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Associated main article: Garden design
Large-scale potager at Villandry, France

The traditional kitchen garden, also known as a potager, is a seasonally used space separate from the rest of the residential garden - the ornamental plants and lawn areas. Most vegetable gardens are still miniature versions of old family farm plots, but the kitchen garden is different not only in its history, but also its design.

The kitchen garden may be a landscape feature that can be the central feature of an ornamental, all-season landscape, but can be little more than a humble vegetable plot. It is a source of herbs, vegetables, fruits, and flowers, but it is also a structured garden space, a design based on repetitive geometric patterns.

The kitchen garden has year-round visual appeal and can incorporate permanent perennials or woody plantings around (or among) the annual plants.

Contents

Potager garden

A potager garden is a French method of creating ornamental vegetable or kitchen gardens. Often flowers (edible and non-edible) and herbs are planted with the vegetables to enhance the beauty. The goal is to make the function of providing food aesthetically pleasing.

Plants are chosen as much for their functionality as for their color and form. Many are trained to grow upward. A well-designed potager can provide food, cut flowers and herbs for the home with very little maintenance. Potagers can disguise their function of providing for a home in a wide array of forms--from the carefree style of the cottage garden to the formality of a knot garden.

Vegetable garden

A small vegetable garden in May outside of Austin, Texas

A vegetable garden (also known as a vegetable patch or vegetable plot) is a garden that exists to grow vegetables and other plants useful for human consumption, in contrast to a flower garden that exists for aesthetic purposes. It is a small-scale form of vegetable growing. A vegetable garden typically includes a compost heap, and several plots or divided areas of land, intended to grow one or two types of plant in each plot. It is usually located to the rear of a property in the back garden. Many families have home kitchen and vegetable gardens that they use to make food. In World War II, people had gardens called a 'victory garden' which provided food to families and thus freed up resources for the war effort.

With worsening economic conditions and increased interest in organic and sustainable living, many people are turning to vegetable gardening as a supplement to their family's diet. Food grown in your own backyard, uses up little if any fuel for shipping, and the grower can be sure of what exactly was used to grow it. Organic horticulture, or organic gardening, has become increasingly popular for the modern home gardener.

There are many types of vegetable gardens. Potagers, a garden in which vegetables, herbs and flowers are grown together, has become more popular than the more traditional rows or blocks.

Herb garden

A herbal garden at Beernem, Belgium

Herb gardens may be purely functional or can include a blend of functional and ornamental parts. They are usually only used to flavour food in cooking, hereby sometimes also triggering positive medical side-effects. In addition, plants grown within the garden are sometimes also specifically targeted to cure common illnesses or maladies such as colds, headaches, or anxiety. Especially due to the increase in popularity of alternative medicine, this usage is heavily increasing. Making a medicinal garden however, requires a great number of plants, one for each malady. Herbs grown in herb gardens are also sometimes used to make herbal teas 1.

During the medieval period, monks and nuns developed specialist medical knowledge and grew the necessary herbs in specialist gardens. Typical plants were rosemary, parsley, sage, marjoram, thyme, mint, rue, angelica, bay, oregano, dill and basil.citation needed

Borage is commonly grown in herb gardens; its flowers can be used as a garnish

.Herbs can be used for a variety of culinary and medicinal purposes. Some popular culinary herbs in temperate climates are to a large extent still the same as in the medieval period, although some other newer ones also include borage, horseradish, tarragon, chervil.citation needed Among the herbs used in teas are Mint, Lavender, Lemon verbena, Rose hip, Bergamot, Hibiscus sabdariffa (for making karkade), Marjoram, Jasmine, Chamomile, Stevia (for sweetening).

Some herbs with medicinal purposes include:

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ How to grow a herbal tea garden

Bibliography

  • Bartley, Jennifer R. (2006). Designing the New Kitchen Garden: An American Potager Handbook. Portland: Timber Press. ISBN 978-0-88192-772-6. 

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