Go Local: Meal #4

The other day I made the most scrumptious blueberry-peach cobbler. The berries were from our very own yard and the peaches came in our Organics to You box the other week. The recipe was from my never-fails-me Cooks Illustrated cookbook. Yum!

One of the ways we've experimented with local food is by trying our hand at some edible landscaping. When we bought our current house, the previous owner had been a pretty serious gardener but more of the roses and pretty flower type. There were lots of pink and blue flowers in narrow flowerbeds on the perimeter of the property. There was a lot of lawn. Or at least more than the Wise and Bearded One and myself care to tend to. So we've been steadily tearing out lawn and adding beds the last four years. We figure that if we add a few more feet of beds every year, soon the lawn will just disappear.

On our side yard we've tried to plant native plants and/or edible plants. Blueberry bushes grow well here. Apparently they like our rainy winters and acidic soil. There are different varieties that make good landscape plants--some stay small and trim instead of getting all big and scraggly. The leaves turn a nice red in the fall. We also have strawberries for a ground cover. In our planting strip we have several herbs that love it hot and dry--lavendar, sage, rosemary,. oregano. In a new bed that we started this year we have a grape vine, a fig tree, rhubarb, and some black currants. In the back yard in pots we have several different kinds of mint. Next year I'd like to start an asparagus bed too. I don't feel the need to have to raise enough food on our property to sustain us, but I like the idea of having plants that do duel purpose--they look nice AND they give us good food right outside our door.