I have long dreamed of planting a proper potager, or kitchen garden. One of my favorite places to visit when we travel are beautiful gardens. Whether it's the formal gardens of Paris, or country gardens in the English countryside; I am most happy roaming pea gravel paths lined with boxwood and perennial borders. Here in Virginia, there is so much inspiration to be found - with visits to the kitchen gardens of Colonial Williamsburg, Monticello and Mount Vernon, as well as historical gardens in nearby Georgetown and Leesburg. So after years of dreaming, I'm excited to actually start designing our very own potager. The past couple of weeks, I've been borrowing a long list of books from the library filled with loads of information. The above is my weekend reading.
A few years ago, we installed this raised cedar bed for our herb garden. (You can read more about that here.) The kitchen really is the heart of our home and there is nothing like heading outside to gather what you need. My plan is to add three or four more cedar beds, in the same dimensions as this one and plant them with vegetables and a cutting garden. While I initially had every intention of installing them this spring, I had to be honest with myself and realize that I truly want to take more time to design our potager and educate myself on vegetable gardening. I'm looking forward to sketching all the details and purchasing supplies. The planning and anticipation is such a fun part of the process and I don't want to rush ourselves and end up with a design we wish we would have done differently.
So with that in mind, our goal is to have the design completed and the beds installed by the fall. We have some very large shrubs and boxwoods to remove in order to take advantage of an area with full sun, so we have our work cut out for us. I can't wait to begin!
By the way, if any of you are interested in starting your own vegetable garden, Manuela of a Cultivated Nest has started a weekly "Vegetable Gardening 101" series. She is always so kind to offer lots of advice and inspiration, not only about gardening, but about also home decor and celebrating everyday life. It's always a pleasure visiting her blog.
