Vegetable garden or Potager?
They are in fact one and the same. Potager is French for kitchen garden, derived from the word Potage, meaning soup.
Growing vegetables doesn’t have to be strict rows of well-behaved vegetables all standing to attention. It can be a riot of colour and texture combining edible flowers, companion planting and flowers to attract pollinators. Biodiversity in the garden is the key to successful fruit and vegetable growing. Plants need pollinators and pollinators need nectar. Wildlife in the garden can help keep nasty pests at bay too.
Designing a potager is more achievable than you might think. In order for it to work it needs to be functional as well as beautiful. Size is not necessarily a limitation as long as you can achieve four beds in order to rotate your crops annually. This is a vital system as all vegetables have differing requirements of nutrients and some even provide nutrients for others. Legumes (peas and beans) fix nitrogen in the soil, which leafy vegetables will benefit from the following year – natures own fertiliser.
Consider also its position. Your potager needs to be quite close to the kitchen, so you can nip out and quickly harvest those edible flowers, salads and herbs to complete the dish! Also make sure it is accessible for watering, as in the height of summer you’ll be glad that the water butt is close by.
Raised beds, path surfaces, compost bins, wheel barrows – the list goes on. More to follow on these in the future.
‘Growing your own’ is an ever increasing pastime for the novice or the well versed grower, as we increasingly want to know and trust the food we eat. In addition, the process from seed to harvest is a very rewarding one and it will be the best you’ve ever tasted !
Suzy Kraike