Edible Native Plant Landscaping - The Real “Paleo” Diet Available in Your Own Backyard

Blue Camas Lily

Curating your home landscape or garden connects you with a tradition thousands of years old in which humans and plants share a special relationship. Native Shoshone people living nomadic lifestyles began expanding into the area now designated as Idaho as early as 4,000 years ago, and the principle diets of these hunter-gatherers included many edible plants, not to mention the many practical and symbolic uses of plant material. For thousands of years (until contact with Westerners), the indigenous peoples lived off a diet sourced by wild (unfarmed) plants. These wild native plants are still around today, and are ecologically adapted to the Idaho climate and its diverse plant hardiness zones.

Here is a sampling of plants gathered by Shoshone Native Americans for sustenance:

• 

  Arrowleaf Balsamroot

  Camas Bulb (Camassia quamash)
• Wild Onion
• Bitterroot
• Arrowleaf Balsamroot
• Tobacco Root
• Serviceberry
• Chokecherries

• 

  Bitterroot

  Currant
• Pine nuts
• Seeds from Junegrass, Bluebunch Wheatgrass, Thickspike Wheatgrass, and Nevada Bluegrass

Berries were ground and mixed along with hunted meats to form nutritional patties, called pemmican, which were preserved chemically by the acidic berries. Additionally, native tribes in Idaho such as the Nimi’ipuu (Nez Perce) collected:

• 

  Kouse

  Wild Carrot
• Kouse (also called “Biscuit Root” by non-native travelers)
• Sunflowers
• Huckleberries
• Wild Rhubarb

The list could continue, and the above links will give more information about each type of plant. But which ones would grow well in your garden? A good place to start collecting some tips is at the Idaho Native Plant Society resource website. Specifically, the bulletin Landscaping with Native Plants from the University of Idaho and the Landscaping with Native Plants of the Intermountain Region from the BLM contain detailed notes and descriptions of nearly all of the edible plants from the above list. The guides include landscape uses and notes, regional considerations, availability, and pollinator attractiveness. Additionally, the two guides specify which of the plants are drought tolerant, how large they grow, how much water and sunlight they need, when they flower, and what color they bloom. 

If there aren’t already enough reasons to focus your landscaping efforts on native plants, the fact that these selected plants have been used in antiquity up to the present because of their important nutritional value to humans gives one more benefit to carefully designing your landscape with location-appropriate plants. The provided references will get you started, and remember also to keep learning along with archeologists and ethnobotanists about how people and plants have survived by cooperating for thousands of years. 

Drip Irrigation for Flower & Vegetable Gardens

PVC drip system 

Have you ever wondered if there was a better way to water your plants and use less water, especially during the hot days of summer? Maybe you just want to leave town in the summer and not return to your basket of petunias looking like a basket wilted lettuce. A drip irrigation system might be the solution to your problems. 

As a user of drip irrigation for over 20 years, I can attest to the benefits. By putting water directly next to the plant, you water only the plant and not the soil around it. This means fewer weed seeds can germinate, which means fewer weeds! A drip system can also save you time, while giving you better results in the garden. Studies in drip irrigation conducted by the University of Utah found that participants experienced up to 90% time savings in watering and weeding the gardens. Throughout the growing season, the study participants observed that the plants were healthier and produced at a higher level. 

Drip lines in flower baskets

Summers in Western Idaho get HOT! Using a drip system with a timer, water can be applied when and where it is needed. Unlike a sprinkler that waters a broad area and loses water to evaporation in the air, the drip system puts water directly on the plants when and where you need it. In an article by Colorado State University, it was noted that, “Drip irrigation exceeds 90 percent efficiency whereas sprinkler systems are 50 to 70 percent efficient. Drip irrigation delivers water slowly immediately above, on or below the surface of the soil. This minimizes water loss due to runoff, wind and vapor.” If you pay for your water from a city or municipality, a drip system could result in a lower water bill.  

A watering system set up on timers eliminates the possibility of your gardens not getting watered while you’re gone. At our house for example, if the temperatures are hot, we know can leave our home for a few days and come home to healthy plants.  

Any time is a good time to invest in a drip system. However, springtime is an ideal time to consider designing a drip irrigation system because you can plan your vegetable and flower gardens around the water system. 

While it may sound complicated, it is easy to design and install. There is a lot of information available on drip systems, so do your research. I use a PVC pipe system for the vegetable garden and flexible tubing for our flower gardens.

Raised Bed Gardening for the Mobility Challenged

Injuries, aging, surgery, and arthritis can all limit gardening and growing your own food. But, use of raised beds can enable a growing population to participate in this activity.

Raised beds can be constructed or purchased in heights as short as 5 inches and as tall as 3 feet. For gardeners looking to avoid painful bending, we recommend taller beds. It is also helpful to build beds narrow enough so that the owner can reach half the width from either side easily to weed and care for their plants. Additionally, space beds wide enough apart to easily allow a wheelchair, walker, scooter or wheelbarrow to pass between them and have sufficient space at the ends to turn around.

Since most vegetables require full sun, the beds should be placed in a southern exposure to provide full sunshine. To alleviate concerns of too much sun, consider stretching shade cloth over bent hoops of PVC pipe. Drip system irrigation will provide the best water delivery system and can be easily and inexpensively installed so that mobility-challenged gardeners can irrigate without the difficulty of dragging hoses to hand water.

Above is a picture of David and Anita Henning’s
raised bed system in Kimberly, Idaho.

Raised beds can be constructed of many materials i.e. cement blocks, weathered railroad ties, cedar, redwood, pine or fir lumber, or pressure treated boards. Fir and pine will not last as long and those materials treated with chemicals will need to be lined to prevent treating compounds from leaching into the soil and contaminating the plants.

Home gardeners can construct their own beds using simple tools or purchase pre-made kits from garden centers. Regardless of which option you choose, the raised bed investment is definitely one to consider to allow you to continue gardening well into old age.