I don't leave much room for entirely ornamental flowers in our garden. Which isn't to say that the space isn't vibrant with color at certain times of the year. Sunflowers, for example, are one of Artemesia's favorite concentrates. Zinnias? Well, they're just around to be pretty, I guess.

The elderberries I have here and there are technically both edible and medicinal. But I mostly just let the plants grow because they were here first and they're awfully tough to root out. Both bees and birds enjoy the plants at different times of the year.

The flowers I watch more carefully aren't nearly as pretty...but they're going to be much tastier!

The first corn and bean flowers popped up this week, promising summer vegetables in the near future.

And then there are our crookneck squash plants, which combine beauty and edibility with their massive yellow blooms that turn into copious fruits. If the petals weren't so fleeting, I think city dwellers would plant these in their front yards.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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