Easy ornamental veg for my flower bed

[Mitzi]

I've got a new flower bed and would like to fill in some of the gaps with easy and quick-growing veg. They need to be ornamental as well as edible. I've sown some red orache and am considering some cut-and-come-again salad or spinach leaves (not particularly ornamental but they'll do.)

Suggestions for anything else I can grow? Is it too late to start ornamental chard or kale?

[nickdub]

painted lady runner beans, chard - various red lettuce

[Scarlet]

Freckles is a lovely ornamental looking lettuce, though there's loads of varieties that look great. Herbs? Chives, coriander for seed and leaf and also parsley will fill a big patch with green. You could add mint in a pot?
I would also go for coloured chard.
Is sticking a wigwam in with some French beans pushing it? you could also train up the climbing nasturtiums- I grow mine in good soil btw.

[Miss Mousetrousers]

There are varieties of leek with purple-green leaves, chives with their round pom-pom flowers, rosemary, marjoram, carrots, there's a dwarf French bean with yellow pods called Sonesta and another one with purple pods, and beetroot.

[Jay-ell]

I don't really go for ornamental plants so can't give you much.

Here's some I grow/have grown /are trying this year that have an aesthetic quality to them.

Cardoons (relatives of the Globe Artichoke with silver spikey leaves and purple thistle like flowers) - grown for its leaf ribs. It's also perennial.

Red sorrel. Another perennial with red veins in its leaves.

Red Vulcan Chard. Yellow Chard, silver chard - Can be kept going for a few years.

Calaloo - an amaranth whose leaves are eaten like spinach. Varieties come with leaves fringed in yellow and purple.

Tree Spinach. An 8 foot edible which can have magenta fringing to it's leaves (there's a variety with magenta in its name but I can't remember the full name)

Purple Khol rabi. Purple crinkly kale.

Sweet Cicely. Perennial plant, leaves, roots and seeds have a strong aniseed flavour. Can be cooked with rhubarb. Leaves are divided and puts out umbels of white flowers.

Bronze fennel - dark reddish finely feathered foliage and umbels of yellow flowers.

Babingtons Leeks. Perennial Leeks that shoot up a 4ft flower spike with purple flowers and lots of baby bulbils on it.

Elephant garlic - perennial with a large white globe of flowers in summer.

Chives, garlic chives. There's a variety of chives called black isle blush that has two toned pink and purple flowers.

Pink Dandelion - dandelions with pink and yellow flowers.

White Dandelion - dandelion with white flowers

Red Dandelion - dwarf dandelion with red leaves

Variegated Dandelion - dandelion with variegated yellow and green leaves.

Ramsons. Large speartip shaped leaves and white flowers early in the year

Scorzonera - perennial with a long edible tap root which can grow back after harvest if a little bit is left. Pointed strap like leaves and spikes of yellow flowers. Spikes often collapse so that the flowers show in a line. (albeit shorter)

Bronze mignonette Lettuce.
Red oakleaf lettuce
Red mustard
Salosa/okahijiki wierd knobbly looking stems

Pot marigolds

Shungiku. An edible Japanese chrysanthemum

Nasturtiums - dwarfs or climbers. Peppery flavoured leafs flowers and seeds.

Roses - rose water is the flavouring used in Turkish Delichs.

Dahlias - flowers can be used as a base in salads instead of Lettuce, slightly sweet. Storage tubers are edible but I thought that they were fibrous and bland. That may vary with variety.

Welsh onions - when growing in a block with the spikey tubular leaves and white balls of flowers.

Walking /Egyptian /Topsetting onions - a curiosity plant for most bearing little onions in their flower heads.

[Jay-ell]

Then there Runner and French beans (both climbing and dwarf)

Apios Americana aka Hopiness aka Potato Bean. A perennial legume climber that has wisteria like flowers and edible tubers and seeds

Mashua - a perennial relative of the nasturtium that will climb. Produces edible tubers. Variety Ken Aslet is apparently earlier and may produce the red flowers.

Sunflowers - available from dwarf to goans. Seeds and unopened flowers are edible.

Globe Artichoke. Looks like a cardoon but the flower buds are eaten.

Red Perilla - not grown it yet but have the seeds. Used as Shisho in Japanese cooking.

Mexican marigold - a 4 foot tall annual with palmate leaves that have a citony orangey taste. Gets lots sf small flowers.

Hibiscus Roselle a spikey leaved plant with pink/red flowers which are then replaced by red calix. These are used to make a Caribbean cranberry flavoured drink called sorrel) no connection to garden sorrel or wood sorrel.

Some of the Chillies are very ornamental with berries in multiple colours at the same time but you need hot temperatures for them.

Red Sprouts staked up as a foil at the ba K of the border?

[veggiechicken]

I second/third Rainbow chard
Here's one in the GH - but not for much longer!



Carrots, beetroot and fennel, all the herbs, strawberries............

[chillithyme]

I do love rainbow chard and purple or tuscan kale, can be sown now.

[Penellype]

If you want to grow spinach, the red veined variety is more attractive than all green. Loads of flowers are edible, not just the usual nasturtiums and marigolds. Pansies/violas and fuchsias are pretty - there is a variety of fuchsia that has been bred for edible berries (which I found rather seedy for my liking although they taste ok) which has pretty flowers



Runner beans can also be attractive - you can get ones with bi-coloured flowers, including a dwarf variety called Hestia (although I didn't much like the taste).

There is a list of edible flowers here: https://www.thompson-morgan.com/edible-flowers

[Mitzi]

Whilst I appreciate all the suggestions, some are far too complicated and grandiose - it’s not a huge bed. Don’t runner beans need a trench digging etc? I’m not doing that. Not constructing supports for climbers. The clues are in my original post - something quick and easy and ideally pretty that I can fill some gaps with.

[Jay-ell]

I never bother digging a trench for runner beans - it depends on your soil. It it retains moisture then it should be fine - a mulch helps (I use grass clippings on all my beds). Dwarf beans won't need supports building and with flowers that are red, white, red & white, purple or pods that are red, yellow, purple can give a nice flash of colour.

the Chard, Lettuce, mustard, Sunflowers, chives are easy to grow.

Nasturtiums and Marigold (pot not mexican) are easy as well - the nasturtium will fill in the gaps itself as it grows. The dwarf varieties don't need supports and I usually just scatter the seeds.


Dandelions are a doddle - although getting hold of some of the varieties I mentioned aren't (which reminds me - I really need to find where I've put the seed for them to get them sown)

The rest gives you food for thought to get ideas for next year. You could also allow some of the veg to go to seed and self sow for next year - chard, lettuce, mustard will do that (but F1 types might look totally different and if you have multiple varieties they might cross pollinate).

You could also scatter some seeds for the poached egg plant Limnanthes douglasii which will fill gaps and self seed for next year.

[Mitzi]

I do love rainbow chard and purple or tuscan kale, can be sown now.

I have some Cavolo Nero seeds somewhere; is that the same thing? Not sure if they will still be viable; I bought them in 2015.

[Scarlet]

Calvino Nero is not quite as pretty ( but still is a good looking plant ) as some of the red or dwarf varieties. I used to grow red Russian but the CNero is fabulous on the plate.

How big is your border? If you've filled some with plants already you will need to give them a little space to grow this summer.

Bean frames can be simple - a few poles tied in a wigwam. Gives height and interest.
And I've never dug a trench for beans - good soil is plenty.

[veggiechicken]

There are lots of attractive kales, they seem to bring put a new colour variation each year.
I agree with Scarlet abut size/space. Need some clues about how large the spaces are and what your overall idea is for this bed. I mix veg and flowers, herbs and fruit together everywhere. Angelica, fennel and lovage are beautiful plants in a mixed bed but need plenty of space and would dwarf small flowers.
Tree spinach is tall but pretty.

[bramble]

How about fennel..
Lovely feathery foliage.