Any suggesions for a veggie garden that looks good, too?

I'm devoting a good portion of our vast expanse of big flat lawn over to veggie garden this year (with the price of food and all!) and I am trying to think of a way to do it that actually looks aesthetically pleasing. I don't MIND the big rows or raised beds, but if it is going to be a major part of my backyard it would be nice if it was a pleasant place to be and look at as well. Has anyone got any creative ideas for creating a beautiful and functional food garden that they would like to share before I start breaking the sod?

Thanks!

You could try companion planting with things like marigolds to help keep pests down, that serves a useful function as well as an aesthetic one. (there are other things too besides marigolds, I don't grow veggies so I'm not really up on what all make good companion plants). Or do some edible flowers like nasturtium, they're pretty and edible too.

Growing up we always had zinnias around our garden. I think it would be pretty if it wasn't a big rectangle. Perhaps a pathway curving through it and clumps of things where you can get away with it. Rows mixed in where possible. Lots of neat leaffy things too along with herbs.

Good ideas! I had forgotten about adding in some flowers (doh!)

The curved pathway is kind of what I was thinking of, but I can't quite imagine how to lay it out. That or some kind of pattern to the raised beds, maybe incorporate a fountain or something? Maybe both? Some kind of landscaping magic that will let me have utilitarian access and still look like a *garden!*

Thanks so much!!

I think you would want to skip the fountain. It looks pretty in my vision, but it is inviting the birds into your garden! I can visualize so wrought iron folding screens perhaps to grow peas on. If you have Home Goods in your area they have a lot of iron things right now. I was at Tuesday Morning yesterday & they had tons of garden statuary, pots & iron on clearance. I always look for less than perfect things on clearance since they will be covered anyway. Try mixing some large pots into the mix maybe with cannas or something tall. Good luck. Post pictures when you are done!

Good ideas, might want to consider as your "flowers" edible herbs which also flower. And if you have the budget perhaps install a partial fence around the veg garden with either 3-4' white picket or cast iron fencing----then grow a flower vine on that? Or better yet, let your produce like beans, wind their way around the fencing. :)

Certain vegetable plants are so handsome that they look like they could belong in landscaping. Pepper plants, for instance, are always in my front yard, in groupings of five plants, interspersed with similar groupings of flowers. The green of the pepper leaves offsets the splashes of color, and the flowers I would think attract pollinators. Lettuce, bush beans, chard, basil and other herbs as recommended above can have nice-looking foilage.

I have also had pots with leeks as the "height" in the middle, bush beans and flowers on the sides and cucumbers spilling over the edges. (Leeks, though, not onions because onions' leaves have to turn brown.)

Scarlet runner beans have those red flowers, and there is a climbing bean called "Cobra" by Thompson & Morgan that has "a highly attractive mauve" flower, according to the package label. (I'm planting them for the first time this year and haven't seen the flowers yet.)

NisiNJ