Potager the French Kitchen Garden

Even though it's wet, windy and cold outside, sitting here in front of the wood burner. I have started planning what I should plant this spring in the potager. As I browse through the seed catalogs deciding on the best options for this year's harvest. I remembered how overgrown my garden was when I first moved here. It was a mass of weeds, ant hills and brambles, which would attack your ankles as you cleared a pathway through.

I think the first year I grew zucchini in pots, a couple of lettuce and some strawberries. While I leveled the ground, seeded a lawn and designed flowerbeds.

After months of hard work I constructed some raised beds in the center of the garden, these four beds now provide enough vegetables for myself and neighbors. I always grow onions, potatoes,tomatoes, cut salad and last year I grew broad bean for the first time, though too many black fly for me. I don't use pesticides, everything I grows is organic the raised beds help keep the snails away, and I use soapy water to kill the aphids and other bugs.

In the center of my raised beds I have a water well, which I use during the summer to water the plants. To give the garden a central feature, I used a cow water trough over the well which makes an interesting pond. And give somewhere for Biscuit the cat to take a drink.

There's something quite satisfying growing and eating your own vegetables. Even if you live on your own like I do and only have a very small space, you can enjoy fresh vegetables most of the year. I also have some fruit bushes, apple, pear trees as well as a lovely cherry tree. Each year it's a fight between the birds and I as to who gets the cherries first.

As I finish my list for the Potager, dreaming of warmer days and looking forward to a bountiful harvest in 2018. Happy planting everyone.