Edible Garden

Grow­ing food is an impor­tant com­po­nent of Sus­tain­able Land­scap­ing. Massasoit’s Edi­ble Gar­den was plant­ed by Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence stu­dents in the spring of 2011 and fall of 2013, and replaced a lawn.  Most food gar­dens con­sist of annu­als like toma­toes, pep­pers, squash­es, and greens that pro­duce a lot of food but also require a lot of main­te­nance.  In addi­tion, gar­dens with low diver­si­ty are more prone to pest out­breaks.  There­fore, the stu­dents’ goal was to pro­vide a diver­si­ty of food with min­i­mal main­te­nance.  Their solu­tion was to plant a diver­si­ty of peren­ni­al crops. They start­ed with woody plants like fruit trees, shrubs, and vines, and then plant­ed herba­ceous peren­ni­al crops around them. They then left a few areas for plant­i­ng the typ­i­cal gar­den annu­als. Today’s Edi­ble Gar­den pro­vides a vari­ety of sea­son­al crops and, with its for­est gar­den-like struc­ture, is a won­der­ful place to explore and for­age. The gar­den is main­tained by vol­un­teers of all stripes and work study stu­dents, and it is open to the com­mu­ni­ty. Please feel free to explore, take what you need, and leave some for oth­ers — and if you know what a weed is, please pick it!

The fol­low­ing plants are in the Edi­ble Garden:

(N = Native Plant)

Woody Plants

  • Trees: apple, peach, cher­ry, pear, paw­paw, red mul­ber­ry, hazelnut
  • Shrubs: blue­ber­ry, black­ber­ry, raspberry
  • Vines: grape

Herba­ceous Peren­ni­al Plants

  • Veg­eta­bles: rhubarb, aspara­gus, Jerusalem arti­choke (N), horse­rad­ish, vio­let wood sor­rel (N), walk­ing onions, wild leeks, chives, wild gin­ger (N), wild hyacinth (N), spring beau­ty (N),
  • Fruits: straw­ber­ries, wild straw­ber­ries (N), ground­nut (N), hog peanut (N)
  • Herbs: mints, lemon balm, oreganos, thymes, sages

Self-Seed­ing Annuals

  • Nas­tur­tiums, arugu­la, cilantro

Annu­als

  • Fruits: pep­pers, toma­toes, squash­es, beans
  • Veg­eta­bles: greens