The Art of the Kitchen Garden

Inspired by elegant Old World garden designs, Jan and Michael Gertley mingle flowers and vegetables to create gardens bountiful in color and produce. In this book they share their garden designs, including grid drawings, full-color planting plans, and brilliant color photos. These ready-to-use plans are suitable for a yard or garden of any size.

Plant colors, textures, heights, and shapes work together to create lush designs that produce an abundant harvest. Every step of the process, from turning the first shovelful of earth to harvesting, is explained. Growing tips and design ideas come from two experts who make their living producing robust flowers and vegetables and vivid images. These gardens are perfect for the vegetable gardener wanting to add color and artistic flair and for the flower gardener wanting to grow fresh vegetables for the dinner table.

Winner of ForeWord magazines 1999 Book of the Year Award for the Home & Garden Category.

Introduction

1 Lessons from the Past

2 Garden designs throughout history

3 Designing Your Kitchen Garden

A design for every kitchen garden
Finding inspiration for designs
Design decisions
Drawing your kitchen-garden design

4 Plant Selection

Mixing colors
Adding texture
Combining heights
Arranging plants

5 Growing Basics

Growing from seed
Buying seedlings

6 From Graph Paper to Garden

Garden preparation
Installation of garden features
Garden maintenance
Harvest

USDA Plant-Hardiness Zone Map

Sources of Seeds and Supplies

Further Reading

Index

Beyond the flower beds, tucked away at the far corner of our backyard, was a square of well-tilled soil reserved for our yearly plot of vegetables. Each spring, we arranged our garden in the same manner: successive, straight rows of leafy green vegetables, with small, compact varieties in the foreground and taller ones gradually ascending toward the rear. If any plants needed support, we quickly hammered together trellises with materials at hand. This frugal garden was very functional and productive. However, it lacked style.

Several years ago, while searching through a stack of garden books (one of our favorite pastimes), we were captivated by photographs and engravings of old European kitchen gardens. Recent restoration programs have returned many of these magnificent gardens to their former glory, allowing us to glean inspiration from the old master gardeners. The traditional walled Victorian kitchen garden at Chilton Foliat in Berkshire, England, and the grand potager at Chateau de Villandry, France, were two of the beautifully restored kitchen gardens that started us thinking about our own vegetable garden in a new way.

We didn't have the time, space, or desire to care for a large, sprawling garden. However, on a much smaller scale, we were inspired to transform our simple plot of vegetables into a visually stunning kitchen garden that reflected the old-world elegance of the European kitchen gardens. As we began designing our garden--mingling flowers, herbs, and vegetables--we followed the same important rules European gardeners adhered to centuries before: attention to detail, artistic presentation, and color coordination. The result is a beautiful, productive kitchen garden that we proudly display in the center of our landscape.

It's important to note that you don't have to seek your inspiration for design ideas from gardens of the past. If you open up your imagination, potential designs for kitchen gardens are ubiquitous. An heirloom quilt, a Japanese family crest, or a piece of honeycomb can all be the catalyst for what just may be your best garden ever.

The kitchen gardens presented in this book walk a fine line between ornamental gardens and productive vegetable gardens. The majority of the flowers used are not edible, and many of the vegetables are used for their ornamental beauty. There's no arguing that your garden would produce two to three times more vegetables if you laid it out in conventional, straight rows, but we look at the value of our harvest in both aesthetic and utilitarian terms.

This book is a culmination of our experimentation. It's a guide for designing practical, productive, and aesthetically pleasing kitchen gardens. The book takes you step-by-step from inspiration and design through installation and harvest. Whether you design your own kitchen garden or use the patterns we present here, you can create a beautiful and productive kitchen garden.