Garden Tour Cont. — The Potager

On the opposite side of the house, we have a large sunny patch that is perfect for vegetables and fruit. We really just call it the vegetable garden, but technically it is a potager, or traditional kitchen garden. With a twist. It's also an organic, no-dig, permaculture food forest. We enrich the soil by top dressing with composted bedding from the birds and rabbits.

The first photo is as you approach the garden from the back of the house. The fence is there to keep the dogs out of the freshly planted beds, but at this point it's just ornamental.

Inside, you can see the now fading cannas. Once the frost hits we will move the bulbs into the basement until next year. On the right, there is a large kiwi vine on a trellis against the house. We only have one male that you can see struggling up the right side of the gate. It's not doing well and we didn't get any this year, sadly.

Right in front there are strawberries. Still producing! I learned that tortoises love strawberries so I fed a few to our Bongo over the summer. He practically ran over to grab them!

To the left are a couple of fig trees.

With lots of figs!

Here is the last planting of salad greens. We cheat a bit with these and scratch the surface to sow the seeds. No-dig works for some things, but not so well for some others. Here is mostly rocket and some kale.

The butternuts weren't too happy this year. We had an extended drought and only have a few squash for the winter. Not the 30 or so we are used to. We're not going to make it until next spring with this batch!

We also have some bird house gourds hanging from the pear tree. Not sure if it's the pears or the gourds that are dragging down the tree. Okay, so it's both.

And on the peach tree are some more butternut vines. I'm not sure this is how fruit trees are supposed to be used. The vines are happy at least.

Deep inside the garden you can see the overgrown center path. It once led to a grape trellis as a focal point. Now the grapes trail on the fence. Got 9 jars of jelly and a gallon of wine from them already, and there are more to harvest! And there's that red coleus again, like a woman with a red umbrella walking into your photo at just the right time.

What you can't see here is the giant patch of asparagus. In the fall it gets overgrown with sunchokes. We spend the spring pulling them out, and the fall enjoying them where they persist. This variety has the long, thin tubers that aren't good eating, but my parrot loves them!

This is the third and likely last year of the bamboo squash cage. It's worked quite well to keep the vines from spreading over all the other beds. We let sunflowers take over since the squash weren't doing too well. 12 foot flowers!

Then looking back away from the grapes, you can see the pear tree on the left and the peach tree on the right, being pulled down by the squash vines. No worries, it will frost soon. The bed with yellow flowers never liked to grow vegetables, so it's all flowers this year. Can't have food without bees!

Some more butternuts:

In the center of the space is a tall larch. It's been there for years and could get to 75 feet, but we chop the top of and trim it into a sort of bonsai so the garden doesn't get shaded. Larches are conifers that aren't evergreen, so it loses the needles in winter. And below it is a koi pond and a little waterfall. The sound of running water is a must for any garden.

Here is looking back toward the gate. The fruit tree to the left of the gate is a plum. We bought it as a dying twig and it is thriving now. No fruit yet, though.

A couple more beds with tomatoes and beans, and some herbs.

The chard has been doing very well despite the drought. I love to get a fry pan hot, toast some sesame seeds, sautee some onions, and stick a pile of chard on top. Toss a couple times, sprinkle with soy sauce, and voila! Delicious side dish.

Dinosaur kale. Mmmmmm. Here you could repeat the chard recipe, or just stick them in an air fryer for kale chips. Have you seen the cost of these in stores? Like $8 for three chips. I have never bought them. Only laugh at people who do.

And what garden tour would be complete without the view from the house? Looking out the front room window provides this lovely scene, rather then the neighbors' houses. See the larch? Needs a trim!

And looking to the back:

It's such a joy to have a grocery store in your own yard. We're not the types to catalog everything, make records, plan, and track expenses and production. We just enjoy having a constant and random selection of produce, and use it to supplement our regular groceries.

Each day we eat something from the garden, whether it is greens, tomatoes, potatoes, or just some thyme from the front yard. We do what we can in the time we have, and just enjoy what we get. And if shit really goes downhill, we have a ready-made survival forest to fall back on!

I hope you enjoy these tours and can get some inspiration for your own spaces. Growing your own food is fun and rewarding, and you always know what you're eating.

Bon Apetite!