Brie Arthur (Photo courtesy Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden)
Incorporating food crops among your ornamental plants without breaking any homeowners’ association rules can be achieved if you think outside the box and use the space you already have. Brie Arthur, self-proclaimed plant lady and author of “The Foodscape Revolution” and “Gardening With Grains,” will teach you how to be more sustainable and save money by growing your own food.
Arthur is partnering with Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden to bring her extensive knowledge of the gardening technique of foodscaping to an hourlong Zoom class on Tuesday, March 23, at 6:30 p.m. Tickets for “Foodscaping With Brie Arthur” are $25 for members and $30 for nonmembers.
R•Home: Could you tell me more about the foodscaping movement?
Brie Arthur: I'm first and foremost getting people to recognize the power of their existing landscape. You don't have to start from scratch. You can just fill in, but then also think really logically about plant selection. Because plants like tomatoes can get really ugly, and maybe they don't belong in the front yard unless you're really dedicated to growing them well. So, it’s thinking a little more critically about a plant’s habit.
RH: How is foodscaping more sustainable compared to grass lawns?
Arthur: A big part of this concept is getting people to recognize that you don't have to eliminate all of your grass, but maybe making your landscape beds bigger and shrinking the amount of lawn that you have. We currently have an 80/20 percentage, so 80% turf and 20% landscape ratio, in America. We could really transform our landscapes if we shift that even by 10%, but 20% may be better. So that would be 60% turf and 40% landscape bed, and that gives you a better opportunity to have more diversity represented, have more native plants in your landscape and more available square footage for growing food crops.
RH: What do you think is the best crop to grow in Richmond in the spring?
Arthur: We are in potato planting season, and I find that most people like to eat potatoes. They're relatively practical plants. You can grow them in grow bags on your back patio; you can grow them in the ground. They're just a really fun plant to harvest. I think that if you've never grown potatoes before, 2021 should be the year for you to grow potatoes.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
