No matter how finished I think my garden is or how many years I've been doing it, I am always looking for inspiration to make it work better or look better. These are some of the gardens I reference for inspiration all the time.
Dear Diary,
Today is April 23rd and I'm worried I've left planning this year's vegetable garden too late. At this rate I might never catch up. What if May 14th rolls around and I'm not ready to plant anything and I have a nervous breakdown and I don't grow any tomatoes and then I have another nervous breakdown?
Also Jimmy was standing near my locker after school today AND he waved at me in the cafeteria!
karen
This beauty of a photo is of my first full sized plot at my community garden. It measured 20' x 20'. A couple of years after this photo was taken, I took over the garden plot beside me to create a 40' x 40' plot.
Combining these two plots, levelling them, redoing the fence and raised beds was the equivalent of 1,792 Crossfit workouts smashed into the space of one month. Only by the end of it I had accomplished something other than barfing on a rubber gym mat while everyone cheered for me.
My original plan for my 40' x 40' garden was this:
scale: 1 sq per sq foot.
I really like how it looks but for some reason I didn't go with this plan. I never implemented it. Probably because even though it looks good, using a more straightforward layout would gain me more planting space. And more room for doing kartwheels.
The vegetable garden design I went with was this:
A standard straight row layout bordered by a raised bed that goes around the entire perimeter of the garden. The front row of plants in that perimeter raised bed is my asparagus, which is a perennial. The asparagus acts as a wind block when it grows and adds a bit of privacy. Not enough privacy that I can do kartwheels undetected, but I can definitely get away with somersaults.
In real life, the garden ended up looking like this:
The beds in the main area of the garden are 16' long by 4' wide. But because the frameless raised beds slope at the sides, I have a workable space of 15' by 3' in each bed.
However, after working in this garden for a few years I've decided that there's a bit too much wasted space at the back and also it was a pain to wiggle around my workbench at the back. It's the brown rectangular block at the back left of the garden.
By last summer I had increased the number of compost bins in my plot to 4 separate bins, which wasn't an efficient way to compost.
So THIS year I've changed things again.
You're always going to change things in the garden. If you aren't changing things chances are you aren't learning.
You can now take a gander at the plan for my 2021 garden which I'm working on right now.
The compost bins have been consolidated into one HUGE loose pile and my work bench is opposite it.
To achieve this I had to move my strawberry beds with the mesh triangular covers on them to the back left of my garden. Which meant I had to redo the raised beds to make them deeper back there.
This area is where the big compost pile now sits.
Having the compost bin in one huge pile with space all around it it means my compost will activate more quickly (bigger compost piles work faster than smaller ones) and it's 174 million times easier to work with. In the garden plan it looks like there's a wood crib around the compost pile, but I've decided not to build it for now. I'll just keep a loose pile.
I've spent the past few weeks looking at vegetable gardening inspiration shots that I've saved over the years. Sometimes for beauty inspiration sometimes for functionality. The French have valued the beauty of a well designed vegetable garden for centuries and their Potager gardens are something to aspire to. And by aspire I mean they make you think of packing up your belongings and moving to the French countryside. So those are usually my first choices for inspiration.
What's a French Potager?
A French Potager is just a vegetable garden that's aesthetically pleasing, symmetrical and usually has some sort of architectural elements to it as well.
A French Country vegetable garden on the other hand is looser, less concerned about symmetry and incorporates flowers like an English cottage garden.
Ready to be inspired? And a bit envious? And motivated? And kartwheel? Here we go.
My most recent inspiration came last year when I harvested rye from the Dundurn Castle Historic Kitchen garden.
This is a small portion of the Dundurn Castle kitchen garden. Granted. I can do NOTHING that you see in this 1.5 acre garden on the land of the castle's historic site. But it's the feeeelllllll that I like. It feels magnificent and humble all at the same time.
I'm hoping it will get to open up this year (last year was a bit of a bust) so I can go back and take really good shots of it for you to see.
If I had all the land to work with and all of the resources (cash, cash and more cash), this is the garden I would replicate for myself.
Now, in no particular order these are all gardens I find myself referring to every year at this time.
Ready to move to France yet? A lot of these French Potager gardens have wattle fencing which I love, but will never be doing in a million years. The other thing they have is some type of mulch between the beds whether it's pea gravel, bark or wood chips.
These next inspiration shots are mainly "real" gardens of real people and they're all exceptional.
click to see more of this garden
Click to see more of this garden
These tents are something along the lines of the tents I built over my strawberry beds.
Unable to find original source for image. Claim it if it's yours!
THIS is the illegal front yard vegetable garden that caused an uproar and protest in Quebec, Canada in 2012, the same year I built my Front Yard Vegetable Garden.
Guess what. No source again. (this is the problem with Pinterest ... too many photos not enough original sources) And this one is one of my favourites. It doesn't even look real, it looks like an artist's rendering of a zoo display that holds the rare Silverback Vegetable Gardener.
This one HAD a source, but it led to what's known as a site "scraper" which basically steals content which i refuse to link to. Claim it if it's yours.
It's almost impossible to find photos of regular bed gardens anymore. Everything is raised beds or square foot gardening. I honestly love the look and feel of row beds and my own garden is probably most similar to this, only my beds are raised soil (with no wood frames around them.)
Sadly no source for this great fence. Claim it if it's yours.
The photo below is a perfect example of an English Country garden. It's free flowing, not perfectly symmetrical and has bursts of flowers in with the vegetables. It's kind of my ideal garden. Structured and tidy but not rigid. It's the garden equivalent of a house that isn't too fussy and looks comfortable and lived in.
Click to see more of this garden
This weekend I'll be making 2 big changes to my garden which you'll find out about next week. Neither of the changes will impede any of my kartwheeling. Or somersaults for that matter.
Have a good weekend!
(yup, this is a repost, but it's been entirely rewritten in April, 2021 with new photos added in)
jaine kunst
I only have enough sunlight to grow lettuce but I sure would like to put a wattle fence around my lettuce plants.
Cred
If you can grow lettuce you likely could also grow broccoli, kale, peas, arugula, spinach, parsley, asparagus. My house is engulfed by large mostly deciduous trees so I have very limited sunlight but have managed to grow many veg pretty well. Even peppers and tomatoes have faired well in the spots where I get a little more sun exposure- I recently saw a view of my house on google earth and you wouldn't think I could grow a thing with so much tree cover.
jaine kunst
I've tried spinach and tomatoes. Epic failures with only 3 hours a day of sun. Herbs grow pretty well though. I've got everything in containers on a rolling bench that I can roll along the deck as the sun moves.
Meredith
All of those photos show gardens in spring/early summer I believe. Everybody's garden looks nice and neat in spring. Show me those same prissy perfect gardens in mid September when tomatoes have formed a jungle and pumpkin vines have gone up and over the fence and up a tree.
In your allotment, how do you have those lovely dirt paths with no weeds? I don't see any kind of mulch or anything. If I weeded every single day, I couldn't keep mine that clean looking. How are you doing it?
Alena
It actually sounds like a piece of cake; that is, for someone of your caliber. In fact, I think that you should build on the side those arches (shown in the 3rd pic under your plot plan) with why I call "Mexican clay tiles" (I gather in this case the tiles appear to be in France but I will still refer to them as Mexican).
You should do it in your spare time just show to the losers around you who is the master gardener. (not to mention us losers who read your blog and drool over the pictures).
:-)
Maryanne
Inspirational post! Thank you :)
P.S. I know you love blogging, but you deserve a show! Think a combination of Pioneer Woman and this Old House. Happy transplanting :)
cbblue
I agree Maryanne, but Karen's occasional potty mouth would make it interesting. All in all she is the doer of all things and wonderful.
Karen
Ha! Yeah, I actually got OUT of television so I could blog. I appreciate your support and enthusiasm but I'm gonna stick with blogging! :) ~ karen
Mary W
I thought I was so smart - a farmer I knew had a barn full of moldy hay (rainy fall) and he said I could have all the square bailed hay I wanted. I got several pickups full and stored them far away from my animals. Then early in February (Florida) I picked handfuls (we call them flakes) of hay to lay down my garden paths. Each handful broke off a full square from the bail/bale and I laid them like tiles down our long garden rows. I never watered or weeded again and they were all tilled under in July. (We were done picking by mid June with some pumpkins and okra left until July.) Worked like a charm BUT you had to be careful of snakes since this proved to be the ideal place for them to live waiting for their dinner to come to them - the mice. This wonderful/ideal mulch/watering system/walkway was done only once. Replaced by newspaper layers the next year which provided the same results. After, I just weeded and watered like everyone else. I do like snakes but not the poison ones. Sorry coral snakes, you are beautiful but deadly. My horses bent the fencing over trying to get to the veggies, the racoon ignored the fence and still ate the corn (exactly on the day I was going to pick) EVERY year. They are the best predictors of ripeness. The only thing that didn't get in were the dogs that loved to dig and roll in the moist dirt. The pigs were turned into the garden afterward and they loved to rut it all up and added some fertilizer as a thank you. I love your blog. You bring back such happy days with no sore back!
Karen
Ha! I was at the garden a few days ago and I was moving mounds of straw from the year before and as I did it, I was standing on the edges of two raised beds because I didn't know WHAT was going to run out from the straw but I definitely knew something was. Ended up being voles. I'd have preferred to know it was full of snakes. Way more useful. :) ~ karen!
E Wilcox
Well, I was slightly intimidated before, now.... Yikes! My raised beds never looked this good! Have been angling to get a raised bed much closer to house this year. Neighbors cut down a wonderful, healthy, tree-idiots. But now our yard is flooded with a lot more sunlight, so....
Thanks for the photos, Karen they are beautiful!
danni
My god I'm scared now! I've been sitting in front of the fireplace every night after work looking at the same Pins! Same problem of rebuilding the entire garden. BUT I hope to cover all the things I didn't have when cobbling together the original garden over the years.
One thing I do know, it will be fully enclosed, and the entrance will be trellised, and I believe luffa will get that pride of place! (Got the seeds!!! Many thanks!!!)
Heather
I'm tired just reading this. I like the bed idea....I could lie on it and watch you work?
"Retiring" to the cottage this year but not until late June. This winter Hydro One cut down a huge pine tree on our lot, and all my privacy willows so I need to redesign the whole yard. I want to put a (small) vegetable garden in but think I will need to wait until I am up there full time to properly plan it. I think I have pinned almost all the pictures you found.
Nicole
Every time I think "oh, I should give gardening another try, I'm sure it's not that crazy" I read a post like this and realize just how much work it is.
...Maybe another year?
Maggie Van Sickle
You are one ambitious woman. Whatever design you come up with will look good and time will tell if it works for u. If it doesn't then make a change next year. In the meantime happy gardening.
Susan D'Achille
Karen, just think of how much more garden real estate you will gain if you just remove all your raised beds and plant directly into the soil. Alot less work for you to build all the new ones and you will have enough soil from your old raided beds to make beautiful straight rows you can easily wheelbarrow down. You can still put up your covers for the moths etc. using small hoops and cloth. Maybe the voles will be confused too!
Karen
Actually raised beds are way less work. :) The initial work is a pain but once they're built they make gardening life infinitely easier. :) Less weeds, better drainage, easy to amend only the soil you're using, soil never gets compacted. They're your basic gardening dream, lol. Other than the intial work of course, which is more of a nightmare. ~ karen!
Carrie
Gardening! My favorite thing EVER! I am known for it and my pickles and dilly beans and have been told I have a farm, not a garden and should park a veggie wagon at the bottom of my driveway😁However, last July I broke both bones in half in my leg and two months ago my knee on the same leg. (Crazy at 46)
Still trying to recover and pray I can get out there this spring! So much to do! What with starting my seeds and getting them in the greenhouse for starters.
If you have any heavenly pull Karen, (along with your many other skills) use your powers to whip me into shape!
I've had a garden ever since we built our home 8 years ago and it will kill me if I can't this year,but will give the soil a much needed rest...........what do they say about bright sides????
Louise
Yup, the English Country garden is my favorite too. Makes me think of Peter Rabbit and his friends!
Lindy
Yay French potager porn before breakfast. My kind of post! And yes, I am having breakfast, and I do have a potager and I'm in France so I guess that makes me qualify. But the pinterest ones are much much neater. there are no weeds and everything is so perfect you just know these are not real life. Unless you have staff. We do not have 'staff'.
I love the look of those tents to put over the beds where you are going to plant brassicas. And snow proof by the look of them. Putting the structures away over winter in an area that gets snow is a challenge. Those poncy fruit cages with flat tops would be a disaster for you as they would collapse under the weight of the wimpiest snow fall. Mine did when I did hoop structures.
Paths. You are right about the width. the biggest regret I have with my potager is that the paths are too narrow. You get so many shin injuries when you bark your leg on the wheelbarrow as it doesn't make the corners.
If you do no dig (as I do) then the problem I have is that the sides of my raised beds are not high enough. And after a few years the beds get quite high with compost and spill onto the paths. Chunky wood looks brilliant as you can actually sit on it to weed, and keeps things in. But my, in winter it does look like a coffin builder's workshop. but if the potager is not right next to the house, then I would go for it.
That's the thing about potagers in france. Ours are placed very close to our houses. In England the vegetable garden was always placed a long way from the house as it was considered unsightly. So we try and add the most interest in terms of flowers (brings in the pollinators) and fruit trees. There is also the peasant logic of water. You will have a water source in your vegetable garden but probably no where else, so of course you will have your flowers mixed in.
Ooh, that reminds me. If you have a drip system with your beds, then you might want to bury the hoses under the paths (if they are mulched). And of course your pretty design on paper is going to be hell with your watering system!
If I had the right area I would definitely put brick paths down the central path - but my potager slopes. good for drainage but it's too late now. And I am in a region where we only use granite, so brick would look odd. You wont' have that problem at an allotment. Any mulch you put down will travel. bits in the treads of your trainers etc. And of course bark mulch is the perfect germination medium for your self seeding plants.
But if you want a less regimented look - then do as I do. Bark mulch with random soil that falls onto the paths. Germination success - rocket, nasturtiums, tomatoes, and yet more rocket. You move what you don't want and don't fuss about the rest. Softens the lines nicely.
Four feet wide beds is far smarter than three. All that work you are planning just for a three foot wide bed. Mad woman! Joy Larkcom's memoir Just Vegetating is your go to book on this. Essays from her years in the business. It was my favourite book. She also does the Creative Vegetable Gardening book which is better than internet porn as you can take the book to bed with you and not suffer insomnia from blue screen addiction.
Joy spent twenty years travelling around Europe and Asia seeing how other people grew veg. And she worked in industry - the serious sharp end of the seed development. For her it was the one metre wide bed (so around 3.5 to 4 feet) placed north to south that was best. That way the whole bed would get the maximum light as the sun travelled over the plot. Her writing was so gentle and inspirational that I woke up one morning and re- oriented all seventeen of my vegetable beds to face that way. Absolutely no regrets. Apart from the aching back!
You are moving your asparagus bed? Egads. What are you doing reading this? Get out there and do it now. I wouldn't dare do it myself - just imagine how long and twisted those fabulous roots are going to be. You would be better off using a mini digger rather than a fork to avoid breaking off the roots. Haha good luck with that.
I wanted to post a picture of my potager beds, but your website blocked me (manners!). but you can see them on the website http://www.fruitfulresearch.com
Charlene
Lindy, Thanks for adding the link to your website. It is very interesting seeing how you've restored the gardens on a 1600's farm. Beautiful setting and lots of hard work I see. My husband and I made our first raised bed 37 years ago using the French Intensive Biodynamic Method which was being promoted by Mother Earth News at the time. Beds are double dug so they are two feet deep or more once compost is added. The garden has grown tremendously over the years. It is our backyard so we have close access and great view from the deck. Also, thanks for sharing Joy Larkham. I looked her up and will be purchasing some of her books. I'll also be visiting your website again. Love the lavender! More herbs is my goal this year mainly driven by chickens - ha! Happy Gardening.
Lindy
I feel like I am hijacking Karen's great post. All that work she did drooling over pictures for us. I forgot to mention that those willow hurdle hedging are hopeless in real life! Soil falls straight out of them. I love the idea of yours - two feet deep. Heaven.
Karen
Hey Lindy! I am going to install a drip irrigation system (hopefully this year) but it's going to be a lot of work to combine and level the two gardens. (they're sloped so levelling is going to be a huge job. I'll be using newspaper and straw as path mulch. My beds are 4' now and I find them a tiny bit hard to deal with because of the width. That's why I'm considering going 3'. I haven't decided yet and the garden plan has already undergone about 5 other incarnations since writing this post, lol. I moved one full bed of asparagus last night after work. One more bed to go. They're just going into a holding bed and will have to be moved yet again to their permanent place once my garden is built. (so they probably won't go into their permanent place until fall) The asparagus beds are only a year old so they weren't too bad to deal with. :) I don't know why you couldn't post a picture! Weird. I'll look into that. ~ karen!
Lindy
I love your pluck. Luckily your asparagus are young - you are right; they won't be too hard to move. Even twice!
I'll have a rummage for my post about my drip watering system. It could work for you. Levelling the slope is goiing to be soil destroying. And soul destroying.
I did it on a grid and have the main hose at the top of the slope and then run connectors (with hoses with small holes along the length of the garden and have stoppers at the end. But it really only works if your beds are in a line.
I can see why three feet would be better than four. I just practised here on my sofa leaning over a coffee table that is wider than three feet. and prompty fell over. And yes, I've had a beer!
Charlene
We also use drip irrigation under landscape fabric to keep moisture in and weeds out. No frames around our beds and some had to be made smaller in width over time. They would look great early season but when full it was hard to reach across and the plants spill over into paths which then become nonexistent. Asparagus beds are a must! Last year my husband built a metal frame about 3 feet high and attached cattle panels to the top so when we quit cutting the asparagus it would grow through and be held up by the fence. Now it doesn't fall over into the path and looks nicer through the summer. BTW Karen is one of my chicken inspirations. I found her blog just about the time we started talking chickens. Oddly, I found it when Googling "How to darn socks." Love to knit. Hate to mend. Karen, can I send you a few socks with holes? LOL.
Sherry in Alaska
Looks to me like you better get some help. All that moving and digging and building sounds like a summers' worth of work. Maybe longer.
For inspiration, I again submit to you: Bealtaine Cottage https://www.facebook.com/GoddessGardens/
or https://bealtainecottage.com/
A one woman permaculture paradise.
Now get out there and dig!
The snow hasn't even begun to melt here. Up to my butt if I venture into it.
Kim from Milwaukee
Sherry, thank you for sharing that blog....I love what she's doing!! Talk about inspiration!
Sherry in Alaska
You are so welcome! Thanks for letting me know. Keep hooked up with Bealtaine Cottage as well as with Karen and you can't go wrong!
Kennedy
How's this for lack of planning ...
Last spring we moved into our new house. New to us - the house is 100 years old. We had lots of renovations planned for that first summer and although I desperately wanted a garden to be part of those plans we really didn't have the time. I took the project off the list and frowned around the house for a few weeks.
On May 7th my husband surprised me for my birthday with 3000 reclaimed bricks and a promise to get the garden in before the May long weekend. I went absolutely mental. (He's a keeper).
We pulled sod for days, laid bricks for days, built beds, trellises, moved soil, moved compost, ranted and raved and almost divorced. When we finished we had a perfectly beautiful garden laid out ready to go. Only we didn't have a single seed or plant- or any sort of plan for that matter. I know...right? Talk about lack of planning.
In the end it all pulled together. Although I didn't get to plant what I wanted last year it still turned out better than I had hoped and I enjoyed that space more than any other. Gardening got it's hooks into me and now I am just obsessed.
Needless to say the planning for this year's garden started last September.
Cred
Would love to see photos of your garden, Kennedy, as the season progresses. It sound spike it will be beautiful.
Cred
*sounds like
Frig! Typing too fast- sorry
Whatisname
For gits and shiggles, make sure you get a Coyote plant from Linda. Tiny yellow skittle of a tomato. They never make it out of the garden. Perfect for nibbling as you watch the cabbage worms destroy all your cruciferous whydidIplantthemagains.
Baked a few sweet potato fries your way. Perfect as expected, because Karen would never steer us wrong. I used to plant my sweets by working the ground and randomly throwing them over my shoulder, then stepping on them as I planted the other stuff they had to grow around. Worked well enough that slips never entered my vocabulary. A bit of plastic heated the ground first.
nancy
1st* I'm nostalgic because I read about the chicken salad and my dear departed grandmother always put apple and raisins in her chicken salad. Plopped with an ice cream scoop onto a canned pear half which sat on a lettuce leaf.
2nd* I'm sad because my Dad died with dementia and I feel sad for Kat. I'm glad she won this prize. Doing this for her Mom will be so therapeutic for her.
3rd* I'm amazed at the unbelievably beautiful gardens! I'm going to retire immediately and have a garden! Wattle fencing is a must.
4th* Our ancestors raised chickens and cows and etc and enjoyed living with them and eating them without so much preciousness going on in our heads. What happened to back to nature?
Jane S
Those gardens are far too perfect to be real. Are you sure they weren't "staged" just for the photo shoot.
Tina Jeffrey
Hi! I don't have a suggestion, more like I need suggestions! I moved from Oregon to Massachusetts last fall. I brought along a rhizome from my mother's plant that has been growing "hugely" for decades. By the time I found it, the ground here was frozen so it's still sitting in a bag, in my closet.
My builder is going to be building me some raised beds and the first thing to be planted will be my rhubarb. Will it still grow this year? In a raised bed, will I have to insulate around the bed over next winter? Can it be uncovered over the winter or should I rig up some sort of dome?
I've never lived anywhere it's been as cold as here in the winter. I figure you're in a cold area, do you have suggestions for me? Thanks!
Karen
Hi Tina! I'm not sure how well your rhubarb will be doing stuck in a bag I'm afraid. If it lives through that, it'll live through anything you have to throw at it. Rhubarb does just fine in very, very cold weather. It loves it in fact. It'll be the first thing to sprout in the spring and the last thing to die in the fall. I've never found the need to cover my rhubarb for any reason in the fall. Having said that, this year was more like fall for the entire winter. And so was last winter now that I think about it. But don't worry. Climate change isn't a real thing, ;) Good luck with your mom's rhubarb! ~ karen
Tina Jeffrey
Thanks, Karen! Pieces of the root have followed me all around the US and Europe for the last 40+ years, often under less auspicious circumstances! I hope it'll pull through. I lost my mother last April, I'd hate to lose my rhubarb too!
Jo
I live in Southwestern Ontario. We do get cold and snow. Not sure if it is.the same as yours tho. I just tosses my rhubarb in my raised bed with nothing special done. It flurishes. Hope this helps you.
ronda
My sister lives a bit north of Owen Sound, with the winter winds coming down from Georgian Bay. Her rhubarb grows like cuh-razy! Its sheltered from the north-west winds by a "barn", and the bed they're in faces south-east. She's always complaining that she has to thin them out. No mulch, just rocks on top of the bed, and the stuff grows like weeds.
Alena
What Karen said. I live about an hour away from Karen (if I step on it) and I can confirm that my rhubarb never had an issue with the cold winters (and there was one year when we had, even though only briefly, - 41 C (which I believe happens one of those odd anomalies where the Celsius and Fahrenheit are more or less in sync and it is also -41 F).
I inherited my rhubarb with the house, it's planted somewhere near the corner of my lot, not even in a garden bed. I saw it trying to sprout two weeks ago when we had a really mild weather. This year's winter was unusually generous to us southern Ontarians so I am not surprised to see the rhubarb trying show life even before my very hardy magnolia shrub starts showing buds.
Don't worry, it will grow! Mine thrives on total, and I mean TOTAL, neglect.
Tina Jeffrey
Thanks for all the replies! You're right, the years I ignored it, it came up but gangbusters, the years I divided it, mulched it and babied it, it came up but nothing great. I guess I'll just put it in and hope that next year it goes crazy!
Katie
Kat sounds like a very, very worthy recipient of the Legacybox.
Tina Jeffrey
Yes! I'm glad she got it!