Getting Started

Why a Kitchen Garden?

Sowing seeds and watching food grow goes back to the first hunter-gatherers, yet the earliest documented form of orderly kitchen gardens were the ancient Persian gardens from around 1500 BCE. This type of garden, called a Paradise garden, was located within a walled enclosure at the center of a home, and formed an outdoor room for entertaining, contemplation, and listening to poetry or music. The Paradise garden sheltered a vibrant collection of fruits and flowering plants, And always included a water feature in the form of a central fountain that split the garden into four squares symbolizing the four nourishing liquids found in Paradise: milk, honey, wine, and water. Each garden plot represented the four cardinal directions: North, South, East, and West. The Paradise garden style was adopted by the Greeks and Romans, and continued to be a source of culinary as well as aesthetic enjoyment.

During the Medieval era and the fall of the Roman Empire, anything that was considered sensual and pleasurable, which included beautiful gardens, was banned. Monasteries became the disseminators of the church doctrine; kitchen gardens were grown behind high walls and colonnades of tall trees, and were largely the domain of the monks and nuns. They cultivated a much simpler style of garden than was previously enjoyed, focusing on useful medicinal or culinary plants for the benefit of the community. Yet like their Persian precursors, these gardens were laid out in intricately patterned beds with espaliered pear trees, climbing vines, and vegetables planted in geometric grids. These monastery gardens served as a retreat for meditation and prayer, as well as a primary source of nourishment.

In turn, many of the features of these early medieval gardens inspired the gardeners of the Renaissance era. The fanciful parterre garden — featuring clipped yew, boxwood, and herbs planted in ornate patterns — was developed, and the Baroque period took this idea even further, giving birth to the kitchen gardens At Château de Villandry, best known as France's archetypal potager. Villandry featured seemingly endless geometric parterres edged in immaculately clipped boxwood to create subdivisions for ornamental vegetables and flowers. French and Italian gardeners continued to plant kitchen gardens, and their passion for Fresh cuisine has inspired Americans to savor the glorious connection between the garden and the dining table.

In this book you will find a range of kitchen garden designs that bridge the old with the new, building on the classic four-square concept, along with gardens that have contemporary appeal. A kitchen garden goes beyond the simple, straight rows of a vegetable garden to combine art and cuisine in ways that enhance the experience of growing food.

How to Get Started

Gardeners can always learn from other gardeners, and I'll admit that some of my best ideas have come from visiting other gardens. All gardeners are artists, and it's a bit of a mystery the way we can start with the same materials-seeds, plants, and soil-yet the results are always different. When I plant my lettuce in waves, I think back to a neighbor who painted the landscape from her upstairs window, blending all the patterns together into a patchwork of colors. The tall bamboo teepees at the entrance to my garden for my favorite purple pole beans, Trionfo Violetto, were inspired by a trip to Italy. Edible nasturtiums ramble through my garden, reminiscent of the garden at Giverny, where Monet filled the paths with these brilliant orange, yellow, and mahogany flowers. But when it comes to learning technique, only personal experience will suffice. Like cooking or any of the arts, once a basic foundation of garden skills is established, confidence will follow.

If this is your first garden, take time to study your backyard; follow the direction of the sun and how it moves across the sky in summer and the winter. Watch when a heavy wind blows to establish if you need wind blocks, and notice where the rain collects after a storm to see if you need to create better drainage. While you build your garden, find time to step back and allow your muse to guide you in creating a garden that is as beautiful as a painting and brings in elements that establish your own personal style. This might include ornamental sculpture, espaliered fruit trees, or a simple stone bench. Before sowing seeds, take a pointed stick to draw in the soil and visualize how the plants will fill in together as they grow. This will help you figure out how much room to allow between plants, and where to plant based on their heights. Think of your garden as a blank canvas for ideas.

A kitchen garden goes beyond the simple straight rows of an ordinary garden, to encompass a balance of color, texture, and form that is extraordinary. A true kitchen garden opens your senses in new and inspiring ways, both in the garden and in the kitchen. Plan to keep a sketchbook of ideas and to take notes and photographs to guide you from year to year, learning as you go. You'll be amazed how much information you can gather from simply observing and exploring the connections that allow all the elements in a garden to work together as a whole.

In this book you will find my own designs along with techniques and organic gardening methods to get you started. I expect you to adapt to fit your own style, your individual landscape, and your personal appetite, because there is always so much more to learn on your own. Plan to visit other gardens, but keep exploring ways to create a kitchen garden that expresses your own personality. Enjoy the process as much as the harvest, because both are equally important.

Step One: Soil

Soil is the most important component to a successful garden. Before you sow seeds or transplant seedlings, be sure your soil is rich in nutrients, weed free, and will allow roots to expand. Soil is a living, breathing organism and provides the nourishment that allows roots, shoots, and fruits to mature. While most soil contains the basic elements that plants need to grow, these elements are not always in the right proportions. Understanding how all the elements work together to produce the right balance will help you to build a natural blend of nutrient-rich soil that will keep your plants in good health.

Every region of the country has a different soil type, and learning about the soil in your region may help you understand what approach to take in your garden. start by taking a close look at...