This past summer, we created a Potager Garden at Three Acre Farm.

Over the growing season, I posted loads of photos and updates on my Instagram Stories, with the promise that I would eventually share a detailed Blog post illustrating the process of creating, building and planting the Potager Garden.

Ready to learn about the Potager Garden?

Let’s begin!

Warning: This is a LOOOOOOOOOONG post with lots of photos. ;)

WHY WE BUILT A POTAGER GARDEN

Before we started Three Acre Farm in 2017, we were homesteaders.

Homesteading has many definitions, but for us, it meant growing as much of our own food as possible. I trained as a Master Gardener and learned how to grow dozens of different fruits and vegetables. It was a full-time job managing my garden during the growing season!!!

**Half of my original vegetable garden back in 2015 before I started Three Acre Farm**

When I started flowering farming in 2017, working for Three Acre Farm became my full-time job… and I could no longer homestead and manage my giant vegetable garden. After years of neglect, we abandoned my old vegetable garden. It was just too much work.

**Neglected vegetable garden. So sad! This is the space we transformed into the Potager Garden.**

But I couldn't imagine life without a vegetable garden. Just like many of you, gardening is my hobby.

After a long day of farming, I look forward to spending time relaxing in my garden!

So we begin to reimagine what a “hobby” vegetable garden could look like for me…

I wanted it to be smaller, more manageable and most importantly, I wanted it to be BEAUTIFUL.
I wanted it to be a space of refuge and relaxation to help me unwind from the stress of farming.
I wanted it to be a place to nourish my body, mind and soul.

WHAT IS A POTAGER GARDEN?

I began researching different types of gardens and came across the concept of the “Potager Garden”.

“Potager” is a French word that literally means “for the soup pot”. It’s pronounced po-ta-jé.

These types of gardens are sometimes called “Kitchen Gardens”, since they are:

often planted close to the kitchen, almost as an extension of the home
full of veggies, fruits, herbs and flowers for the kitchen table

Another distinguishing feature is the emphasis on symmetrical design, a tradition that goes back to Medival times. Not only do these gardens value “function” (producing food), but they also value “form” (design, layout, aesthetics, beauty, etc). In other words, the perfect intersection of function and form, which is the ultimate goal in design.

I purchased the book “Designing The New Kitchen Garden” by Jennifer R. Bartley and I was absolutely mesmerized by the history, design concepts and functionality of the Potager Garden (I believe this book is out of print, so check your local library).

**Fantastic book that includes the history of Potager Gardens**

DRAWING THE PLANS

It took me about 2 years of sketching, dreaming and scheming to finally come up with the final plan for my new Potager Garden.

In the end, I went with a design that focuses on a central element (the fountain), 4 smaller beds and 4 larger beds.

**Original Sketch, complete with coffee stains and dirty finger prints ;)**

The inner smaller beds are 4’x4’.

The outer “L”-shaped beds are also 4’ wide but we adjusted the length on some of them to accommodate the grape arbor that would be installed at the entrance of the garden.

The entire garden is roughly 40’ x 40’.

We had a list of “must-have” elements to consider:

Proximity to the house. Ideally, I’d be able to walk out to the garden and harvest herbs and produce while cooking dinner.
Full sun and fertile soil
Spacious layout (we made sure we could easily navigate wheelbarrows around all the beds)
Raised beds made from long-lasting materials (we chose Oak beams. My husband found someone on Facebook Marketplace selling rough-sawn beams)
Central water source
Vertical elements, such as arches and obelisks to create a “garden room” space that would feel 3 dimensional
A fountain. It’s so soothing and relaxing to listen to the fountain while working in the garden!

BREAKING GROUND & BUILDING DREAMS

In Michigan, where I live, most people plant their vegetable gardens in mid May.

Springtime on a flower farm is absolutely INSANE and we knew there was no way we’d be able to get the Potager Garden built in time for May planting.

So we decided to wait until AFTER the majority of the farm planting was done to begin working on the Potager Garden.

This means that construction started around late May and planting began in mid-June, about a month late.

**1st Bed being constructed on May 27, 2024**

**2nd Bed construction on May 30, 2024**

My birthday is in May. All I wanted for my birthday was a fountain for my garden… but they are quite expensive! My husband, the “King of Facebook Marketplace Finds”, found this used fountain for me for my birthday. It doesn’t look like much when it’s in pieces but it’s beautiful when it’s arranged!

Sorry, I can’t tell you where to buy a fountain. You’ll likely have to look locally, as they would be incredibly expensive to ship.

As soon as John finished the outer beds, he began filling the beds for me so I could get plants in the ground ASAP. I was chomping at the bit to get my tomatoes and peppers planted!

He filled the raised beds “lasagna style” with a mix of the following ingredients:

Sand - for drainage. We used sand from our property, since our farm’s “soil” is pretty much like sand box sand ;)
Old leaves - we keep a gigantic pile of old leaves for planting and mulching, because leaves are INCREDIBLE organic matter
Native Soil - when we took apart the old vegetable garden, we set the soil aside to create the new Potager Garden beds
Goat & Chicken Compost - we keep goats and chickens on the farm. Their manure and bedding is composted for about 2-3 seasons before we use it. This stuff is BLACK GOLD and plants love it.
Leaf Mulch - we keep separate piles of old leaves. After 2-3 seasons, it breaks down into beautiful light airy mulch, full of beneficial bacteria, minerals and organic matter
Woodchip Mulch - our local arborist/tree trimmer drops off loads of chipped leaves, branches, trees

**Putting Tomatoes and Peppers in on June 12, 2024.**

The woodchip mulch on top serves 3 purposes:

Conserves moisture. They help keep the soil from drying out in the hot sun.
Weed deterrent. Bare soil WILL grow weeds, so always keep the soil covered with some sort of mulch
Soil Improvement. As the chipped twigs, leaves and woodchips slowly break down over the years, they add fertility to the soil and improve the soil structure.

Once I finished planting the outer beds in mid June, we started working on the inner beds and the bed for the fountain. During this time, we did a lot of walking around the garden, feeling it out, to make sure we left enough space between beds for wheelbarrows, benches for sitting, etc.

It looks like we could have made the pathways smaller, but by the time the garden was fully mature, I was SO GLAD we’d left more space!

By June 27, we finally had most of the plants in the garden beds. It was finally time to start making the garden look pretty. We spent a lot of time weeding the pathways, then putting down a thick layer of mulch.

Some people may choose to lay down stone or pea gravel, but I prefer the look and feel of woodchips. We may add stepping stone or brick paver pathways some day… but for now, woodchips fit the budget ;)

**Mulching the pathways on June 27, 2024**

Even though we planted this garden 4-6 weeks late, we were SHOCKED at how quickly it grew. I was always worried about getting my garden in too late, but now I know better. Planting a few weeks before the Summer Solstice is fine! The long sunny days help the plants grow fast!

VERTICAL ELEMENTS IN THE GARDEN

Since this new Potager Garden was much smaller than my previous gardens, I wanted to make use of all available space to grow… so that meant growing UP! Instead of OUT.

I made use of vertical elements in a couple different ways:

Cattle Panel “walls” - I’ve been using this method for growing cherry tomatoes for years. We purchase “cattle panel” fence panels from our local Tractor Supply Co and secure them to rebar stakes driven into the ground. This trellis system creates a “wall “ of tomatoes.
Obelisks - these metal trellis structures are great for climbing plants.
Cattle Panel Arches - We used the 16’ long cattle panels from TSC and bent them into arches between the beds. We simply zip-tied or wired them to rebar stakes.

CATTLE PANEL “WALLS”

GARDEN OBELISKS

CATTLE PANEL ARCHES

PLANTS FOR THE POTAGER GARDEN

As a Master Gardener and flower farmer, I’m well aware of the rules about “plant spacing”. This refers to how much space should be left between plants.

Well, in the case of the Potager Garden, I completely ignored proper plant spacing and stuffed as many plants as I could in the beds. Ha!

I wanted to garden to feel lush, overflowing and abundant.

And it certainly did! It also led to a few issues, such as shorter planting being crowded out by taller plants and my tall plants getting SO big that their supports collapsed under the weight of them. Oh well!

Since I’m no longer homesteading and trying to grow our own food, I could be a little more discriminating in what I decided to grow. This garden is for feeding the body, the mind and soul… not just the body.

Mostly, I wanted to grow the ingredients for my favorite summer food, this AMAZING Cucumber Salsa. So naturally, I grew a lot of cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and herbs.

Just for fun, I planted a wide variety of vegetables, herbs and flowers in the Potager Garden.

Basil
Cosmos
Dahlias
Tomatoes
Jalapeno Pepper
Lettuce
Mouse Melons (Cukamelons)
Nasturtium
Nicotiana
Parsley
Poblano Peppers
Pole Beans
Scarlet Runner Beans
Sorrel
Swiss Chard
Thyme
Verbena
Zinnias
Verbena

Here are some of the notable standouts, in no particular order.

Swiss Chard - When I designed the garden, I envisioned beds with colorful Swiss Chard spilling out of them. The reality exceeded my fantasy! Even when the rest of the garden died after the frost in mid-October, it still looked amazing. Swiss Chard is gorgeous, productive, tasty, cold-hardy, heat-tolerant and long-lasting. I harvested it from June - December. What’s not to love?!?
Cucumbers - I’ve been growing the Japanese variety called “Shintokiwa” for a few years now and I’m convinced it may be the BEST cucumber ever. I harvested for over 3 months from the same 6 plants. You can find the seeds at Nature & Nurture Seeds in Dexter, MI.
Nicotiana - This beautiful blooming plant was super popular with the hummingbirds. I love coming out to the garden each morning to watch the hummingbirds feed.
Lettuce - Marvel of the Four Seasons. This delicious lettuce is more heat tolerant than most types of lettuce. It’s great for spring, summer, fall or winter growing. It truly IS a marvel!
Verbena - These violet blooms are loved by pollinators.
Tomatoes - I’ve tried dozens of tomatoes over the last 20 years and here are my favorites: The Bumblebee Cherry Series (Pink, Purple and Sunrise), Growing in Place (currant type from Nature & Nurture Seeds), Early Detroit (from Nature & Nurture Seeds) and Cherokee Purple.
Nasturtium - I planted these along the edges of the beds so they would spill out. They added so much whimsy and playfulness to the garden!

A GARDEN FOR ALL FOUR SEASONS

What I love most about the Potager Garden is the structural elements.

Unlike a tilled-up patch in the dirt that looks nice for just a few months (a traditional garden), a Potager Garden has year-round appeal.

Because the beds are permanent, the Potager Garden can become a home for perennial herbs, flowers and vegetables.

The structure of the garden is pleasing to the eye, no matter what season or what is growing (or not growing) in the garden.

WHAT’S NEXT

We still have quite a bit of work to do to “complete” the Potager Garden project, including:

Fencing it in so my chickens don’t eat all my tomatoes ;)
The glass greenhouse featured in so many of these photos needed to be removed. We built a new garden shed and that will need to be incorporated into the Potager Garden.
Adding a few more small beds to the west for perennial herbs (in front of the new garden shed).
Rebuilding the grape arbor and training the grapes to grow on the Potager Garden fence.
Adding more vertical elements, such as a cable system suspended over the garden to encourage birds to linger in the garden (and eat all the pests that try to eat my veggies!).

But that’s the joy of gardens… they are always a work in progress, never fully complete.

They are full of endless opportunities for change and growth!

I hope you enjoyed this report on the Potager Garden.

I’m sure I’ll be adding more updates in the future!

-Lori

2024 Potager Garden Report