When I first started homestead , I wanted to grow food as fast as I could . So , we rig up some compost heaps , establish fences , amended the soil , set out a vegetable garden , and broadly speaking did everything that was necessary to produce nutrient in a hurry .
We never just wanted to have a homestead , though . We wanted to create a sanctuary from the endless shopping centre that seem to be swallowing metropolis whole . We tried to make a place that was not only self - sufficient but charming and enchanting .
After almost five old age of planning and working on this dream , we have now arrived at the item where our self - enough systems are working well , and we have time to focus on making things beautiful . As such , my heavy project for the fall and winter is to retrofit our very operable , but not always beautiful , vegetable garden to be more like a Gallic - style potager .
As I made my plan and originate implement it , I determine a lot about potager gardening that I desire to deal with others . If you are concerned in upping your game and going for ripe garden design as well as excellent food production , then interpret on . This post is for you !
What is a Potager Garden?
Many multitude think of a potager as an decorative vegetable garden . To me , though , it is as much a blank to work your senses , connect with nature , and create artwork as it is to produce veggie . In other watchword , a potager is a place to grow food for the joy of doing it and not just self - sufficiency .
A potager takes a chip more planning than a typical vegetable garden . It also involves more creativity than your stock rows of vegetable . There may also be more care ask since the vegetables and herbs you grow in a potager can be a bit more challenging than yourstandard raw material gardenfare .
How to Start a Potager Garden
Making a potager is about taking your gardening skills to the next level and becoming not only a good gardener , but also a designer , artist , and plantsman . To do that , you demand to start by making a potager plan .
Step 1: Make a Plan
Like anyvegetable garden , potagers require full sunshine , good drain , and excellent soil . In my case , I am retrofit an subsist garden , so I already screw it ’s perfect for a vegetable garden . If you are just getting started , though , ensure you spend some time picking the ideal location andpreparing your territory .
With a potager , you want to plan your garden for beaut and not just operate . Which means you desire to give a great deal more thought to your path , and create a sense of direction to your garden .
You may want to include things like perennial herbaceous plant and flower patches along the walk . Or you may need to use less traditional layouts like intermixing square and rectangular bed with rows . Also , conceive about using rotary pie - shaped designs for even more interest .
Whatever data format you choose , break it up , make it interesting , but also keep it flowing , so you want to stroll through your garden .
esthetic design elements are a huge part of what name a potager from a just a vegetable garden .
– Add Fixed Structures
Using excogitation details liketrellises , picket fences , and ornamental fruit tree to make a sensory faculty of natural enclosure and privacy will make your potager feel more like a pickup . Incorporating container garden areas , a water feature , or lovely seats area is also good way to make your potager a haven from the hectic outside world .
– invention with Plant Color
Organizing by flower , yield , or leaf colour are also techniquesoften usedin a potager . Grouping all your purplish plant like Red Russian Kale , Purple Cabbage , and Purple Cauliflower in one area and your Burgundy wine colour in beetroot , chard , and leafy lettuces together in another adds visual stake .
– Make Your Garden a Canvas
Play with plant heights and leaf textures to make painterly case scene in your potager . Shrubs and permanent plants add elements of interest to the ever - transfer yearly vegetable .
For exemplar , culinary salvia , Munstead lavender , and wormwood all have similar , silvery leaf colouring material . Wormwood works can get 4 - 5 feet tall . Culinary sage can get to about 2 - 3 foot marvelous and wide . Munstead is compact and lean to only get to about 1 foot grandiloquent .
Wormwood with its meridian and dramatic event becomes a background . Sage as a mid - level works breaks up space . Munstead as your molding plant , with electric empurpled flowers at times , draws you in and gives instancy . Using three levels of industrial plant duplicates the sense of having a purview , as you would find paint on a canvas .
Incorporating groupings ofannual plantslike subdued neck opening garlic that transport up scapes just before harvest , or feathery dill , between your salvia can add seasonal flair to your perennial pairing . In warm weather , impart some modest patches of yearly okra or amaranth in between the wormwood creates striking variance . stand of celestial pole peas can also add vertical interest in cooler weather .
– Thrillers , Fillers , and setline
Even in your annual bed , using the eld - old adage “ thriller , filler , and spiller ” can increase yields and sweetheart . apply upright plant like corn with their almost firework - panache tassels as your thriller . Or try a change of tall Madagascar pepper with their arresting , shapes and colors . Then use large - leafed plants like summer squash or chard as your filler .
Opt for down growing heat - hardy leafy greens as your spiller to fill in the foreground . New Zealand spinach makes a great long - growing hot time of year William Green that snake and spillway across your beds . A few well - place sweet potato plants , grow for their greens rather than roots can turn well too .
– Include Flowers
No self - respecting potager would be complete without flowers . Borage , sunflower , nasturtium , and marigolds are a must in a potager .
I am just going to say it …
There is no blank space for intercrossed plants in a potager garden . Hybrids are excellent for production crops because that ’s what they are designed for . A potager , though , is about showcasing your skill as a nurseryman and try out new things to keep garden exciting .
Heirloom seedsare life chronicle . They pass through prison term , responding to the various environments they are engraft in , and become altered by their milieu . Planting seeds that pre - date industrial farming relate you with an authentic past times built on more than just profit and productivity .
– Celebrate Heirloom History
I do n’t call up it ’s enough just tobuy heirloom seeds , though . I think you also need to memorise about the account of your plants and be passionate about preserving their proud heritage .
When you are plan your plantings , grok into the details about where those seeds were discovered , how they were land to your country , and what get them unique . When you put your labels up in your garden , do n’t just say “ peas ” say “ Carouby De Maussane Snow Pea . ” Then , know that this ejaculate hails from the South of France in Maussane and that it date stamp back to the 19thcentury .
– Embrace Cultural Diversity
Seeds are also a jubilation of cultural diversity . The transfer of seeds from culture to culture is globalization at its historical full .
Corn comes from Mexico and has a 7000 - year chronicle . The Celts first naturalise cabbage in 1000 BC . salad – as in geld greens cover in medical dressing – come to us by way of the Romans and ancient Greeks .
You could take your potager planting on a world-wide tour of duty . project your beds by country or region of origin . Or , make an around the man garden clock full of the most exciting eatable from around the planet .
Keep in judgment ; unlike region have dissimilar climates . So , though it ’s fantastic to want to acquire Siberian heirloom , they may not work so well in a hot summer garden . Still , some varieties , like Dwarf Siberian Kale , might work well if started in other spring or late summer .
– Use Antiques
Another way to add historical authenticity to your potager is to habituate antique items for laurel wreath . salvage wheelbarrows , digger , brick , and other cosmetic detail can give a new garden older earth good luck charm .
Alternatively , fix and gardening with antique tools can make turn in the garden feel like traveling back to quieter clock time . With some well flea market finds , you’re able to have your very own potager garden time machine !
A potager should have a few things you absolutely ca n’t get at your local grocery store or that costs a fortune to corrupt . Whether it ’s some Gochu peppers that add flair to all your Asiatic cooking dishes , Cynara cardunculus leaves that give child’s play to your pickles and pizzazz to your plate , or saffron bloom stamen to spice up your stalking – adding exotics is a must !
In dusty climates , it ’s also totally worth growing a few marginal edibles in pots that you drag within for winter . A Meyer lemon or fundamental lime tree tree can make a northerly potager popping with tropic color . In strong mood , part semen indoors and transplanting fledged cool weather condition industrial plant early , can append early excitement to a mostly hot - weather garden .
Step 2: Layout Your Design
Once you have your plan on paper , the next stone’s throw is to put it into motion on the ground . I am a huge exponent for making a spirit - size mock - up where you plan to savvy – before you even break primer coat . natal day streamers , care tape recording , or baling chain plus a handful of garden stakes or posts can all be used to make your mock - up .
In my first garden , I did n’t make a mock - up . As a result , I made some of my paths too narrow-minded for my wheelbarrow to gibe . That have in mind I had to use buckets to bring in in all my soil amendments like compost .
Had I made a mock - up , I would have realized that throw less than 2 - human foot pathways makes it more complicated to get in and out with hand tools and soil amendments . Walking through a space , plans in hand is an essential part of being a designer rather than just someone who gardens .
If you are planning to use cosmetic contingent like an arbour over a itinerary , plug in ladder or bamboo posts to avail you visualize your bombastic aim elements . habituate your hoe to draw traffic circle where the roots of your perennial plants will be so you know if you ’ve pass them enough room for when they reach their fledged sizing .
suppose about sunshine and shade practice . Make certain you have n’t planned any magniloquent industrial plant or structures that will cast shade over plants that ca n’t tolerate shade .
reckon your heavy rains flow through your paths . regard the current of air cap the hill behind your raw garden area . How does your design hold - up to your weather on the ground ?
The more real you could make your mock - up the better result you ’ll have when you jump your potager . Now is the metre to make discipline , before you ’ve put your picket fence and mould shadows of doubtful production over your full sun - loving Malabar prickly-seeded spinach .
Step 3: Work Your Plan
Now that you have a working plan in place , you just need to put it into movement . Be direct in how you implement your plan . Anything that need to be installed underground , such as plumbery , electrical energy , or drainage betterment ( if those are part of your program ) should total first . Then , ferment in the way that seems most logical for you .
For a brand new garden , I wish to develop my layer and put in any large ornamental elements before I install myfencing . That way , I do n’t have to open and faithful gates or navigate around impediments . Once I have my beds in property , then I ’ll add the fence before I start planting so that I can protect plants from garden pestilence ( like my own chicken ) .
For a potager , you may have different soil needs for the different kinds of plants you choose to include . Your Mediterranean herbs may need better debilitate , rockier type soil than your bed of ascendent vegetables . So , as part of put to work your plan , ensure to prepare your soil for what you will found in each location .
Also , if you contrive to propagate your own flora , start your ejaculate , layer your existing plants , orroot your cuttingsas early as potential . That room you are ready to sate your potager garden come leap .
Step 4: Maintain Your Potager
Because a potager is a cosmetic vegetable garden , as much as it is a generative one , the real challenge comes when you have to maintain it .
For vegetable you harvest whole like moolah heads , you may be replacing them with something all dissimilar . Having your transplants ready to put in your bottom at the time of harvest time will keep quad from come out bare .
For vegetable you continuously harvest likecome - and - cut loot , keeping up with your harvest home and seed starting is vital . Over - seeding to fill in bare patches ensures the area fill in quickly . Thin a fleck later than you would in a traditional garden .
harvest home only what you need , when you involve it , and transplanting or seeding as you go keeps bed from being empty . For example , instead of picking all your beet at once , draw the large beets first and put transplants in their place . Then , as those transplanting size up , harvest the rest of your beets .
Compost orstraw covered soilis more aesthetically appealing than bare shit . Keeping a quick supplying of these particular on hand to cover seeds and keep fertility will also make your garden more likable during seeding .
Using ornamental cloche over wide space plants or pretty stale frames can also make your garden beds interesting even before seeds germinate . Plus , these tool can bucket along up sprouting . In warm weather condition , using tint cloth or floating dustup cover can cool land and pelt along up germination while also making beds seem occupied .
you could put a clay hint on a wine-colored bottle and use it to water supply freshly seed blank or transplants . The bottle not only mark the location of your seedlings , but it also adds visual interest until the plants grow up .
you could also keep a solicitation of whirligig to habituate to cross off seedlings and prevent birds from swooping in and exhaust your seeds or stealing your bean sprouts .
Savor the Flavor
Even though we emphasize mantrap and on take exception ourselves as gardeners in produce a potager – it ’s still all about the delicious nutrient . Potager , after all , is just a fancy French way of say “ kitchen garden . ” So , remember to glean and enjoy what you uprise , as well as enjoy develop it .
If you want to harvest all your beets at once to cook up a large batch of borscht for your kinsperson – then do it ! Besides , you could always throw a fast crop of heirloom “ French Breakfast ” radish in the footing to occupy your beet bed until you get around to plant it properly .
It ’s a beautiful affair to grow your potager garden , your food for thought , and your skills – all at once !
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