Turn Your Yard into an Edible Eden

Do you want to have an edible landscape at your home, business or school but need help designing, implementing or maintaining it? There are businesses that do just that. Baltimore-based Edible Eden is one. Edible Eden was founded to help people connect with their food source and enjoy sustainable, ultra-local food while supporting healthy ecosystems and biodiversity.

Watch: Creating an Edible Eden in Your Yard

Want to help the environment and beautify your home? A native pollinator garden does this with plants suitable to the climate and attractive to critters that have co-evolved with them. The plants attract butterflies, hummingbirds and other desirable wildlife while yielding beautiful perennial flowers. Native plants also give shelter to beneficial insects that help control garden pests.

Did you know that the Ruby Throated hummingbird, besides being beautiful and fascinating to watch, is one of the biggest predators of the spotted wing drosophila, scourge of MidAtlantic berry growers?

"When designing a native garden, I like to incorporate different kinds of plants: decorative grasses with seed heads to feed the birds in the off season, nectar bearing blossoms to attract butterflies and hummingbirds in the summer, colorful berries that last into the fall, alternative foliage textures and beautiful scents to titillate the senses of human visitors." Josh Rosenstein, Founder, Edible Eden

One of the nicest things about these gardens, is that because most of the plants are perennial native species, they require little maintenance and keep blooming year after year. There are wildlife garden species that look good in full sun, partial shade and even full shade, and many of the plants are deer resistant as well.

Unity Gardens offers some great tools to help you establish a garden in your yard. Get started here with your backyard garden design tool.