Edibles You Can Easily Add to Your Garden

SrdjanPav/E+/GettyImages

When planning your garden, the major considerations include the following: location, space limitations, containers, and aesthetics. Now that people are finding ways to grow their own herbs and veggies, whether for health or personal reasons, usually that means more pots, more space needed, and more time spent tending the garden.

Don’t compromise between flowers and healthy home-grown veggies as you plan your garden this year.

Whether you have a small outdoor patio garden or just a corner in your apartment, you don’t have to sacrifice the aesthetics of beautiful flowers or verdant houseplants in order to grow healthy veggies and herbs.

Indoor gardens can have a mix of houseplants and edibles. Rhisang Alfarid/Moment/GettyImages

Many varieties of flowers, houseplants, and veggies can grow alongside each other, and you can even grow certain fruits and veggies indoors as well.

Whether you’re just beginning your garden or looking for new ways to shake things up, adding edible plants and veggies can improve your family’s mood, health, and well-being.

There aren’t many restrictions when mixing houseplants, edible plants, fruits, and veggies; they can all grow together, but there are a few things to watch out for.

What Can We Mix Together?

Plants that share light, water, and nutrient requirements are called “companion plants,” and they can often be planted in the same areas of your garden—even in the same containers. Since they have similar needs, they can live together without issue. Different cacti, for example, are all desert plants that thrive in the same environment: lots of sunlight, low-to-moderate water, and loose, sandy soil conditions.

On the other hand, plants requiring moderate sunlight and more water can be grouped in another container and moved to a different corner of your garden, so they can do their best too.

Veggies such as spinach, kale, and arugula have varieties available that are shade-tolerant and only need moderate watering.

There are also fruit varieties that can be grown in containers indoors. Meyer lemons, calamondin oranges, avocados, figs, and even Key limes can be grown in containers together with the other plants in your garden.

Meyer lemon trees grown in a container indoors can provide lemons all year long. Barbara Rich/Moment/GettyImages

Protecting Themselves

Not all plants get along; some have developed ways of protecting themselves. Cacti, for instance, have spines to protect their leathery, water-filled leaves, while roses have thorns to keep them safe, and some plants have a bad taste to deter animals and insects from eating their leaves.

Some plants even secrete toxic chemicals into the soil to keep other plants from growing near them. This is called allelopathy, or put simply, plant chemical warfare.

As a defense mechanism, some plants develop methods for protecting their growth. (Vadim Kaipov/Unsplash)

Fruits of Your Labor

But as long as you do your homework and pay attention, you won’t have any issues incorporating different varieties of plants into your garden, whether indoors or out, pairing colorful flowers with healthy veggies, and enjoying their bounties throughout the season or year-round.