Edible landscaping: A banana tree grows in Holyoke

By CHERYL B. WILSON Bulletin Contributing Writer

Published on September 25, 2009

It's hard to miss Eric Toensmeier's garden in downtown Holyoke. In the front yard are banana trees, canna plants, passionflower vine and other tropicals.

"The front yard is ornamental with tropical stuff you can eat," Toensmeier explained. A hyacinth bean vine (Dolichos lablab), grown by many gardeners as an ornamental, actually has edible beans that can be cooked to be eaten green like peas or dried for soups in the winter. The tubers of one of the cannas is also edible, Toensmeier said, adding that's a good thing because otherwise gardeners end up with a surfeit of tubers to winter over inside.

The banana trees die back to the ground every winter but emerge in the spring and usually grow as high as the front porch roof. This year they were stunted by the cold weather in early summer. "They like heat since they are from a warm place," Toensmeier explained. "They don't produce fruit and most years we are lucky to get flowers in August." He and his wife, Marikler Gion Toensmeier use the leaves to make tamales.

Among the vines clambering up the front porch is Chinese yam or air potato, which has tiny potato-like fruits. "We got two gallons of yams off the plant last year," Toensmeier said. He recommended boiling them for 10 minutes so they taste like new potatoes.

The front yard is just an introduction to the eclectic assortment of vegetables and fruits in the back yard, a fascinating example of edible landscaping. Some of the plants are familiar to most gardeners -- 'Brandywine' tomatoes, garlic chives and hyssop, raspberries and blueberries. But much of the garden is devoted to plants few people have thought of growing in our climate.

Looking out from the back door you see slightly raised beds edged by old logs with pathways made of wood chip mulch. In the far back is a hoop house, 12 feet by 16 feet, where Toensmeier grows tomatillos, yard-long beans and Okinawa spinach. He pointed out the purple undersides of the spinach leaves and said the plant has beautiful orange flowers in season. The hoop house, which is covered in heavy-duty white plastic, has lasted 10 years including a move five years ago from a previous home.

Starting from crabgrass

When the Toensmeiers moved in five summers ago, the backyard was a mess of construction fill, including chunks of concrete. There was a small patch of crabgrass, he said.

During the first two years they concentrated on amending the soil, bringing in about 10 yards of compost and manure. "We borrowed a dump truck to pick up the compost at a dairy farm in Easthampton," he recalled. "We collected bags of leaves from neighbors, about 100 of them."

Then they sheet mulched the entire area. Sheet mulching is accomplished by covering the amended soil with old grocery bags or cardboard and piling mulch on top of it. Over time, the soil improved. Where the soil was really heavy compacted clay they built compost bins, a garden shed, a small water garden and raised beds for the 'Brandywine' tomatoes as well as a small patio.

Visitors might be startled to see "weeds" among the vegetables and fruits. But they are there for a purpose - to attract beneficial insects that are pollinators. So goldenrod is allowed to flower, along with more hyssop and garlic chives than other gardeners might desire.

Among the pollinating insects he lures to the garden are braconid wasps that are parasites of the dread tomato hornworm. "We actually saw a wasp hatch this year," he said. "It was a little tiny cute thing. So we have confirmed that our pest control regimen works. Every little bit helps. We have had no significant aphid problems and no caterpillar pests," he said. Slugs, he admitted in this wet summer have been another matter.

"We also plant species that fix nitrogen in the soil," he added. For instance, there is an ornamental mimosa tree that serves several purposes: "It's a shade tree, it sets nitrogen for other plants and it is a favorite of the ruby-throated hummingbird," Toensmeier said.

"We plant side-by-side plants that need nitrogen with plants that provide nitrogen, plants that need shade next to shade trees, and plants that attract predatory insects next to those that can benefit from the insects," he explained.

Permaculture

These are basic principles of permaculture of which Toensmeier is a practioner. He was co-author of the book "Edible Forest Gardens" by primary author Dave Jacke, who now lives in Turners Falls. "The idea is to mimic nature," Toensmeier explained.

Toensmeier also wrote a fascinating book, "Perennial Vegetables," which was published by Chelsea Press in 2005. The history and culture of many of the plants he grows are in that book.

For instance, he grows perennial arugula, the chic salad vegetable from Italy. His 'Sylvetta' from Johnny's Seeds in Maine has delicate yellow flowers beginning in midsummer and pungent leaves like dandelions.

Next to the arugula in the bed is perennial sorrel 'Profusion', another popular green. Nearby is sea kale (Crambe maritima) grown in Europe as an ornamental. In the Toensmeier garden the 10-year-old plants have three productive seasons. "In the spring we eat the shoots, in the fall we eat the collard-like leaves," he said. In midsummer there are dramatic white flowers similar to baby's breath that smell like honey, he said.

In the far corner near the hoop house is a stand of bamboo, a plant many people are reluctant to introduce into their gardens because they can be horribly invasive. The young shoots, however, are popular in Asian cuisine and the stalks are used worldwide as plant stakes and to make trellises. "Why buy stakes when you can grow your own?" Toensmeier asks.

Mindful of the invasive potential for the species he chose (there are other benign clumping varieties), Toensmeier said he rented a trench digger and dug a two-foot-deep trench that he lined with landfill-grade heavy-duty plastic. This creates a rhizome barrier so the underground stolons can't escape into the rest of the garden.

Growing in front of the garden is another plant often used as an ornamental for bog gardens. As a vegetable - you eat the stalks - it is called fuki. Its botanical name is Petasites japonicus. Fuki is a Japanese delicacy. The leaves of the plant are enormous and provide a dramatic contrast to the airy bamboos. "It needs very wet soil and it gets droopy in the summer," he said.

Another water-loving plant in Toensmeier's garden is water celery (Oenanthe javanica), which is grown for its leaves. They have a decided celery flavor. "It comes up in the snow in the spring when you really want greens," he said. He uses it in salads, chopped up in soups and cooked as a green. He also likes to munch on it while he works in the garden. Next to the water celery is the herb sweet Cicely, which he said attracts insects. "My favorite thing about it is that it tastes like black jelly beans, sweet with an anise flavor," he said.

Water celery is one of the vegetables Toensmeier said he wouldn't be without in his garden. Asparagus is another vegetable he treasures.

Unusual fruits

As for fruits, "I wouldn't do without persimmons," he said. "I wouldn't do without Asian pears or hardy kiwis or paw paws." He also is fond of his young chinkapins or native bush chestnuts (Castanea pumila).

The Asian pear is producing a bumper crop this year. The crisp, round fruits look like apples but require little care compared to the popular apple. "Asian pears are much more satisfactory for this area than apples," Toensmeier said. They don't need sprays and severe pruning, he added.

His persimmons, which are grafted plants, are just four years old. He said one tree grew nearly six feet this summer. It is bearing small, pear-shaped fruits, 20 to 30 of them.

Nearby is paw paw, another native fruit seldom grown by home gardeners. One problem is that the flowers have to be hand-pollinated. "It's tedious but they never need anything else," Toensmeier said, "no pruning, no thinning, no spraying."

Its natural pollinators are carrion flies and beetles, he explained. "Some commercial growers hang road kill or fish guts in their trees to attract the pollinators," he said, adding that that's not a viable option in a residential neighborhood.

The back border of the garden has red and yellow raspberries and blueberries. Toensmeier said that the birds tend to leave the yellow raspberries alone, evidently thinking they are unripe berries.

Toensmeier learned about gardening from his parents in Philadelphia before coming to study at Hampshire College. He has been farm project manager of Nuestras Raices (Our Roots) in Holyoke for six years, just stepping down this summer to pursue other gardening interests. He is teaching a class on perennial vegetables at Berkshire Botanical Garden and will be doing a permaculture course in Ashfield beginning next month.

Toensmeier is organizing an "Edible Forest Gardening" weekend on Oct. 16-18 to be held both at his Holyoke home garden and at Tripple Brook Nursery in Southampton, a prime supplier of bamboos and other perennial food crops. During the workshop, participants will be able to sample paw paws, kiwi and chestnuts, and learn how to grow them and other unusual vegetables and fruits. The Fee is $150. To register call Toensmeier at 413-695-6115 or email him at toensmeier@gmail.com.

Cheryl Wilson can be reached at valleygardens@comcast.net.