By Billie Parish, Butte County Master Gardener, March 27, 2015
The potager is a formal style of vegetable garden that integrates edibles and ornamentals in a way that is attractive as well as productive. While the typical vegetable garden is often a small-scale version of a farm plot, with distinct areas for each vegetable, the potager combines edibles, herbs, annuals, and perennials in a layout that makes the most of their colors, shapes and textures. Potagers are continually being planted and harvested throughout the entire year, as opposed to most traditional vegetable gardens, which are sown in spring and harvested in summer.
Dating back to the middle ages, the potager has its roots in medieval monasteries. Cloistered away from the outside world, monks and nuns were largely self-sufficient, growing their own food and medicinal herbs. Their gardens not only provided a source of nutritional sustenance, but also served as a scene for prayer and meditation. Medieval monastic gardens served as inspiration for the more elaborate French and Italian Renaissance gardens that followed.
Chateau Villandry in Villandry, France, contains one of the most famous examples of a potager, created in the early 20th century on the grounds of a 16th-century chateau. At Villandry, boxwoods edge nine differently-patterned squares containing a wide variety of vegetables grown for their appearance, as well as for their taste. Villandry led the movement towards ornamental vegetables -- notably purple and green cabbages, ruby chard and colored lettuce – that was at its height in the 1980s and 1990s.
Today's potagers can range in style from formal, with sharp borders and elaborate configurations of beds, to informal, with a style reminiscent of the whimsical cottage garden. The designs often incorporate geometric-shaped beds, repetition, and symmetry to create an attractive, functional space. A large, square plot, for example, may be divided into four triangles, with a large tree or trellis as a central focal point. The beds may be edged with the same, or alternating, border plants in order to provide a look of continuity.
The potager concept can also be applied to container gardening. Apartment dwellers and others with limited outdoor gardening space can easily combine edibles and ornamentals in balcony or patio containers.
When creating a potager, remember that functionality is key. Keep the multi-harvest plants, such as herbs and greens, close to the kitchen for easy access. Choose vegetables that not only taste good, but provide aesthetic value. If planting flowers among the vegetables, think about selecting ones that are edible or medicinal – runner beans, for example, have attractive scarlet flowers that bloom in profusion; both chamomile and calendula can serve medicinal purposes as well as provide attractive blooms; nasturtiums have vibrant, edible flowers in shades of red, orange and yellow. Herbs like lavender and rosemary can be used to provide structure and bring beauty to an otherwise boring vegetable patch.
Finally, remember that the key to a successful, visually captivating potager is succession planting. Instead of waiting to plant your summer garden, for instance, try some fast-growing cool-weather crops, like radishes and lettuce, which can be harvested in time to plant heat-lovers, like peppers and eggplants, in the same space. And in the fall, when the weather begins to cool, try sowing come carrots or spinach in the shade of your tomato plants, which will soon be out of commission. Next winter, add colorful leafy vegetable crops like red cabbage or purple brussel sprouts. As the seasons change or plants stop producing, switch them out for new ones, and take advantage of living in a climate where you can grow edibles and ornamentals year-round.