If so, you can grow some food crops without sacrificing the beauty of your landscape. Or plant annual flowers in your vegetable garden, where they ll probably drop their seeds and come back next year. The best book I ve ever seen on the subject is Edible Landscaping by Rosalind Creasy. She explains, in words and pictures, how we can mix food plants into our landscape from front yard to back. Fruit trees are beautiful in bloom, asparagus makes a green hedge or background for flowers during the Summer, chives make an attractive plant, even if we didn t eat them, cucumbers or other vining plants can be grown up a trellis to save space.
Peppers change color as they ripen, some becoming red but others turning yellow or purple.
If you re a country person, trapped in a city environment, you can still grow some of your own vegetables by planting them anywhere there is sun enough, in the yard or in pots that can be moved around to the sunny spots. If you ve never gardened before, make this the year you begin. A few plants won t cost much and a package of seed is even cheaper. You probably won t even need to plant all the seeds the first time, save some for a later crop or even until next year. If things don t turn out as well as expected or hoped for, just consider it a learning experience and try again.