A Kitchen Garden for Decoration and Utility
Harvest food for your own kitchen table in your own kitchen garden.
A kitchen garden has a charm all its own. There really is nothing to
beat the look and taste of fruit and vegetables that you've grown
yourself. If you add a few decorative herbs to the mix, there's
absolutely no reason why your kitchen garden can't look as good
visually as your flower garden.
It's a fact that fruit, vegetables and herbs are very rewarding to
grow. There's an extra special flavor to produce you've grown
yourself.
But be warned, a kitchen garden is going to be very labor-intensive aand may not be for you. The only way you're going to get bumper crops of
the fruit, vegetables and herbs that you grow is by lavishing tender
loving care and attention on them.
Starting your growing early can produce a bountiful crop weeks ahead
of its normal time, giving you a home-grown harvest at a time when
those fruits and vegetables are particularly expensive in the market.
You can make your kitchen garden as visually attractive as possible by
careful planning. If space is at a premium you can choose some of the
more decorative vegetables and herbs and plant them in your flower
beds.
Ideally you need to choose a sunny site in your garden for most herbs
and vegetables to do well.
Although most herbs are leafy and lacking flowers, they
will provide greenery in your garden, even in the winter. Just
exercise a little thought as to where to place them and think in terms
of what your garden will look like in each of the seasons. Factor
this into your planning.
Most herbs will do very well when planted in containers, so they are
an excellent option even if you don't have much space in your garden.
Tall herbs can be planted at the back of a traditional flower garden
and low-growing herbs make excellent flower garden borders.
The normal method of growing vegetables is in regimented rows. If they
are kept properly weeded, this can still look good. Again, if you
don't have much space, you can still grow a large range of vegetables
in containers e.g. peas and potatoes.
Some vegetables are even
attractive enough to be planted amongst the flowers - but remember
that you are going to have gaps once the vegetables are harvested. They can
look very decorative and take up very little room.
With a modicum of planning, thought and imagination there really is no
reason at all why you can't have the joy of growing and harvesting
food for your own kitchen table in your own kitchen garden, no matter
how small the plot.