My Ornamental Kitchen Garden

My ornamental kitchen garden was started two years ago in April 2005. It's a part of the garden of which I'm very proud and where I spend most of my time gardening. I grow many vegetables and fruit in it, but also herbs and flowers. I don't like kitchen gardens where there is rows and rows of cabbages, beans or sprouts or something, that's so boring to look at. So I have mainly small beds where I grow many vegetable crops combined with flowers, fruit and herbs. I don't have to feed an whole orphanage so small beds with a few lettuces, cabbages, leeks etc, will do me nicely.

The fruits I grow in the kitchen garden are strawberries, white currants, black currants, gooseberries, elderberries, blackberries, raspberries and plums. Most berries and all currants are standards so they don't take up much space.

I prefer variety in my kitchen garden, so there's lots to see and to enjoy. It's south facing and therefore the warmest part of my garden. I'm able to sit and eat outside in the kitchen garden from March until the end of October, provided the sun is shining of course.

The flowers I grow in the kitchen garden are mainly for cutting. I like having lots of flower bouquets dotted all over my house. Who wouldn't? Sweet peas are the flowers that I grow every year in the kitchen garden because they are the best; they look great, they smell great and the more flowers you cut, the more flowers the plant will produce. Isn't that just absolutely wonderful?

I'll leave you with a few impressions of my kitchen garden. Have a nice weekend!
A harvest of broad beans, next to the rhubarb forcing pot.
White currants ready for the picking. They taste great and you can make a lovely jam out of them.



Strawberry pot with verbena and strawberries.
White Agapanthus and sugar snaps.
A splash of spring colour in the kitchen garden and some spinach ready to be harvested, next to the cold frames.

Autumn display in the kitchen garden with Dahlias and nasturtiums.
My little rainbow of colour.

Herbs and onions.
A view across the kitchen garden, with the rain barrel to catch the rain off the roof of the Victorian greenhouse,

The Victorian greenhouse with a moss wreath that I made last weekend.
A colour explosion!

If you want to know whether it's time to sow, take off your pants and sit down on the earth.
Anon