Pages

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Lessons from a Potager

In May, we looked at information about the practical and beautiful French potager garden. Potagers are simply gardens with both edible and ornamental plants placed together. They provide both delicious veggies and herbs to be used in your kitchen as well as beautiful flowers to cut and display in your home. I planted my first potager this year, and I am happy overall with its outcome. This summer has been extremely hot and humid for days at a time, and this along with some heavy rain has caused some troubles. This has not discouraged me or kept my garden from being pretty and fruitful.

I made a small four by eight foot garden bed, and I planted two types of heirloom tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, along with herbs and zinnias. Here are some photos of my bounty and some photos of my losses.



 My tomatoes have done both well and not so well. We've had some delish, juicy Mr. Stripey's and Orange tomatoes, but they've struggled through the growing season. Several weeks have brought a couple days of heavy rain, and this has caused the tomatoes to grow quickly and split their skins. Let me show you what I mean.

Mr. Stripey's

You can see the skin splitting here...

...and here

Orange

 Here's some tomatoes I've harvested. The big one in the middle is an Orange tomato, and the rest are Mr. Stripey's.


Even though the skin has split on all of the tomatoes I've grown and harvested, they are still edible. Just cut off the split part, slice them up, and they are good to eat!

My bell peppers and jalapenos have done nicely this year. For some reason, the bell pepper plants have not produced a lot, but the peppers that have grown have been healthy.


These are the type of peppers that turn red as they ripen. I love how colorful they are!


We love fresh, spicy jalapenos in such things as salsa and cornbread. I'm happy that our jalapeno plant has been growing lots of these spicy little jewels.




 I had a vision of beautiful morning glory vines growing on a tall trellis at the end of my garden, but a rabbit destroyed that vision. Rabbits may be cute and fuzzy, but they love to go after and eat anything edible. That is why I keep a fence around the garden. I did not realize that morning glories were attractive to them and left them outside the fence to grow. After about two or three weeks, the rabbit ate the tops off them. See the evidence below.


 This was not a good year for herbs. My herbs all started out well, but in the end they were defeated by the summer heat and humidity. The only herb that I do not have photos of is the dill. I planted several dill plants, and they started out growing tall and full. However, they eventually turned brown, and I had to pull them out. The dill harvest was so yummy while it lasted though! I love dill in dip and on fish! Here are some photos of the herbs I've planted this summer.

As you can see, basil didn't do well at all. They grew to about a quarter of an inch high and then just stopped growing altogether. I'm very disappointed because there is nothing like fresh basil!



 The Greek oregano was healthy for the first half of the summer, but the last half it has looked yellow, twiggy, and sickly. Again, the summer heat and humidity was a factor here.


I was hoping my chives would come back this year bigger and fuller, but it has stayed pretty small also.

On a happy and postive note, I planted pink and yellow zinnias on both ends of the garden to bring in some beauty and color that the French potager should have. They have been great for cutting and putting in vases around my house. I'm all about bringing some outdoor beauty inside!



It has been a good learning experience for me to plant and maintain my first potager garden, and I have ideas of what I want to do and change for next year.

1. I definitely plan on doing some more research into what ornamental plants will be rabbit resistant so I don't have another morning glory catastrophe.

2. I also want to make the garden look more geometric next year. I'd like to add more square or circle shapes in the way the plants are placed.

3. Hopefully, I'll be able to add some sort of structural element to add some visual interest. This was my goal in planting the morning glories this year and wanting to put them on a tall trellis. Next year, I'll try again.

What did you learn from gardening this year? What were your experiences with veggie, herb, or flower planting? I'd love to hear from you!
M/Y/D/S Clipart graphicsEiffel Tower clipart from M/Y/D/S Clipart Pictures
Paris Bird Collage background from The Background Fairy