Fine Gardening

Posts Tagged ‘Vegetable Garden Design’

Veggies from home garden

There is nothing more satisfying that serving up a dinner made with the fruits (and vegetables) of your labors.  If you have a vegetable garden and are able to bring plants from seeds to the dinner table there is truly nothing more satisfying.  However, getting to that point is a long road.  This road is only as difficult as you make it.  You will find that with a good vegetable garden design you will more easily be able to grow good vegetables.

Most of your planning for your vegetable garden design needs to be from a utilitarian standpoint.  After all, the primary point of your garden is not to look pretty; it is to provide you with tasty vegetables.  In order to plant your vegetables and keep them free from weeds and insects throughout their growing season, you need have easy access to every corner or your garden.  Traditional vegetable garden design, when farmers would devote an entire acre to growing food for the whole year, is laid out in long, narrow rows.  These rows were as wide as they can be so long as the farmer could reach all the way across them while hoeing, weeding, and applying insecticides.

The concept of easy access is still principle to modern vegetable garden design, but most of us don’t have the luxury of devoting that much space to vegetable cultivation.  Instead we are cramming our gardens into tiny urban plots or the corner of the backyard not already taken up by the swing set.  This means that long, narrow rows are rarely an option.  Instead, why not try thinking of your vegetable garden as a square and the beds as the four thick lines that make up the square.  Leave yourself a tiny “door” into the plot, and then by simply turning in a circle you can easily access all four beds.  You could also try creating a walkway that is lined with vegetables.  If you live in a city and want to plant on a concrete pad or on a room, make the walkway out of raised planters.  Then you also have the option of decorating the side of your planters.

Once the logistics of your vegetable garden design are figured out, you can concentrate on the aesthetics.  Even here, you need to make sure that you don’t pair plants, such as coriander and pumpkins that would crowd each other out.  But you can create your vegetable garden design with an eye toward what is visually pleasing.  Many people like to edge the side of their beds with herbs or low growing vegetables like cabbage or lettuce.  Alternate staking your tomatoes and your beans as they flower and grow vegetables of different colors.  If you choose to use wooden stakes you could even paint them for some added decoration.  If you are going to grow pumpkins or squash, exploit their beautiful blossoms while they last.  Give them both plenty of space to show off as well as plenty of space to grow.  Many times your vegetable garden design can combine both practical and artistic considerations.