The Kitchen Garden

What is a kitchen garden?

The kitchen garden, also known as a potager, is a small garden where fruit, vegetables and herbs are usually grown near the house for easy access. Kitchen gardens are not made up of decorative plants, although it may contain a few. The main purpose of this type of garden is simply to produce the food that we intend to eat.

Why have a kitchen garden?

There are many reasons why you might want to start a kitchen garden. Many of us know we need to integrate healthier food choices into our diets. Fresh produce is a main staple of a healthy diet. Keeping these foods around can present a challenge since frequent trips to the market are required. Having your own garden can provide a consistent supply of these foods, if you plan your garden properly. You can also ensure that your food is grown using organic methods and isn't at risk for being exposed to contaminates that have recently tainted our food supply with dangerous organisms. Another benefit for growing your own kitchen garden is saving money, especially on the high cost of organic produce. Food gardening allows us to become more self-sufficient, which comes in handy during especially hard times. Growing your own food is even a "green lifestyle" choice. The food you produce at home isn't being transported hundreds or thousands of miles to your refrigerator and since your homegrown produce isn't being picked well before it's truly ripened, the nutrient content will be optimal. Gardening is considered to be the #1 hobby in America and is still growing. Gardening provides exercise, warm sunshine, fresh air and the satisfaction of nurturing a handful of plants while reaping the benefits in the form of wonderfully tasty, nutritious and clean food for your family.

Is it possible to grow a kitchen garden on a patio or balcony?

Our grandparents were usually not limited to small space gardening, especially in the country. However, many of us urbanites have little or no yard and our only option is the patio or balcony. You would be surprised at how much you can grow in an area as small as 4' x 6' or even in an area with a smaller footprint if you grow vertically. With small space gardening, it is essential that you carefully plan your vegetable garden layout.

Here are some methods and products that can help the patio gardener with optimizing their limited space:

• Raised beds - A raised bed vegetable garden is a very popular item for limited space and helping with vegetable garden layouts. Raised beds can be difficult to move, so if you do not get enough sunlight, you may need to plant in smaller containers and move them to the area that gets the sun.
• Vegetable Seed Choices- Bush and dwarf vegetable seed varieties provide the compact, space saving needed for small gardens. Select varieties for small space gardens.
• Hanging, Stacking or Portable Planters - Allows you to grow produce and herbs vertically or off of the ground while maintaining a small footprint.
• Mini Greenhouses  - Helps get an early start to your growing season and keeps plants warm. Also, they can have shelving to stack plants vertically.
• Trellises or Trellis Netting - Can help vining plants grow vertically, such as green beans, snow peas, etc.
• Deck Rail Planters or WindowBoxes - These can utilize what would normally be unusable space to grow food-bearing plants. These special planters can be attached with brackets or there are even planters that fit snuggly onto the top of the deck rail with no hardware required.
• Hydroponics / Aeroponics - A method of gardening using nutrient-infused water to nourish plant roots instead of growing plants in soil, as most of us are accustomed to. This method tends to produce faster-growing, more abundant plants than soil-grown plants. Hydroponic and aeroponic gardening is a very different and somewhat foreign method of gardening to most of us, but has recently started becoming more mainstream, thanks to the highly publicized AeroGarden�. Keep in mind that the AeroGarden� is just one of the dozens of systems available and is a relatively small, countertop system at that. There are much larger systems available to someone wanting to produce more food than what the AeroGarden� can accommodate.
• Companion planting - The act of planting plants that provide mutual benefits to each other.
• Plant placement strategy - Place smaller plants in the front facing the sun, and larger plants in the back.
• Staggered Planting - The practice of spacing your plantings over a few weeks time instead of starting them all at once. This will give you a harvest over a period of time rather than all at the same time.
• Crop rotation - To keep your soils healthy, you should not plant the same vegetable type in the same soil for three years. Rotating where you grow each vegetable type will help keep your garden soil healthier.

What should I grow in my kitchen garden?

Pretty basic advice here: Grow what you like to eat AND costs the most at the market. Tomatoes are one of the easiest items to grow and can be used in so many ways, such as pasta sauce, salsa, salads, or just plain eating. Find out what zone you live in . Choose the vegetable plants that can be grown where you live.

Where should I grow my kitchen garden?

The ideal location would be right outside your kitchen where it would be almost as quick to pick the vegetables for your salad as it would be to retrieve the vegetables from your refrigerator. This may or may not interfere with the requisites of your garden:

• A spot with plenty of sunshine
• Good soil
• Close proximity to water

Tips for the first time gardener

• Size - By starting small, weeding and maintaining your garden will also be a smaller task, which could be important while you gain the knowledge and skills needed for a successful garden. If you live in an apartment, you will be limited in space anyway.
• Which plants - Grow what you eat the most of and possibly think of adding vegetable plants that will cost you the most at the local grocery store.
• Water - Plants are 95% water, make sure they stayed watered.
• Plant variety - for small space gardens, do not plant items such as squash or watermelons that can quickly overrun your limited space.
• Soil - Need to have well-draining, loose, nutrient-rich soil. Testing your soil for proper pH and various nutrients may sound intimidating, but is very easy and inexpensive to do and is an absolute must. Even compost or purchased "vegetable garden mix" can be nutrient deficient. You can add coconut coir for improved drainage and any deficient nutrients as needed per the soil tester  results.

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