By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer
You don't need a designated vegetable garden to grow produce. After all, how many of us really have the space for that in our Lilliputian gardens? If you're resourceful, though, and have a sense of humor, you can find room, sometimes in unexpected places. Two examples below from landscape architect Charles McClure's own home in Goleta, California.
Chuck tucks in a row of corn along the sidewalk in his sideyard every year. "Obviously I don't get a huge harvest," he says, "but my daughters always get a kick out of it."
McClure also used strawberries as a front-of-the-border plant throughout much of his garden.
He also had tomatoes, aspargus, zucchini, and pumpkins tucked in between the ornamentals in the raised planter that runs the length of his backwall.
Once I started looking for them, I saw that Chuck was growing edibles everywhere. But, if it hadn't been for that conspicuous corn, I might not have noticed.
Other ways to tuck in edibles unobtrusively:
• Grow handsome leafy crops such as rainbow chard or nearly black Tuscan kale in urns or other fancy containers. They're beautiful enough to be grown purely for ornament.
• Plant leaf lettuces, especially red-leafed or speckled ones, between pansies or other cool-season annuals. Their colored foliage and rosette shapes are a pretty contrast to flowers.
• Pot up parsley, rosemary, savory, sage, and other herbs in individual containers to use as your foliage plants when creating container vignettes.
• Add artichokes to your Mediterranean border.
