THE KITCHEN GARDEN

Ambitious KITCHEN GARDENS are seldom achievable in a small space.  Vegetables that are hungry for space such as potatoes and cabbages may lose out to flowers.  But if you are content with smaller vegetables such as lettuces, carrots, beetroot, and dwarf beans, and can relegate tall climbing beans and expansive plants like globe artichokes to the mixed or herbacious border, it is quite practical to grow a wide range of vegetables even where space is quite restricted.

Grow a whole a range of vegetables, from lettuces to peas, in containers like windowboxes and growing bags.  Even potatoes can be harvested from pots and growing bags and tomatoes of all types have been grown with great success in growing bags.  This kind of small-scale vegetable gardening is demanding, and the yields always very modest for the ffort involved, but if the idea of harvesting your own fresh vegetables just before you pop them into the pot appeals, you may find it worth the efffort.  It can certainly be fun.

If you have a reasonably sized garden - large enough to divide off a section for a kitchen garden - growing them in the ground is the most practical way to procude your vegetables, and much of the fruit.

Fruit trees and bushes are often ornamental and can be easily integrated into the flower garden.  Trained fruit trees like espalier and fan apples look attractive even with bare branches in winter.

Herbs are much more easily accomodated than vegetables.  Many are highly ornamental and lots of them make good container plants.  Others look perfectly in place in a border.  If you want to make a real feature of your herbs, make a herb garden a key part of your garden design.