more ruminations on a small patch of dirt

when space is limited, it's important to choose your plants carefully keeping a number of considerations in mind:

1. what kind of garden do i want to have
2. what will grow well in the environment at hand
3. what plants/varieties are most productive
4. which of these will actually be used

with my preference for multi-use gardens that feed, protect, beautify and provide i know i want to use at least some of the space as a food garden. of course whenever i think vegetable garden i get stuck on the plants my mother grew in her garden when i was a kid: tomatoes and zucchini. thing is, i don't eat a lot of tomatoes or zucchini and since both are prodigious producers, that can be a problem (especially since my mother still grows both of these in her current garden and there are always plenty of left-overs to go around). so then what would i use?

spice and herb-wise, it's easy: rosemary, oregano and basil. preferably trailing varieties of the first two. now, i have never had a lick of luck with basil, but a girl's gotta keep trying and seeds are cheap.

when it comes to vegetables, i'm pretty much all about the winter squash. one year i planted eight different varieties and loved them all. now i definitely won't have space for eight in my new location, but there's always room for a lovely little kabocha or an acorn... maybe even a compact pumpkin if i can squeeze one in. other important players are kale (lacinato, to be precise), beans (i have a dwarf runner bean that apparently works very well in hanging planters), perhaps some florence fennel, and my favorite (and the monster of the bunch), artichokes. yes, i realize that last one is a crazy pipe-dream, but it's worth a shot if i can find a very large pot (oh, wait, i already have one).

as for fruit, in my perfect garden i have a granny smith apple, an italian prune plum, black currents, boysenberries, a lemon, a blood orange, and a fig, but obviously that's not going to happen (even though i have two of the seven sitting in pots at my sister's house and three more waiting at my mom's). of course if i'm honest, i'll probably only really use the lemon, and since that's one i already own i'm good to go.

so what else? bamboo. preferably phyllostachys nigra. it's strong enough to build with, provides privacy, wonderful sounds, and the young shoots are edible, plus, it's absolutely gorgeous, one of my favorite plants of all. i would also kill for an elephant ear or three (the taro kind with edible tubers, of course) that is if i can get them and find some way to keep them alive.

so that's it:

- lemon
- artichoke
- bamboo nigra

as foundation plants (with elephant ears if i can get them), with herbs and veggies and perhaps a flower or two to fill in the gaps. who knows, i may even throw in a tomato for good measure if i can find the space.