Suburban American Potager | Our French-Style Vegetable Garden

Well, at least one good thing came out of 2020. We built our Potager aka French-style vegetable garden! This video is a brief look at the garden including our goals for the space, which elements of the Potager style we incorporated, before and after photos, and cute kid and dog cameos.

//About Us

LITTLE RHODY GARDENER is a 1/3 acre suburban home and gardens in Rhode Island, USA (Zone 6b)

// What is a Potager?

A Potager is a French-style vegetable or kitchen garden. The style has been around for hundreds of years and is both ornamental and productive.

// Elements of a Potager

- Geometric Design
- Interplanting Vegetables, Herbs, Fruit and Flowers
- Vertical Elements
- Raised Beds Surrounded By Walkways
- Center Focal Point (ours is coming soon!)

// How we Built our Potager

Spring 2019 - We started observing our yard to see which area got the best sun for a vegetable garden. We settled on the Southern corner as it gets good sun, is close to the garden shed, and the back door to our kitchen.

Fall 2019 - We took exact measurements of the space and started drawing different raised bed designs to scale on graph paper. Then, once we settled on a design we laid it out with stakes and twine. This was good practice as we realized we needed wider paths and more room to get our lawnmower out of the shed.

Then we used a pitchfork to pull up the grass and flip it over. This way the grass would die and start to decompose over the winter, adding nutrients back into the soil.

Spring 2020 - Thankfully we were ready to go, and bought the supplies we needed before the COVID gardening craze wiped everything out. We build the raised beds out of cedar 1x6 decking boards stacked 2 high. We used cedar 2x4s for the corners. We filled the beds with 10 inches of 50/50 compost/loam mixture and then filled in the pathways with pea gravel.

Our arched trellises were made from Cattle Panel / Livestock Panels from our local Tractor Supply store. They are attached to T-posts with zip ties.

//

We are so happy with how it turned out and all the delicious food we harvested!

Видео Suburban American Potager | Our French-Style Vegetable Garden канала Little Rhody Gardener