Building a Potager Garden

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If you only have a small or modest plot and want to grow a wide range of crops in an attractive, kitchen garden style, then I suggest you make your whole garden into a potager. This is where vegetables, fruit, herbs, and flowers are grown together in beautiful and harmonious ways. We have fenced an area of our garden off as a kitchen garden and I often think how well it stands on its own. It contains an attractive wooden greenhouse with a patio by the side of it. The plot is irregular in shape, but divided roughly into four to make crop rotation easier. Paths give access and there is a more or less central water feature.

As well as growing vegetables, we have soft fruit and apple-trees trained as upright cordons. These are great if you want to fit lots of fruit varieties into a small space. Each tree is secured to a stake and fruit grows on short spurs growing from the single main trunk, all controlled by summer pruning. The trees are spaced about 6 feet apart and make good vertical accents. Rows of flowers such as antirrhinums, gladioli, and zinnias are grown for cutting and sunflowers are planted wherever they will fit in. The paths are lined with thyme, sage, lavender, golden feverfew, and other herbs, many raised cheaply from seed.
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Winter interest in a kitchen garden needs some work, but if you are clever with your path edgings and use evergreen herbs, there will always be some structure. A surprising number of crops stand during winter, including cabbage related crops (Brussels sprouts, Savoy cabbage, kale, sprouting broccoli) and leeks. Don’t be scared to use props to full advantage, but make them appropriate, such as terra cotta rhubarb and seakale forcers or lantern cloches.