Second Annual Peninsula Edible Gardens Tour, August 11th
On a warm and sunny Saturday, Nancy, organizer of the Music in the Gardens tour, and I visited several gardens whose focus was on edible plants. And I mean focus: The gardens focused much more on productiveness than on beauty. I would like to see more of a mingling of ornamental and edible, but I need much education on edible gardening so it was a useful tour. Nancy is knowledgeable about edible gardening and was the perfect friend for this event.
Garden one: Homewood
Homewood was the loveliest of the day’s gardens, with ornamentals included in the mix.
From the programme, quoting gardener Lisa Mattfield:
I assumed “baby food forest” meant the garden was quite young but I later learned it was about ten years old.
(below) I value touches like the bright blue trim and the banners at the gate.
I imagine that mid August is not the best time to visit an edible garden as by then all the pretty spring lettuces and peas and so on would be harvested, and fall crops would just be coming on.
A curving path took us around the south side of the large property, where mixed plantings of trees and shrubs all offered something edible, we were told. This concept reminds me of The Harvester by Gene Stratton-Porter, a book at my Grandma’s house that I had loved as a young reader.
The vegetable and fruit garden beds lay on front and back of the house. Because there was no enclosure of a deer fence (which I know to be an expensive proposition), fruit trees were caged…
and strawberries were cleverly netted (probably to keep birds from stealing berries).
If I ever have enough edibles in my garden to be on the edible tour, I am going to swipe the above idea for displaying edible flowers.
As we left, I admired the fig tree growing against the beautiful bright blue woodwork of the sunroom.
Of course, I had to peek into the sunroom because I love to see other people’s work areas. Between the garage and the house sat an assortment of plants that Lisa had grown from cuttings.
Next, Nancy and I will visit two new community gardens and a small private garden as we continue on the edible garden tour.
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[…] year. It is nothing at all on Ray Millner’s fabulous garden or the many edible plants at Homewood. But since the owner of Homewood is the one who asked me to be on the […]
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[…] Mattfield, tour organizer (whose garden, Homewood, was my favourite on last year’s edible tour), and Mary from Lavender And and Deanette, another tour garden owner, and Allan and I met at the […]
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[…] I arranged some samples of edible flowers on plates, an idea I swiped from last year’s edible tour at Lisa Mattfield’s Homewood garden. […]
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[…] we got to Lisa’s Homewood garden. It had been a favourite of mine on the previous year’s edible tour and once again I was very taken with […]
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[…] At the desk, above, is Lisa who organizes the Peninsula Edible Garden Tour. […]
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