Who has a potager?

I'm guessing you guys are on "property" with the amount of space you have invested in your potager gardens. Yesterday I meant to put links to 2 sites that combine flowers and edibles, but on a much more intense way. The one, Path to Freedom, harvests 6,000 lbs of food from 1/10 of an acre (another 1/10th is their home & outbuildings) right 'in town'. It is in Southern California so the growing season is year-round.

http://www.pathtofreedom.com/

The other site, The Garden Girl, has taken their backyard in Boston and made them Sustainable.

http://www.gardengirltv.com/

I love all this talk about mixing food and ornamental plants and having vegies that look nice and flowers you can eat. In 2006 I made a few vegie beds approx 3 x 1 m. in amongst the borders I have which are mainly grasses and perennials. The beds got treated with all the goodies( compost etc) and the grasses etc were better without it... less weeds. The naturalistic look meant it didn't matter when we ate the vegies, as it sometimes can in a very formal potager. Circumstances conspired against me in 2007 and 08, which meant only did enough to keep up with garden, but this year I'm back on the case with the vegie beds, and I'll be eating the daylilies too.

quiltygirl, thanks for the link to The Garden Girl. Like Patti, my entire backyard is a garden (potager.) I am looking forward to exploring her site for information and inspiration. Right now, I am totally consumed with working in the potager. To answer an earlier question, I do my potting on the porch. The shed stores my tools, supplies and reference books. Also it contains a small refrigerator to store seeds and cold drinks.

greenhousegal, I like your sign. Very well done and looks welcoming.

Thanks - I wondered how you used that lovely building! I like my sign but wish it showed up better. I'll have to check out those links, too.

Leslie

quiltygirl--yes, partly for looks and partly to deter deer--the small critters so far have not been a real problem but the deer are devastating--they could jump it if they wanted to, but they don't like jumping into an enclosed space with all the obstacles of the raised beds--plus there is a big bed all around it so they can't get a jumping start? All I know is they haven't been eating any of my veggies this year since the fence went up--we made it decorative because it is in the front side yard--covenants wouldn't allow an electric one there--

Rah - but maybe you could get past the covenants, if you needed to, with an electric wire running along the top of bottom of the wood fence. A neighbor used a low electric fence to zap the bunnies when he first put in his lawn and it worked. He used sod, but it got nicely established. ANother neighbor went through all the intense labor or doing it from scratch, all himself, from sprinkler up about 4 years ago. You know, he has only had to mow it a few times? A lot of bare spots and when my headlights hit his lawn at night it looked like a B movie with the number of bunnies...

Hey quilty girl, LOVE those links. I feel so modern using our bunny's poop as fertilizer! I would love bees and chickens, too. That's for another forum, though.
I sowed seeds this weekend. I way overseeded but will try to thin appropriately. My goal is to see no dirt, just lush veggies, herbs and flowers. I can't wait until it takes off. I used too strong of a plant food solution and killed 200+ seedlings last week so I feel waaay behind. With all the rain we have had, the yummy dirt in the beds has revealed lots of gravel and clumps of pure, black manure. I haven't mulched yet what with newly sown seeds. Here is the garden view from my screened in porch.

Yes the links from Guiltygirl are great. Trouble is I could spend hours looking and never do any gardening. It's all grist for the mill though and you can learn such a lot.
Lovage is good. Anybody else grow that. I put some in my garden 4 years ago and then moved it and then forgot all about it. Happened across it this week in a damp rather shady spot and been eating the tender young shoots every day. Something between celery and that thing we have in England called marmite.
If it rains tomorrow I'll be reading Garden Girl. Can you really grow rice in your gardens over there?

It is so awesome to finally have a name for my aspiration!! I have been describing this style kitchen garden and everyone looks at me like I have lost it.

Our living space is actually the middle floor....in the back the house is three stories so you will be able to see the garden from the deck. I needed to keep the deer away as well.

Only concern ....I dont know yet if the sun light will be enough once the trees gain their leaves.

Everyone has such beautiful gardens and plans.

Yes, Jonnieboy, I agree. I seem to spend more time reading about quilting and gardening and learning lots, but leaving less time to actually pursue my endeavors. One thing leads to another on the computer. I used to wonder how people could spend so much time in front of the screen - and now I do! Oh, and BTW, it's a Q for Quiltygirl. I was once asked by several DG'ers what I was guilty of!
Lynda

Henygirl, maybe you can plant more shade-tolerant varieties in the areas where it's not as sunny? Some veggies and flowers prefer a little relief from the mid-day glare. I hope that works for you! We have to keep the deer away, too, and my DH put up a strand of electric wire a few feet away from the regular board fence, right where the deer would have to set up to jump it, and that works well.

Lynda, I figured you were a quilter. The DG fonts just don't distinguish well between "g" and "q," is all!

Leslie

This message was edited Apr 14, 2009 7:10 AM

Sorry Quiltygirl. But I did chuckle when I realised how very wrong I'd got your name. Better to be quilty than guilty I guess, though I know nothing of quilting. Similar in some ways to potager gardening I guess. Making something from natural materials that's useful and looks nice and expresses something about yourself?
It didn't rain yesterday and I had a good day in the garden. Felt perhaps I was taking the potager thing too far when making a bed for vegies round the periphery of a big black stemmed bamboo ( Phylostachys nigra), and digging out the big rhizomes. Added a load of good compost though so hopeful it will work.
Henrygirl I think spinach is good in the shadier parts, and soft fruits like raspberries and currants. I read yesterday that land cress is good in shade; though that's a winter crop

I now officially have a potager garden. lol. space being as limited as it is, its the only way i can grow both flowers and veggies

I want to use copper tubbing for my deer-prevention frame......but hubby says it is gonna be near impossible. :(

I was just thinking how gorgeous that copper would look several years from now.

Still thinking...on how to convince him to try! :)

It needs to be able to curve like an upside down bow shape ...anyone used copper?

Very expensive right now, I hope you have a bucket of money.

I was thinking the same thing, Cathy. Also, if your area is anything like a lot of others, you'll have to have an alarm system to tell you when someone is trying to steal the copper! We had a spate last year of people tearing apart water flow devices ($$$$) to get at the scrap metal inside ($). :-(

We live in an area with some very old houses and all the copper gutters have been stolen. Our church put up metal ones and will be painting them to look like copper, hope they don't get taken, too.

buy bamboo, paint it to look like copper...lol, that way if it gets stolen, your only out a few bucks

Or small pvc pipe which would bow easily and paint it to look like the hammered metals ~ copper is one of the colors. Far cheaper and theft of copper was my first thought too.

Okay I am convinced to use the pvc painted to look like CHEAP copper. :)

I am sticking my drawings in my 'one day' notebook......I vow to one day have this made...but will wait. :)

I found tubing for $10 for a 10 ft 1/2" piece.......that didnt seem too expensive....but then I didnt look at the details either. [I would need 8 pieces]

I cant believe YALL convinced me hubby could be right ,,,, at least this year.

There must be a full moon if hubby is right.