PHILADELPHIA — You can tell Joy Larkcom’s had decades of experience growing vegetables. One clue is her long list of books, which includes “Organic Salad Garden,” “Oriental Vegetables,” and “The Vegetable Garden Displayed.”
Another clue is the sheer number of practical ideas in the newly revised edition of her 1997 book “Creative Vegetable Gardening” (Sterling Publishing).
Larkcom is mostly concerned with beauty and productivity in the vegetable garden, no matter what its size.
No excuses, in other words, for not investing the same thought (and stress) in this part of our garden as we do in the flower part. In fact, Larkcom says, there’s no reason not to mix flowers such as marigolds, sunflowers, cleome and tithonia with vegetables — they belong there. So do decorative herbs like borage and flowering chives and vines like clematis and morning glory.
Among her other suggestions:
Instead of laying bricks flat on the ground, set them on an upright angle to create a “dogtooth brick edge.”
Easy enough. So is planting in unconventional patterns, a triangle of lettuce here, an edge of marjoram there.
And think of mingling runner beans and sweet peas with rambling roses, all to colorful effect.
You’ll find yourself thinking of the vegetable patch in a whole new way.
