Planting for foraging - daft idea?

[veggiechicken]

Bear with me - this is my next nutty idea to float past you.

These are the ingredients :-

Lots of "ordinary" seeds like Scarlet Emperor runner beans and All Green Bush courgettes that will never be sown, because they're boring!

Patches of "bare" ground below fruit trees and alongside boundary fences.

A childlike delight in discovering hidden courgettes, squashes and beans.

A don't care attitude about producing hundreds of courgettes or beans or only 1.

Stir the ingredients together and you come up with the idea of underplanting the fruit trees with squashes/courgettes, maybe beans growing horizontally too.

Planting similar plants against fences and to scramble up hedges and shrubs.

Hopefully, these would act as groundcover/weed suppressant and, if they cropped it would be a bonus. If the crops weren't spotted when young, and hid out of sight until mature, they could still be used as marrows or dried beans.

Nutty idea - yes or no??

[Bren In Pots]

Go for it VC you've got the seeds so they might as well be in the ground than in a box.

[Dynamo]

Why not if you're growing nowt else there. You could always dig it in as green manure if it doesn't work

[lolie]

I've been thinking about doing this with my leftover seedlings.

I have a spot which isn't ideal for them but which also isn't absolutely terrible. I figure if I get produce from them, it's a bonus. How much or how little they struggle will also give me a better idea of what I can use that corner for other than zucchini and melons.

[More basil]

Go for it! I often pass a very dull leylandii hedge. This year, it turned into a carnival of colour with runner beans and nasturtium trailing up it and covering it in flowers. Brilliant!

[Snoop Puss]

Good idea. And even if you don't pick the crop, you might encourage wildlife into your realm.

[Peteyd]

That's actually a great idea. I'm a keen forager and sometimes its almost impossible to fine certain things for recipes. This might actually be a good way to get some lesser found ingredients...

[Snadger]

It sounds like guerrilla gardening on your own patch to me!

[Jay-ell]

Not a bad idea at all - a bit like forest gardening herbaceous and ground cover layer in annual veg.

I was thinking of doing something similar - throwing all my unwanted seeds over Snadgers fence

[Snadger]

Not a bad idea at all - a bit like forest gardening herbaceous and ground cover layer in annual veg.

I was thinking of doing something similar - throwing all my unwanted seeds over Snadgers fence

........where they will be welcome!

[Jay-ell]

Just the stuff too weird or savage for mine.

Anyone know if gympie-gympie would thrive in NE UK?

[rary]

a very good idea, and if they self seed you may finish up with some new hardy veg.

[Chestnut]

Squash certainly make good ground cover. We didn’t get any harvest, but that was by far the easiest bed to clear at the end of harvest!

[veggiechicken]

What would make a good ground cover with rhubarb? I have about 20 plants, most are quite small and they're well spaced out ready for when they're BIG. I need to walk amongst them to pick the rhubarb.
Any ideas welcome - even Jay-ell's.

[Jay-ell]

Are you looking for annuals or prerenials. Pennyroal can handle some shade and treading on, corsican mint might be able to as well but is a lopwer profile. For when the rhubarb starts to die back how about something like claytonia or mache?