There’s no reason to hide away vegetables when they are this attractive. Certain veggies are naturally beautiful, and with a little thought to planting design, you can maximize the appearance of your food garden, and even mix food plants with your ornamentals. In fact, there’s a whole trend in putting food plants into front yard gardens, because they rival ornamentals in the looks department.

A checkerboard planting of red and green lettuces enhances their decorative qualities.

Vegetables have their own sculptural quality, that can be as decorative as flowers. I loved these smooth, waxy peppers planted in a diamond pattern, with a ring of flouncy parsley.

Planting parsley en masse looks great, and gives you a summer’s worth of tabbouleh salad makings.