This promotes biodiversity where birds and insects thrive and play their part in the garden’s success, whilst creating a beautiful kitchen garden.' The key is nurturing that relationship between your natural environment and your kitchen table.Īs horticultural experts at Suttons point out: 'Growing vegetables, fruits, flowers and herbs in a more organic way means nature is interwoven into the fabric of the garden. Or you may favor a more eclectic fusion of flora and decorative edibles, shaped around spirals or free-flowing curves. You may prefer the more ornate, geometric styles conceived by those French Medieval monasteries of old, with raised garden bed ideas laid out in knots or squares. Beyond that, there are few limits!Īward-winning garden writer Graham Rice points to the main principles of making a potager as something that is highly discerning yet also open to interpretation: 'It can mean anything from simply choosing vegetables that are especially ornamental, to creating a formal structure using paths and shrubby dividers, and planting a succession of attractive edibles that provide as much color as flavor.' It’s also about conveying a sensibility of exuberance and romantic abundance. It’s about making a haven of biodiversity where everything works in harmony, plays to the strengths of the seasons and is readily accessible. Knowing how to design a potager garden involves a sympathetic transformation of your plot. (Image credit: Alamy) What are the main principles of potager gardens? These more intimate potagers are perfect for more relaxed cottage gardens where's there no need to impose endless rules.Īs Anne Swithinbank, gardening writer and broadcaster says, 'For me, a potager garden is a relaxed, wildlife-friendly space where the imagination can run riot.' Yet alongside this grand style of edible garden has evolved an informal, freestyle interpretation where anything goes. Traditional potagers – such as the Renaissance-themed gardens at Chateau de Villandry – are formal, elegant affairs with symmetrical patterns, repeating themes and knot layouts. Much like the produce they contain, potager gardens come in all shapes and sizes. The potager garden came to be synonymous with convalescence and rejuvenation. Herbs were added for culinary and medicinal reasons, and fruit was included.' Because early examples of potagers were monastery gardens, the notion of healing plays a key factor. The idea was that you would grow vegetables for a potage through the year. And this practice of growing fresh seasonal crops with flowers and herbs is a tradition that stretches way back.Īs Val Bourne, Amateur Gardening’s organic wildlife expert and veg enthusiast, points out: 'It is a French tradition that began in Medieval monasteries. It derives from the process of gathering pot herbs for the soup or ‘potage’. Taken literally, the phrase translates as ‘for the soup pot’. At its heart, ‘potager’ (pronounced ‘poe-ta-zhay’) is the French word for ‘kitchen garden’.
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