Kitchen Gardens

A kitchen garden is what most people think of when they think of a vegetable garden. It is a relatively small garden that is designated to grow veggies and herbs and is easily accessed from the house, ideally the kitchen. It’s where you go to grab a handful of herbs, pick lettuce for salad, cut fresh greens for dinner, and harvest the summer tomatoes.

Design Considerations

Sunlight
The greatest limiting factor for vegetables is sunlight which need a minimum of 4 to 6 hours of sunlight per day. Take a look at your yard space and, considering the direction of the sun, determine whether or not your space is shaded by trees or buildings. You may need to rethink where your garden will go based on the amount of sunlight your veggies will need.

Size
For yards with limited space, a small kitchen garden can provide easy access to your most commonly used fresh vegetables and herbs. A small garden should be planted with those things that you eat the most of on a daily basis and can be made in a side yard, a porch, a balcony, a pool deck, really anywhere. No matter how small or awkward your space is, we can find a way for you to grow something, even if it’s just your salad greens and herbs.

A kitchen garden doesn’t have to be small, however. Bigger yards have more room to create more productive gardens. Our thought is, if you’re going through the bother of creating a kitchen garden and you have the space, make it big enough to really serve a purpose! A large garden could easily supply most, if not all, of your vegetable needs for a season. Renowned gardener John Jeavons estimates that a person could meet all of their food needs for a season with 100 square feet of growing space (that would be a 10 by 10 square). That really isn’t that much space, so if you have a big yard, don’t be stingy with your garden space!

Style
Your garden can mimic a formal English garden with straight lines and pathways, or it can be a free-flowing jungle. We design gardens that you will be happy to look at as well as eat out of, and we strive to design ones that fit in with your present landscaping and house architecture. The aesthetics of your garden can be as creative or as simple as you want them to be: our only requirement is that our designs enable us to maintain healthy and productive plants and grow your garden into a functional ecosystem.

Because of this, some aspects of our planting may be surprising to some, depending on their ideas of what a garden should look like. Our gardens integrate beneficial herbs and flowers into the garden, interplant different vegetables in what may seem like a random array, and are heavily mulched. Please know that there is a reason for this, and that what may seem random or untidy is intentional. See our Garden Philosophy for more information.

Your kitchen garden might be nicely complemented by some edible landscape features. While the contents of your kitchen garden will change seasonally, fruit trees and other perennial plants can be there year round to offer you food, blossoms, or enjoyable greenery.

Raised Beds or In-ground
Depending on the conditions of your soil, the shape and size of your yard, and your budget, raised beds may or may not be something you want. You should consider raised beds if you have compacted clay soil or other drainage problems, possible soil toxicity, or just really like the way raised beds look. You’ll also need a commitment to having a vegetable garden in the long-term, and an ample-enough budget to cover the additional labor and building materials.

In a raised bed, soil is built up and contained by some kind of border, be it wood, plastic lumber, stone, brick, bamboo, concrete, rock, or a number of other materials. Raised beds have a number of advantages: 1) they clearly delineate the planting area, 2) they may help discourage pests from entering your garden by separating the garden from other planting areas, 3) they generally have better aeration and drainage and general quality of the soil can be better controlled initially, and 4) they are aesthetically pleasing and adaptable (take a look at our Gallery page).

Raised beds are not the only way to have a productive garden, however. In-ground gardens can be a better choice given your circumstances, and can be just as productive as raised bed gardens. Here are some advantages for in-ground gardens: 1) they are much more flexible than raised beds, allowing planting plans to change each season, 2) they are generally much less expensive to install than raised beds, 3) they are a more efficient use of large planting areas, and 4) they can be aesthetically incorporated into the general landscape (take a look at our Gallery page).

Irrigation
A very small kitchen garden or patio garden is best watered by hand. A small space doesn’t take long to water and an automatic system just wouldn’t be worth the expense.

For larger gardens we can set up an automatic watering system. We prefer drip systems because they are the most efficient and conserve the most water, but there are some situations in which sprinklers are appropriate. If you already have an automatic watering system in your yard we can find a way to make that work with your vegetable garden, or set up a different system for the garden.

Watering your garden by hand is really the best way to water your garden because it allows you to check in with your plants daily or every other day to see how they are growing, what needs to be harvested, and keep an eye on pests. While automatic systems remove that daily responsibility, they aren’t perfect and can fail, clog, or break. Timers will turn them on even if it’s raining, and won’t turn them on even if it’s particularly dry. Automatic systems can be a great convenience, but they are ultimately as imperfect as you and your hose, without the added benefit of getting cozy with your garden.