Garden Plot

Designing Your Kitchen Garden

This month we will begin to help you design your potager or kitchen garden. First you will need to decide how much time you will have to not only plant but maintain the space as well. Keep in mind you will need to water, weed and plant throughout each season, so plan accordingly. Keep in mind too that the benefit of the potager is that you can harvest four seasons, which means you will be replanting in areas throughout the growing season. Typically, during the colder months, you will harvest only, items such as potatoes, onions, carrots, etc. Last month you should have decided what you would like to grow, so here goes.

So here is your homework for February.

  1. Using your graph paper, draw the design of your garden using 1" squares to denote square feet.
  2. Draw out a section for salad greens and mark it area #1. Depending on the size of your area you will want to include different kinds of lettuce such as mesclun greens, romaine, radicchio, butter, etc. I would suggest that you start small with perhaps just two to three rows. This area will be replanted a few times, depending on the region of the country in which you reside. This will be the first area you will plant as lettuce, spinach, etc. are considered cool weather or early vegetables. Label each area with corresponding number in order to define your planting areas.
  3. Be sure to design your area to plant companion vegetables together. You can also intersperse herbs between the vegetables to create interest and to keep insects away. The reason for this is there are certain vegetables that are actually toxic to one another so be sure to do your research.
  4. For herbs, consider planting things like oregano and mint in beautiful pots and sit in the vegetable garden between the beds. These herbs are very fast growing and aggressive and will spread fast into unwanted areas. Keep in mind too that any potted vegetables or herbs will need to be watered more often.
  5. Determine which zone you live in and using the instructions on the seed packets for planting times and growth cycles, determine when to begin to sow your seeds.
  6. If you will start your seeds indoors, be sure to allow time in between planting in the ground and sowing indoors. You will also need to allow a few days of sitting the seedlings out of doors in the seedling planting container to allow them to harden or get used to the change from indoors to outdoors. We will cover this process in a future issue.
  7. For those of you with fireplaces and who burn real hardwood, be sure to save some of the ashes. I will share what to do with them in an upcoming issue.
  8. For basic gardening tips, be sure to visit your local Lowes or Home Depot gardening centers for workshops on planting a vegetable garden. They will be able to provide detail instructions based upon your area.

To share your designs, and to ask questions, please email me at Ask Bonnie by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page.

Next month, SOWING SEEDS...until next month Happy Garden Dreams!