A magnificent result: check out my perennial garden bed! (No Market Tonight!)

I'm really loving the way this bed is looking:

This is not only a food bed, it's also an insectary for the rest of my gardens, as well as being a place for my daughter to grow her heirloom roses.

If you remember my post on the mosaic-decorated hugelkultur bed, that's what started this thing off.

I expanded that bed this winter. This is what it looked like back then:

Boring!

Now it's really filled out. It contains three roses, three varieties of raspberry, rosemary, garlic chives, lion's ear, perennial marigold, oxalis, cut-leaf coneflower, milkweed, plus a Saijo astringent persimmon right in the middle.

That's blooming right now:

The benefit of having these plants growing in the garden cannot be overstated. Though some are only there for beauty (such as the roses), they all provide shelter for good insects, as well as food, spices and medicine for us.

Japanese persimmons are a small tree that fit nicely into a garden design. They don't cast a lot of shade and their fruit is a slice of heaven.

NOTE: I will NOT be at the Gainesville Farmer's Market this evening - look for me again next week.