The Vegetable/Potager Garden

Potato with happy worm on February 6th, 2011.

From In the Garden

Potager is a very popular term now a days. You hear it all the time in garden circles but what is a potager? Googling potager on the Internet tells me a potager basically is a vegetable garden that provides food for the gardener but it also has an ornamental value as a garden. Potagers have French and English elements and are not strictly utilitarian in nature. For my purposes I am simply calling a potager a vegetable garden that has a variety of vegetables, fruits, and flowers or herbs arranged in an ornamental way so as to be pleasing to the gardener. That is strictly my definition and it describes my vegetable garden to a T. I, however, like calling my vegetable garden a vegetable garden even though it has many other things growing in it.

Long view of blueberry bed with additional beds in the background.

From In the Garden

My vegetable garden has been on my mind. Not only because it is getting to be spring time and a busy time in the garden, but because this year for the first time in many years I am going to grow fruits in my vegetable garden. Growing fruit will seriously require a cut back or creative managing in order to grow the vegetables I enjoy growing each year and I think I'm up for the challenge. You see, my potager is set up with raised beds in a very limited area (30'x25' at its widest spot) that is shaped like a coat of arms shield. I had to arrange the vegetable garden in this manner due to Mr. Fix-it's hobby of car collecting. Do you see his garage in the above picture? Just on the other side of the vegetable garden is his drive down to his garage. Once upon a time before he got that huge black trailer my vegetable garden was over in his driveway about 10 feet. Once the trailer came in Mr. Fix-it had a great deal of difficulty maneuvering in the backyard due to the gardens and long length of his truck and trailers (usually pulling cars or garden stuff). I think it was in 2007 that I moved the entire vegetable garden over and configured it in the style it is in now. I actually am glad I moved it over because now it is more in the sun and enabled me to have a Sunny Perennial Border on the outside of the vegetable garden. Don't worry if you can't follow me on the design process, I am working on a complete work up of my property and a diagram of the vegetable garden proper and once I have a design complete I'll certainly post the designs and all will be clear as mud=). Today's post is simply about the beds and the vegetables and fruits I am going to grow in my vegetable garden this year. 

Blueberry foliage in Tiger Gardens

From In the Garden

When I designed the vegetable garden I had a finite space within which I could work. I worked in as many beds as I could trying to maximize space while still allowing for walkways. As it were, I shorted myself on walkways because along the perimeter of the vegetable garden the walkways are only about 18 inches wide. This is really not wide enough but I make do. I would recommend at least 24 inches for walkways in a vegetable garden. I do have this amount and more in the interior of the vegetable garden so I can move around okay and don't feel so cramped. In establishing the beds I wound up with five beds that I planned to use for vegetables. I also have a seven foot circle at the center of the garden that I used to grow bananas in. The circle now houses four blueberry plants. There are three additional beds that are not raised. I currently grow a variety of perennials, bulbs, and annuals in these beds. These include three peonies, iris reticulata, columbine, zinnias, bellacamda, cleome, and catnip and whatever else self seeds in the garden I usually let grow. At the base of the very large PVC arbor there are vines and annuals growing. I used to grow Indigofera amblyantha in one of the beds but moved it last fall because it was suckering. I replaced it with a blackberry that had to be moved due to my new privacy fence.

Onions planted in November are doing well. I think we need to grow short day onions here in the south. I've never really looked at that fact when I've planted onions but will in the future. So far I've not been successful in getting onions to bulb. Maybe this year will be the year.

From In the Garden

So, taking out the banana trees and leaving the three small ornamental beds alone I now have six beds in which to plant food crops. This is not such a bad amount of beds but most of the beds are small. All beds are about three feet wide and range from four to thirteen feet long (except the center circle bed which has a diameter of just over seven feet). Certain vegetables must go in certain beds due to the size requirements of the vegetable so rotating vegetables each year has been a juggling act between mainly just three beds. Some years I've had a great vegetable garden and other years I've gotten it all wrong. In order to fix this problem I am promising myself to only grow those things in my vegetable garden that mean the most to me and which will give me the greatest bang for the buck with a caveat. During the winter the garden seems so much bigger because the tomatoes and vining crops are not in it so I can grow all sorts of things then-but only then! Some vegetables that I probably shouldn't waste my time growing at any time are potatoes and onions. Nonetheless, I planted 10 Yukon and 10 Red Norland potatoes on the sixth of February. Can you see the happy worm on the potato above? The soil was literally crawling with worms when I planted the potatoes. Worms are a very good sign in a garden. Some other cool season crops I will be growing are: peas (a must and planted on 14 February after a night of soaking in water), spinach, chard, kale, and lettuce (a must-planted seedlings on 14 February!). The onions and garlic already growing in the vegetable garden were planted last fall. Truthfully, I probably shouldn't grow the onions because they are so cheap at the grocery store. Garlic is a must~! It is so good fresh from the garden and so easy to grow.

Long shot of the Vegetable Garden from the top of a step ladder minus two beds: one small border bed just beneath my ladder that houses three 'Sunny' Knockout roses, and one other bed to the far left of this picture close to me. This bed will house the raspberries. The green pipes you see belong to a fifteen foot arbor I built from PVC pipes and painted green. On this arbor grows 'Tangerine Beauty' crossvine, 'The Pride of Augusta' jessimine, and for some annual color in the summer hyacinth beans take over.

From In the Garden

Back to the beds. Mr. Fix-it and I decided we wanted to grow fruits this year. We have decided on: 2 'Black Satin' thornless blackberries (these will join the one with thorns I transplanted into the garden this month), 25 'Allstar' June bearing strawberries, 3 'Thornless Canby' raspberries, and 4 blueberry plants. You may remember I have posted about my blueberries in the past. They do fabulously here! I expect they'll do even better now that I have put them in the vegetable garden where they'll not only get more sun but will be babied with fine soil and moisture as necessary. I'm not sure of the variety of the two blueberries I transplanted from an ornamental bed because they've been growing here for more than seven years, but the two new ones I added are:  'Powderblue' and 'Climax'. I purchased these two new blueberries from Jason Powell of Petals from the Past out of Alabama. The three raspberries will be planted in the triangular bed directly behind the circle bed and then they will be underplanted with the strawberries. The two additional blackberries will have a bed to themselves on the far left (not visible in this picture) and will be staked. As always whenever your grow fruit it is a good idea to have more than one cultivar to ensure pollination. Hence the four blueberry bushes and two types of blackberries. I may add another raspberry at some point too. Generally speaking  in my garden I've not had problems with blueberries setting fruit-even with only two plants. 

So, from the six beds I started with for vegetables I'm now down to only three. Two are approximately eleven feet long and one is about four feet long. In these I will grow my cool season crops such as peas, lettuce, and garlic. Summer crops for this year will include tomatoes (3-5, I haven't decided how many yet), sweet peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, and cantaloupes. There will be no gourds this year, no eggplant, and no beans. I'm sad I can't grow as much as I'd like to grow but happy that I have a plan that will maximize what I do grow. Not only do I have a plan but so far I'm doing well at keeping up records with what varieties I'm growing. This blog is a help in that department.


This post was intended to talk about the types of vegetables and fruits I plan to grow but as I look back on it I see I've rather rambled about my challenges with my small vegetable garden. I must explain that the location of this vegetable garden is the ONLY place it can be on our one acre lot. While we have a lot of space, in addition to Mr. Fix-it's driveway and cars, I have to contend with tons of shade cast by mature oak trees. As it is, the location of my current vegetable garden will one day be completely shaded. Right now it is on the north side of three mature oak trees and only gets direct sun during the summer months. I hope it is going to be enough for my potager/vegetable garden....


in the garden....

Note: I garden biodynamically using the principles espoused by many well known organic gardeners. It is known as the French Intensive Method of vegetable gardening. I first learned of this method in the early 80s when I prepared my very own vegetable garden in North Carolina. Interesting enough and I did not know this, potagers and the French Intensive Method of gardening go hand in hand, so perhaps I should call my Vegetable Garden a Potager? Naw, not saying nothing bad about the French because the country is lovely, but I think I'll stick with the good ole American term for my ornamental garden using the French methods....

in the garden.... 



Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden