Landscape your yard with edible plants for beautiful, delicious results | Sally Scalera

I enjoy seeing residents grow some of their own food. It can be as small as growing a tomato plant on their balcony or as big as growing five acres of fruit trees.

The amount of food grown doesn’t matter as much as the fact that they are growing something they can eat.

For those who want to maximize their efforts, it is possible to design an entire landscape with edible plants, since trees, shrubs, vines and ground covers produce edible fruits, foliage and seeds. With careful planning, edible plants can provide a year-round supply of delicious food.

I have mentioned in previous articles that vegetable gardening in Florida is different compared to other states. Here in Florida, it is much more complicated because we have two seasons, a warm season and a cool season, each with crops that have specific months when they should be planted.

edis.ifas.ufl.edu.

Some examples of warm-season vegetables typically planted in the fall and spring are tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, cantaloupe and okra. Examples of cool-season vegetables, which can be planted now through winter, are broccoli, cauliflower, kale, lettuce, mustard and cabbage.

trec.ifas.ufl.edu/fruitscapes, has lists of temperate (deciduous), subtropical and tropical fruit crops. Each list has separate bulletins on the individual crops, so a lot of information is available.

The deciduous fruit trees and shrubs that can be grown are apple, blackberry, raspberry, blueberry, Chinese date, fig, bunch grape, muscadine grape, peach, nectarine, pecan, common persimmon, Texas persimmon, plum and pomegranate.

Examples of subtropical fruit crops include atemoya, avocado, banana, caimito (star apple), canistel, carambola, coconut palm, coffee, guava, jaboticaba, jackfruit, lemon, longan, loquat, lychee, macadamia, canistel, cocoa, coconut palm, mamoncillo (genip), mango, pineapple, pitaya (dragon fruit), sapodilla, white sapote and tea.

Tropical fruit crops can survive on the beaches and Merritt Island south of the Beachline if we don’t receive a freeze. If your yard is on the small side, look for dwarf varieties of fruit trees.

sasc@ufl.edu.