Traditionally, a “kitchen garden” is located just outside the kitchen door, making it easy for the cook to dash outside and grab a fresh zucchini or sprig of basil. Should we be lucky enough to produce any bumper crops this year, we will donate our excess vegetables so that they can be eaten!

In addition to vegetables, edible flowers to look for in the kitchen gardens include lemon marigolds, nasturtiums, and calendula. Interesting color will be added by purple cauliflower, rainbow Swiss chard, and black pole beans. Blooms that may be unfamiliar to some visitors are rose-red buckwheat, okra blossoms, blue butterfly pea vine, and a globe artichoke. A collection of herbs in one of the gardens includes parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.

In addition to their environmental benefits, the kitchen gardens will demonstrate companion planting, whereby certain crops help each other when grown together. For example, the “Three Sisters Garden” illustrates the Native American custom of planting sweet corn, pole beans, and butternut squash in a specific pattern. The cornstalks give the beans a structure to climb so that they are out of the way of the spreading squash plants; the beans add nitrogen to fertilize the soil while also stabilizing the corn; and the large squash leaves shade the ground and help keep the soil moist.

Flowers and vegetables can be “companions” as well. The zinnias bordering many of the beds will attract bees and butterflies, while nasturtiums will hopefully discourage certain undesirable insects from munching on our vegetables.

We are also experimenting with an alternative gardening method: a “Straw Bale Garden.” Two bales of straw in the center of one of the flowerbeds were treated with water and fertilizer before being planted with vegetable seedlings. As the straw continuously decomposes during the season, it provides nutrients to the plants. Because the bales are raised off the ground, they are easily accessible to the gardener and limit weeds, soil-borne diseases, and in-ground pests.

The concept of kitchen gardening is not new—it goes back to medieval times in the Middle East and Europe. The French term for a kitchen garden is potager (po-tah-zhay); in Scotland, it would be called a kailyard. Early illustrations show geometrical, raised potager gardens on the grounds of monasteries and chateaus that are strikingly similar to the arrangement of square flowerbeds designed by the DABG founders in the early 1980s. In addition, our small beds will allow easy reach when the vegetables are ready to be picked.