A lawn that is also an edible polyculture....what works well?

I have it in my head that I'd like to turn my lawn into a camas field, but I haven't paid enough attention to when my camas flowers and retreats vs. when my lawn really needs its first mowing.  Any of you doing this?  Other edible spring ephemeral bulb options to think about in grass?

Larger question, what edibles do well for you in your polyculture lawn?  Dandelions for sure!


This lovely image from https://www.goodgrub.org/post/plant-of-the-month-camas

Hello Greg. A long time ago I read that horseradish, onions, strawberries and asparagus made a dandy polyculture so I gave it a try. Everything went well until lemon balm escaped a pot and took it over. The one only issue I found was harvesting the horseradish and onions without damaging the other plants. I started over in different area with strawberries, asparagus and walking onions. I just harvest some of the onion tops without disturbing the soil. It continues to work great!

Crow garlic   Allium vineale The leaves come up in early winter and die down in late spring, it then sends up a flower spike which is more bulbils than flowers, but you won't kill it by mowing that off. Tastes, looks and is used almost exactly like chives.

Edible for whom?  ;)   I overseed with clover and have a mix of clover, grass, dandelion, and violets.   I scythe it and sun dry and store for winter feed for my rabbits.   Looks nice all summer in my urbanish yard but it's functional and practical too!

I'm fortunate to have bought a property with a very "neglected" lawn that hasn't seen any weeding  out in 3+ years. It has several varieties of pseudo-grass that add to the biodiversity. The edible/medicinal plants I've found growing organically (unplanted) are:

- plantain (edible & medicinal)
- wild violets (edible)
- dandelion (edible & medicinal) - My family is from the mountains of Appalachia, where cooking with violet and dandelion blossums is common
- chickweed (edible)
- creeping charlie (edible & medicinal)
- lambs ears (medicinal)

I'm planning on adding purslane, roman chamomile, and creeping thyme to this list this year

Jo, Welcome to the forum!

Congratulations on the new property and all your lucky finds with those plants.

I like your suggestion of adding purslane, roman chamomile, and creeping thyme as those are great choices.

I think if I was going to have an edible lawn, I'd want one that doesn't need mowing!
I have planted some cammasia, but they are doing better for me where they don't have the grass competition, although those are a different variety so not a good comparison perhaps. They've been in a few years now and the ones in the grass have almost stopped flowering. I think it's probably time to dig and divide them and see what they might taste like!
My thoughts for an edible low maintenance lawn would be to try and replicate the silverweed/clover gardens of the Pacific NorthWest. I have a few strains of silverweed I have collected and it does grow well here, even in grass competition.


Silverweed - these roots are quite knobbly but long - usually they are smoother.

I really like the taste and it is apparently higher in starch than potato by weight. I'm thnking that the clover would help maintain the fertility and the roots of the silverweed would grow bigger as a result. I've been a bit inspired by the links in this UK blog I need to find out a bit more about Springbank clover (Trifolium wormskioldii). If it likes the same conditions as silverweed then it should do well here, but I haven't found any information about it's palatability and practability as an edible.

I was glad to see a patch of violets under one of my apple trees this year, but unfortunately the creeping buttercup is invading it. Because I want the violets to spread, I haven't tried eating it yet.

Not sure what to do about the buttercup - it takes over in my ecosystem and is difficult to remove due to the runners, the roots and the fact most animals won't eat it!

Camas traditionally grows in this area, but so far I haven't managed to give it the ecosystem it thrives in.

Greg Martin wrote:I have it in my head that I'd like to turn my lawn into a camas field, but I haven't paid enough attention to when my camas flowers and retreats vs. when my lawn really needs its first mowing.  

I ended up planting 100 camas bulbs in my lawn shortly after this post on 5' centers just to see how they would perform.  I found out that they are sticking around.  They do flower late enough that I have to mow the lawn before they can set seeds.  Not ideal for getting them to spread, but good enough for me if I want to plant a whole lot more.  My plan now is to plant bulbs across the lawn on roughly 1' centers, which will take about 4000 bulbs.  I just finished fall planting the first 1000.  Will repeat that 3 more falls to finish up and am waiting for an ounce of seed to arrive that I can broadcast over the lawn before winter gets here.  Excited to see how this develops.  Will just keep plugging away.  

I planted quarters at the two ends of where I stopped as markers.  Plan is to find them next fall with my metal detector and then continue the plugging.

Wanted to share a picture from this great camas video:


What a dream of a field!

Forgot to add that in that video it was mentioned that for the Nez Perce Camas was a staple, like rice, wheat or corn were for other cultures, and that it made up as much as HALF their calorie intake!

I bet they had some great recipes.

I've heard they take a really long time to grow from seed. Do they divide from bulbs once planted in happy ground?

Yes, they make offsets and form into clusters of bulbs.  I've heard that seeds can take about 3 years to get to flowering age if they're happy, but not sure how long until the bulbs are full sized.  

I just figure that the bulb planting will give me a head start and hopefully the seeds will help fill in between the planted bulbs.  If it takes 5 years (or even 10) for my lower lawn to become a thickly filled camas field I will be thrilled!