Delicious Edible Ground Covers to Grow for Food and Beauty

When we think of ground covers, we often think of fast-spreading, low-mounding plants grown in garden paths or between ornamental shrubs and trees to reduce weeds, conserve moisture, and beautify and unite a landscape.

But ground covers can also be grown in vegetable gardens and edible landscapes to serve the same function as organic mulches like wood chips, chopped leaves, or straw.

In an edible garden where I’m trying to use every square inch of growing space for food or beneficial plants, I sometimes feel like a layer of “regular” mulch is a missed opportunity to do more.

That’s where living mulches come in—specifically, edible living mulches, which are one of my favorite lazy gardening strategies for a low-effort, high-return food garden. When you interplant a ground cover you can eat among your vegetables, berry bushes, and fruit trees, you get all the benefits of mulching while enjoying double the harvest.

But choosing the right edible ground cover is key: You don’t want it to become the star, just the supporting character for your main crop.

The best choices for vegetable gardens, orchards, and other edible landscapes are long-season annuals or non-aggressive perennials that stay under 12 inches tall and have other benefits like attracting pollinators or repelling pests. You plant them once in the beginning of the season, and reap the benefits from first sprout through the final harvest.

Typically, you should match annual ground covers with annual crops, and perennial ground covers with perennial crops. But if a perennial ground cover won’t survive winter in your area, you can still grow it as an annual.

Read more: The best perennial vegetables for a low-effort garden

Also called sweet alyssum, Lobularia maritima is related to other brassicas like broccoli and kale. The plant is entirely edible, with leaves that have a slightly peppery flavor (similar to mustard greens) and flowers that taste a bit like radish.

I especially like the tiny flower clusters in a salad. There’s no need to deadhead spent blooms because alyssum is self-cleaning—that is, it drops old flowers and continues blooming all summer long without deadheading.

Alyssum grows between 6 to 8 inches tall with a spread of 12 to 18 inches. It’s the perfect “spiller” plant, so you can plant sweet alyssum on the edges of your raised bed or rock wall and let it cascade downward.

It’s also a good cold-hardy companion plant for other brassicas, acting as a trap crop to keep pests off your more desirable plants.

Depending on the species, violets range from 4 to 8 inches tall and can densely fill in empty spaces around taller plants. They’re a pollinator magnet, providing early-season nectar for bees and butterflies. Many types of violets are cold-hardy, so you can plant them out and let them do their job of protecting the soil as your main crops grow in.

The leaves and flowers of violets are all edible, with violet flowers being one of the best-tasting edible flowers you can grow. They have a sweet, floral flavor that’s delicious in drinks and salads. The young leaves are mild and fresh-tasting, similar to lettuce or snap peas.

Roman chamomile grows only 6 to 12 inches tall and a particular dwarf cultivar, ‘Treneague’, is popular as a lawn substitute because it maxes out at 4 inches tall (though ‘Treneague’ doesn’t flower, so you lose the pollinator benefit). German chamomile, on the other hand, is less ideal as a ground cover because it grows 2 to 3 feet tall, easily overshadowing other crops in a vegetable bed.

If need to fill in bare soil between other edible perennials, Roman chamomile is a great choice for a ground cover, as it’s attractive, durable enough to walk on, and dotted with daisy-like flowers all summer.

The leaves and flowers are edible, with an earthy, slightly bitter taste, but if you’re looking to harvest chamomile for tea, know that Roman chamomile doesn’t flower as much as the German type and is typically more bitter.

These self-seeding annuals grow quickly on long, thin vines that drape over garden beds beautifully.

Their lush green leaves are reminiscent of lily pads, and when they bloom, the flowers attract pollinators all day long, making them a good option as a ground cover for berries, cucumbers, and other crops that need more than just wind for pollination.

Nasturtiums are also highly attractive to aphids, which may sound like a nuisance to some, but this is what makes them such a great trap crop to keep aphids off your more valuable crops.

Plant them around susceptible crops and as soon as you see an infestation on your nasturtiums, pull and trash the affected plants so the aphids don’t jump to your other crops.

As a bonus: Stepping on these herbs releases their fragrance into the air, and it’s these same aromatic oils that help repel insects like fleas.

Creeping varieties (such as Origanum vulgare ‘Humile’, Origanum vulgare ‘aureum’, and Thymus serpyllum) quickly spread to form dense mats under 3 inches tall. Bees love the clusters of delicate flowers that bloom in summer. (For humans, the flowers make a fragrant and pretty garnish for soups, salads, and other dishes.)

All of these herbs are cold-hardy, drought-tolerant perennials that like well-draining soil and full sun (though they’ll also grow in partial shade).

The plant is a low-growing hardy perennial with distinctive shield-shaped leaves. A couple of small plants will quickly grow into a patch less than 12 inches tall. Under the shade of taller plants, True French sorrel may stay under 6 inches tall.

I love to grow it because it’s low-maintenance, not so common, and has a lemony flavor that’s unlike anything else in my garden.

As a ground cover, it stays a brilliant green year-round and the clumps can be lifted, divided, and replanted elsewhere when you need to fill in some space in your garden beds.

Its name, oxalis, means sour, and the high oxalic acid content in the leaves give them a fresh, lemony flavor.

People often mistake wood sorrel for shamrock because of its leaflets that fold upward in the center. However, true shamrocks (or Irish shamrocks) belong to the genus Trifolium, which are clovers.

Wood sorrel likes moist soil with partial shade (woodsy areas, being true to its name). Its leaves can grow up to 1 inch wide, and the plant spreads via underground runners to form a silky green carpet 6 to 12 inches tall, on average. It’s not an aggressive plant and can easily be pulled when it’s no longer desired in the garden.

Since alpine strawberries produce tiny (yet delectably sweet and fragrant) fruit, many gardeners skip them in favor of big, juicy garden strawberries because they find the smaller, near-wild cultivars aren’t worth the effort.

It’s true that you would need several plants to harvest a single cup of alpine strawberries. But, I promise that it is worth the effort once you’ve tasted them! (Read more about the Yellow Wonder alpine strawberries I grew in my garden.)

As an edible ground cover, however, alpine strawberries tick off all the boxes: tough yet non-invasive, and able to tolerate a variety of soil conditions (especially if you forget to water for a short spell).

They have a low growth habit and tend to hold fruits up high, often above the leaves. Alpine strawberries are everbearing, so they’ll flower and fruit from spring through fall (or until the first hard frost).

Because of its pale color, the Yellow Wonder cultivar, in particular, doesn’t attract birds the way bright red strawberries do, leaving more berries for you!

And that’s the important part: They should only be planted in large open spaces, otherwise they could make it difficult for you to harvest your other crops (not to mention the amount of real estate they take up).

The sprawling vines are thick and prolific (which is what makes them so effective as a ground cover) and have a tendency to climb, so they should be kept away from structures where their climbing habit isn’t desired.

In small spaces, consider planting another cucurbit as an edible ground cover: cucumbers.

Though we usually think of them as climbers, cucumbers grow perfectly fine along the ground. They still produce vigorous vines, but the smaller leaves and smaller fruits make them more manageable than winter squash and melons.

This post updated from an article that originally appeared on April 18, 2018.