Pretty potager: grow an attractive kitchen garden

Growing your own produce really is its own reward. The flavour of fruit and vegetables harvested from your own backyard beats anything you can buy from the supermarket. Not only are you eating produce in season, you’re also tasting the fruits of your labour.

But gone are the days of boring old vegie patches. Space is too precious to be allocated to something that’s not aesthetically enriching as well as productive. Forget those mounds of soil with a narrow dirt path in between, because the potager is back in vogue.

What is a potager?

A potager, or kitchen garden, is a garden dedicated to vegetables, herbs and fruits that’s based on a geometric and repetitive pattern. Each bed is defined by an evergreen low-growing hedge and structured pathway, and planted out with seasonal produce and flowers. Traditional potagers were very formal knot gardens but, over the years, this style has evolved to encompass individual preferences, usually through the choice of pattern, hard landscaping surfaces and ornamentation.

The modern potager is not removed from the rest of the garden like they were on large French estates. Instead, it’s the centrepiece of the garden and foundation of overall garden design. It’s beautiful and functional, providing all the produce and herbs the kitchen requires in an aesthetic symmetrical garden. Whether you live in the inner city, a suburban block or the country, the modern potager not only enriches your kitchen, but also your landscape.

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Selecting your pattern

Squares, rectangles, triangles and circles are popular inclusions in any potager. Not only are they used for designing the layout of the actual garden beds, but also for planting the produce within. The space you have will largely dictate the pattern and layout for your potager. While design is important, the goal is to have large beds capable of sustaining not only an evergreen border, but also enough produce to supply your kitchen. If space is limited, a few large beds are preferable to many smaller ones. The design should be a balanced, mirror image. This brings continuity to the landscape, even though the plants contained within the garden beds may be different.

Your Garden tip: Design your garden on graph paper first, before you start preparing the soil, digging and planting. An aerial view will help you get the pattern and dimensions right before marking it out in the garden.

Find the right spot

While even a tiny courtyard can be converted into a stunning potager, without sunlight, most veg will fail to thrive. The garden needs at least six to eight hours of sunlight per day, so if yours receives only one or two hours, a potager may not be for you.

- Vegetables prefer shelter from harsh winds, but this protection can easily be achieved by planting an edible hedge or screen.
- In small spaces, the surrounding fencing will usually provide adequate protection. In this situation, include espaliered pears or apples to create a lush background planting that disguises the fenceline without taking up too much precious space.

- In exposed areas, durable hedges of brush cherry (Syzigium australe), macadamia or citrus may be more suitable. These will form a buffer from the wind, reducing water loss and damage to delicate annuals.

Top 5 edible evergreens

1. Bay (Laurus nobilis)

2. Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis)

3. Sage (Salvia officinalis)

4. Thyme (Thymus vulgaris)

5. Juniper (Juniperus communis)

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Creating your potager

You have your design, now it is time to mark it out. Use a string line and a series of garden stakes to map out your plan. This will take your design from the theoretical to the physical. You’ll be able to walk the garden and see how the space feels when it’s broken into segments; you can lean into the centre of your new garden beds to see how easily you’ll be able to access your produce. And, most importantly, you can map out your automatic irrigation system. Productive plants need water. The installation of even the most simple irrigation system will save hours of maintenance and heartache. Use a spot marker to stencil the final positions of all elements before beginning the garden in earnest. This gives you a last chance to make changes before committing to expensive paving or building.

Choose herbs and veg you love to eat. Image: Thinkstock

Choosing your produce

When the beds are ready and the permanent plants are in, it’s time
to include your seasonal produce.
-Plant herbs and veg you commonly use. If you don’t eat radishes, don’t plant them. Instead, include different varieties of the vegetables that you do eat.
-Forget straight lines and plant in blocks. You can create a geometric pattern inside the bed, turning a square into a series of four triangles or a patchwork of smaller squares.
-Consider your crops for their colour, height and leaf shape to make them visually appealing in the bed, but also group them according to crop rotation and companion planting needs. Try grouping above-ground crops, such as salad greens and brassicas, or root vegetables such as carrots and beets. Plant climbing peas and beans on climbing frames, and tall crops such as corn against the fenceline where they won’t shade other vegetables.

- Make sure the height of the vegies in different beds balances around the garden. Root crops and leafy greens may have a similar height while tomatoes and corn are tall plants that may need to be balanced against one another. Keep this in mind when practising crop rotation. Most importantly, harvest your produce regularly.

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