Just as we have come to appreciate the special inflection of the Cottage garden in feeling and style, the French potager has its own flavor that springs from the context of a rich cultural history that holds food, art, and beauty and enjoyment of them all, in high regard. Both Cottage gardens and French potagers are humble gardens, borne of a family’s need for food, herbal simples, and a few flowers for the table. They have been described as being of a “more eccentric and homespun style” than the English type of kitchen gardens. Perhaps some of the distinction may come from the grander gardens of their respective countries. The parterres and strong edge lines of the French Nobleman’s gardens contribute a sense of containment that the English gardens eschewed in preference for a more natural and exuberant overflow of ornamental plantings.

Some gardeners, in order to preserve that strong geometrical design and sense of containment, prefer to use raised beds bounded by permanent frames of brick or wood. Fences or trellising can buffer winds and provide structure for vertical growing. Using the “square foot gardening” method could also be a useful way to start. Think about adding some permanent paths, both for design and ease of caring for your garden space.

Now don’t take this as an official definition, but I always think of a Cottage garden as a front yard garden, and the French potager as a backyard one. It is more connected to the kitchen cooking pot, with less of the froufrou that all that jumble of full cottage flowers can be in English gardens… the potager works harder to produce food for the table. That is just how I look at it.

Traditionally in the city landscapes of the somewhat smalltown neighborhoods of Ohio the frontyards were smaller and considered a public space, while the backyards were larger and contained any vegetable or fruit patches. Imagine that little backyard vegetable patch growing to contain some dwarf fruit trees, some neat little edgings of teucrium or some marigolds to work as companions to nearby herbs or a block of onions. Imagine going out your back door to harvest makings for your favorite dish of ratatouille. That is your French potager and how it fits into your landscape and your life.

So if the potager is so connected to the kitchen soup pot( from whence it gained its name), what sort of plantings make this French flavored food garden?

Primarily the vegetable plantings and the herbs that lend flavor and plant protection to them. Cutting garden flower choices included to make up bouquets for the table. Espaliered or miniature fruit trees to border and give especially fine fruits in season.

Since bouquet garni is a classic herb combination in French cooking, certainly those plants would be desirable, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, and rosemary among others, including but not limited to celery, carrots, and oregano. The most basic recipe would be of the parsley, thyme and bay leaf.

I would summarize this effort at a French potager for your own kitchen dooryard garden as being a combination of the Starter Vegetable Patch and the Easy Herb Garden, with room for further additions of small fruit trees or fruits and a cutting garden. All condensed into a manageably sized area located near the back door. It could be a master plan, where one portion is started and then added to as time goes on. A fine way to fill your table with the kind of fresh eating that makes French cuisine so tempting.

More on the French Potager:
The Potager: A Kitchen Garden in the French Country Style
jardin de curé, French Gardening
A Plan for a Backyard Potager
My Review of Great Kitchen Garden Book

A different design-

A small vegetable patch is one of the first gardens I made when I was a twenty-something. I hadn’t really gardened on my own, but I knew what a delicious treat a fresh homegrown tomato was… I had enjoyed them from my mother’s garden. And my mother’s vegetable gardens never changed very much from what is essentially an easy starter vegetable garden. So this little guide might serve you for your career as a gardener, or it might be a jump off point for a love affair with your own kitchen garden. It will provide some fresh produce for your dining table.

What does this starter vegetable garden look like?

It is small. This is the number one piece of advice beginning gardeners will always get, and it as often gets ignored. Still, small is not less, so try to keep your first vegetable garden a size that is easy to take care of. I think my first vegetable patch was four feet by five feet in the city backyard, next to the walkway back to the garage. It was in the sunshine, not shadowed by my house or the neighbor’s buildings or any trees.

My patch was a simple rectangle shape, easy to access for weeding and harvesting. As your interest and needs grow, you can always add more rectangles. Some people start out with raised beds, although I didn’t. The benefit of a raised bed is the good drainage, and the good soil it can provide for you, as you add amendments in a concentrated way. Less compaction because rarely does anyone walk inside their raised beds.

What vegetables should I grow?

Of course you can try any that you like, but I would encourage a new gardener to plant things that are easy to succeed with and give a good quality crop. The main motivation for growing food is to have something good to eat!

ripening on the sill

Bush beans: although you can usually buy them fresh in the markets they are easy to grow and you might like some right outside your back door. Need warm weather to germinate and grow.

Peppers: sweet or hot, they don’t take much space and produce prolifically. Every starter garden should have a few pepper plants. They are easy to grow and take similar conditions to tomatoes (fertile soil, regular but not too much moisture.)

Green Leafy things: Grow spinach. It is good for you and very easy- it also grows in cooler weather. Leaf lettuces are easy, and mesclun mixes are too. Gourmet salads are in your future if you plant these. They need cooler temperatures. Swiss Chard- try this, it is something like spinach, is easy to grow, lasts better through hotter weather. Wonderful addition to quiche.

Radishes: radishes are just the simplest plant you can grow- they come up quickly and taste delicious in the cooler weather they love.

Green onions: early crop that is sown in spring for all sorts of uses; salads, eggs, and baked potatoes all are better for a bit of green onion! AKA “scallions”.

A row of herbs and a row of marigolds: because the herbs taste good and help your veggies taste better, and marigolds for repelling insects, but mainly because they look pretty. Easy herbs ( and VERY easy if you buy plants rather than seed) are Parsley, Savory, Chives, and Basil. Or should I say Basils, plural, because there are so many types- all good.

The starter garden how-to

I know what you are thinking- long list of vegetables and small spaces- how does all that cram into a tiny plot? A starter garden has tricks to accomplish all that. One is called “vertical” gardening, and one is interplanting. Make sure you stake the tomatoes, or tie them to a fence ( should your neighboring yard and yours have one). Tomatoes take the most space in this little garden.

Then, if you notice that some plants grow early in the season and don’t like warm weather, you can well imagine that you have harvested them by the time you plant the tomatoes and peppers. Swiss Chard and parsley like the shade that a tomato plant can provide them. Radishes are grown in among the lettuces- and are usually harvested before they are, but both grow happily together. Green onions are also harvested early, leaving spaces for beans or peppers. So you can see there are early and later crops grown out of the same space of ground.

Plantings of herbs and marigolds are around the edges of the garden or you can have them take the place of some of the early vegetables. Or here is an idea, place a couple big pots and seed them with marigolds and herb plants. Containers do take extra care to water, but have the advantage that you can move them wherever you want.

Things Missing

You can grow whatever you want, you don’t need my suggestions to try them, but more can go awry with carrots, and corn takes a large amount of space, as do pumpkins. And zucchini is the butt of many a joke for its huge harvests…

If you love zucchini or squash, think about vertical methods. If you have never tried growing a garden, I hope you attempt this little starter vegetable garden or the easy herb garden. I believe you will be successful and you might find out how much fun it is to grow things to eat.