If you liked my post from yesterday, you may also be interested in this other recent article that I wrote for Treehugger:
The Kitchen Garden: Layout Tips and Ideas
This piece is less about the details of bed shape and configuration, and planting schemes, and more about a few simple tips and ideas that can help you to come up with your own ideas. Here are the main takeaways:
- Think creatively and ‘outside the box’.
- Keep practicalities in mind – beds should be easy to tend.
- Integrate water and fertility management systems into your layout and design.
- Consider integrating composting into the beds themselves. (In lasagna gardens or hugelkultur mounds, for example, or as compost containers at the heart of keyhole beds.)
- Create polycultures – thinking about all the different ways that different plants can aid one another when grown in the same beds.
- You don’t have to have an edible garden and an ornamental garden – think about how you can have spaces that are both beautiful and provide abundant yields.
- Plan for the future – create a layout that makes crop rotation easier.
- Use perennial plants to enhance annual food producing zones. Even when you do not use them in the beds themselves, they can be used in many other ways…
Creating the perfect kitchen garden is not something that happens overnight. But putting in plenty of thought up front can save a lot of trouble down the line. As usual, if you would like some help to come up with your own kitchen garden layout plan, please do get in touch.
EWSP Consultancy 