Skip to content
What Is A Potager Garden?
These gardens were the kitchen gardens you might imagine growing right out the back door of a French country farmhouse. Lush, productive, and well-kept, you might envision ripe tomatoes, bushy herbs, bulbing onions, and cucumbers growing on a trellis. Pole beans climb a tripod, and birds are keeping the caterpillars under control. Neatly ordered beds and well-mulched paths lead toward a center fountain.
Potager gardens are regaining popularity, but the most common question is, how do you say it? Potager gardens have a French origin, and the word isn’t pot-ah-jur. Instead, say it pote-ah-jay, but make the J soft to sound like the S in measure.
There is some lore that the word potager has origins meaning pot of soup, and the garden was named as such because French country folk could take whatever was ready in their kitchen garden and plop it into the soup of the day.
What is for sure is that these gardens belong near the kitchen and are designed to be visited frequently, with a basket in hand, to harvest and enjoy. But more than just utility, like anything French, they should have a sense of art or design. An old-fashioned American veggie garden behind a farmhouse may have had many single long rows of carrots, beans, and onions, but in a potager garden, these same plants are formed in more compact, often geometrically shaped beds. Think of it more as a block quilt of plants than a bunch of straight rows. In a potager garden, decorative and creative use of foliage and flower color, shape, and texture creates a beautiful yet functional garden and outdoor space.
Potager gardens are as different as their owners, but the unifying theme is that they supply edible, tasty ingredients for the kitchen while remaining a place of serenity and peace. Potager gardens aren’t only for those with in-ground space. They can be created with plants in pots and containers on a deck or patio, at least in spirit. They can be as small or large as you have space and energy for.
A potager garden isn’t a cottage garden, although, at first glance, they seem similar. Traditional cottage gardens emphasize flowers, whereas, in a true potager garden, almost everything is edible. However, the garden police aren’t going to come and inspect your work, so if you’d like to tuck a few zinnias or a couple of dahlias into your potager garden, go for it.
An important function of a potager garden was to provide much of the fresh vegetables, greens, and herbs which would have been too expensive or unavailable to their owners. Space was at a premium, and no empty soil or wasted space would have been allowed.
In a traditional veggie patch, you might plant potatoes, and after they’ve been dug, plant a cover crop or call it a day for that patch of soil. In a potager garden, the empty beds are replanted with new seasonal veggies. Spring crops are grown from the very first of the season, then replaced with summer crops, and eventually rotated to fall-grown plants to maximize production. For example, you might plant Early Wonder beets in spring for greens and tasty beets, a pair of Roma determinate tomato plants in summer, and lettuces or kale in late summer when the tomatoes are finishing to provide harvest into early winter, all in the same spot. Successional planting and crop replacement are used to keep the beds full during the entire growing season.
Designing a Potager Garden
While there are no must-follow rules (this is gardening, after all), there are a few themes that distinguish a potager garden from a random assortment of plants.
A true potager garden consists mostly of plants we like to cook with and maybe a few flowers for variety. It is organized to make continual planting, care, and harvesting accessible, but should add some personality and artistry. And the more types of plants in the potager garden, the better. Don’t be afraid to plant a few different varieties of lettuce instead of one big bed of the same thing. Mix plants up by colors or by shapes.
Style Elements of Potager Gardens
Potager gardens are typically symmetrical in some fashion. Where ornamental gardens may be more flowing and free, there is usually a defining plan and often a center feature in potager plots. A sundial in a bed at the center might be surrounded by two rows of beds with an aisle between each, or the main paths might all lead toward the middle instead of bisecting the garden into normal rectangles.
Nearly everything in the potager garden should have a role in the kitchen, and edible flowers provide a bright splash of color and can go in the harvest basket. Nasturtiums, pansies, chives, and borage all work well in a kitchen garden, bringing pollinators, adding color, and becoming tasty flavorings. Lavender and chamomile can provide flowers and herbs simultaneously.
Many potager gardens in modern yards are formed out of raised beds, which are more expensive initially but offer many advantages. When planning a potager garden in raised beds, space plants a little more closely than normal. You’ll be tending them carefully, watering, and providing nutrients, so they can stand a bit of competition. Closer planting will make your garden look lush and full of bounty, which, of course, is what we want.
Add a Defining Central Feature
Reflecting the idea of symmetry, many potager gardens have a central design element, with beds laid out around it. Water fountains are popular and add a French flair, providing a bathing spot for birds and a drinking spot for pollinators. A small fountain rising above the foliage of a raised bed full of nasturtiums, dwarf sunflowers, and herbs can be just the ticket. If fountains are not your thing, you might try a tall bean tower, a small pond or barrel with watercress, or simply a bistro table and a couple of chairs.
Well-defined and workable paths
Reflecting their origins as kitchen workhorses, potager gardens have well-defined paths. Ornamental garden beds may be too wide to reach the center without stepping inside, but potager beds should be easily accessible to weed, plant, and of course, harvest. Typically, that means no more than four feet in width. Small gardens can get away with narrow paths, but larger plots need at least some paths suitable for wheelbarrow access.
When laying out raised beds in particular, keep in mind the space it takes to turn a wheelbarrow (and its driver). I’ve made the mistake of creating tight corners only to find myself trying to muscle a loaded wheelbarrow out and away from my body to navigate a turn, making contortionist efforts to avoid stepping in beds while not tipping over the load.
Four-season appeal
While most of us are three-season gardeners, the structures in a potager garden should be laid out and planned to provide continued visual interest even in winter. Raised beds and paths, fences and hedges, trellises, arbors, seating, and obelisks should all be attractive and provide a winterscape even when the plants (at least the annuals) are gone.
While the peas climbing the iron obelisk may be finished for the year, the bed and shape remain, standing vigil until spring. Perennial foliage like bee balm provides structure even after the frosts have turned them brown. Evergreen shrubs like holly used as part of the border complete a winter picture of a sleeping garden.
Add a fence or boundary
It doesn’t have to be a six-foot privacy fence, but a boundary of some sort will help with the symmetry and organization of a potager garden. It could be evergreen hedging, a trellis with crawling vines, or even a wall of sunflowers.
A simple garden gate at the main entrance adds to the effect and can be an easy way to keep unsupervised visitors (canines, children, the neighbor’s pet sheep) out of the garden.
Go vertical
Adding structures for pole beans, climbing nasturtiums, melons, or peas is a great way to keep in the spirit of potager by maximizing growing space, and it adds a ton of visual interest. There’s something satisfying about giving vining plants something to climb. Anchor vertical structures well against summer storms.
What to plant in a potager garden
Planning a potager garden is more heavy thinking than a traditional American veggie patch. The space is tighter, and considerations of shading (watch where you put that sweet corn), watering preferences, and vertical space need careful thought. But start with the idea of herbs, greens, veggies, and edible flowers. Like with any kitchen garden, plant what you will use. If you hate lettuce, it’s okay to leave that off the list. If you need 50 tomato plants for salsa and canned tomatoes, put five in the potager garden and the rest in a big bed off to the side.
By all means, plant whatever you enjoy eating, but if you are stuck for ideas to get rolling, here are a few plants to consider when planning your potager garden.
Herbs
Veggies
-
Root vegetables (carrots, beets, parsnips, turnips)
-
Tomatoes
-
Melons and winter squashes climbing on trellises or arches
-
Summer squash
Greens
-
Lettuces
-
Swiss chard (tasty and colorful)
-
Beets (for greens)
-
Watercress
Edible Flowers
-
Nasturtiums
-
Signet marigolds
-
Pansies
While traditional English gardens were more formal and the French had their estate gardens as well, the potager garden was the working person’s garden, tidy and well-laid out, productive and prosperous, and lovingly tended but practical with a touch of whimsy. Follow that idea, and your potager garden will turn out well.