plants) is not bad at the beginning. And the flower is interesting," she said.

"My big crop is crab apples," Chase continued, which she uses to make cider and wine. "You can turn anything into wine -- potatoes, fruit -- by adding yeast and sugar, or honey for mead. And herbs to teas and cider -- the flavor on the stuff is great."

Strawberries are one example. "Instead of just jam and jelly, you can turn your bounty into exciting things people haven't thought of," she suggested.

Chase admitted that her garden provides only a small portion of her table food. "I'm not a farmer full time," she said. "There are other things I do in my life."

She buys items like tomatoes and cucumbers in bulk from a farmers market to can and pickle.

"This eliminates trips to the grocery store," she said. "Then you are prepared for things like the polar vortex. You have things to fall back on in your pantry. Even when the weather's crummy, you can add fresh herbs to pasta or pizza."

Pianalto, however, does plant a vegetable garden in raised beds behind her flowers, growing produce she can freeze, can and, someday, dry. This year, she has added mushrooms to her table, learning how to inoculate the logs from Google. "There are a lot of things you can do yourself," she said.

"I'm totally organic," Pianalto said. The flower beds closest to her vegetable gardens contain flowers that attract pollinating insects -- what she and her grandchildren call a "bucket of bugs."

Pianalto's garden has become a family garden. Her children live on small lots in the city, but if they help her one hour a week in the garden, she lets them take home some of what they helped grow. "Then we all get together for canning and freezing. It's one big party," she said.

Pianalto -- who serves as the co-chairman of the local society's program committee -- likened her family garden to Liberty gardens planted at homes during World War I and Victory gardens in World War II.

"They reduced the (commercial) produce they consumed a third," she said.

NAN Life on 04/23/2014

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