A Potager Garden for 2024
And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden;
and there he put the man whom he had formed.
Genesis 2:8
Life began in a garden – the greatest garden ever created – the Garden of Eden. Can’t you just imagine what that garden looked like? What a wonderful gift that God has given us – the ability to grow beauty at our doorsteps.
So…I am planning (and planting) for a brighter tomorrow – I am working on my flower gardens this year: upgrading, replanting, and redoing many of them as they really took a hit from the drought we had last summer. I have decided a portion of my “gardens” will be a “potager” or kitchen garden because I love the cottage feel and the idea of having things close by the kitchen.
I love to see all the pictures of “Potager” gardens on Pinterest and I have decided to create one this year for my kitchen to help with one of my 2024 goals – to eat healthier and cook more.
You may ask, so what is a “Potager Garden”
“Un Jardin potager” actually means vegetable garden in French and it is a kitchen garden or style of gardening that grows herbs and vegetables alongside flowers, often incorporating fruit trees into the design, making it very functional yet also beautiful and very pleasing to the eye.
It was used in former times to be able to step outside your kitchen door into a small garden to get fresh herbs, fruits and veggies for the day’s meals. And it is still used like this today.
I won’t be using fruit trees in mine, but I love the idea of having the flowers right alongside my herbs and vegetables. I love the idea of having pollinators and butterflies right there in the garden as well.
Some are elaborate and more formal while others look more like a smaller cottage garden.
I am opting for the more informal, cottage style with heirloom flowers and veggies that grow in our North Texas springtime (and keep it alive during our summer heat) and then a second season again in the fall. Best of all I will be able to see it outside my kitchen windows and enjoy it from the patio.
I love the idea of the using natural elements like rocks, stones and pea gravel paths, having hummingbird feeders there, some garden accents and even adding in a bird bath nearby.
I plan to incorporate pollinator plants everywhere in the potager as well as in other flower beds and parts of the gardens, inviting birds, bees and butterflies to live in my little area of the world.
There is something so calming and wonderful about “diggin’ in the dirt”. My grandmothers did it to survive the depression. My mother inherited that gardening gene and had the most beautiful gardens. And, luckily, I have inherited it as well. We all had different garden visions, but that’s what makes it so exciting.
I’ll be posting updates and photos, so stay tuned.
If you are planning a veggie garden this year, then you might think about a potager style garden. Please visit my Pinterest gardening boards for ideas and more information. You can find it here:
https://www.pinterest.com/ACGwreaths/garden-designs-and-decorhttps://www.pinterest.com/ACGwreaths/herb-gardening/ https://www.pinterest.com/ACGwreaths/bee-friendly-gardening/https://www.pinterest.com/ACGwreaths/butterflies-in-the-garden/
Happy Gardening!
Karon
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