#thecottagebungalow Potager: Garden Placement & The Design Plan

Hi Everyone!

It’s garden talk time, friends. Thank you all so much for the wonderful comments on my last post about thecottagebungalow potager.  Seeing you guys so excited about it makes me even that much more so! Now that you all have an idea of what I’m hoping to create, let’s get into some specifics.  

Right, so one of the things I love about our yard is how it’s laid out.  Its configured in a way that allows us to create very specific zones quite easily while also maintaining a good flow. Almost immediately upon walking through for the very first time I knew exactly where the perfect spot for the garden would be: in the spanse of yard tucked behind the detached garage.

Now traditionally speaking the best place for a potager is close to the kitchen.  Ideally you want to be able to look out the kitchen window or door and see what’s growing in the garden.  This makes it easy for planning meals, garden maintainence, and for harvesting as well. If you can’t build it near the kitchen, you want to put it in an area that you have quick and easy access to.  An area you can see throughout the day and one that isn’t a complete hassel to get to.  Unfortunately, our kitchen looks out onto the front yard facing the driveway so that’s not a possibility.  I also have to consider the backyard as a whole and how the entire family will be using it. I don’t want to take up the middle of the yard and leave everyone else just to deal with it. So even though tucking it off to the side behind the garage isn’t exactly in proper potager placement practice (try saying that three times fast!), it is the best spot for us. I spend most of my day during the busy spring and summer growing season outside, plus it’s only just a few short steps from the laundry room entrance which connects to the kitchen so its all good.

Because of the way the garage sits on our property it creates the perfect little garden zone giving me a good bit of space to work with, BUT it was a bit of a mess. A large deteriorating shed sat smack in the middle of the potential growing area, there were a couple of trees planted in random places…including a liquid ash, and a pine tree had been planted inside a weird raised bed. There was a boarded up section of the garage being masked by a climbing flower bush, and I don’t even want to get started on the poor fence. It was on its last leg. Here are some old pics from before we replaced the fence and painted the exterior of the house.

With my future garden dreams in mind I was on a mission to clear everything out so I could have a clean slate. We’ve slowly been making changes and improvements over the last few years including replacing the fence and making it 2 feet taller than it was before, painting the exterior of our house, having the stucco on the garage patched, and removing trees.

This past summer we had the shed removed

and once the rainy weather subsides I’ll have the raised bed in the corner taken out. This thing has given us so much pause since we moved in.  It looks like at some point it may have been a water fountain, but also there was a pine tree planted in it, and also there was once some electrical running into it?  I dont know!  All I know is its gotta go!

Over the last several years I’ve monitored the way the sun moves over the yard throughout the seasons (particularly in summer), the way the rain pools and drains in winter, and the way the wind rips through. With everything cleared out I started thinking of a layout that would be both the best use of space and be super productive as well.  I measured the area and its approximately 25 ft wide (from the side fence to the end of the garage) and 61 ft long (from the back fence to the garage), which is quite a decent amount of space.  It will give me plenty of room to grow lots of fruit, veggies, and flowers.  After measuring out the space and brainstorming my wants and needs I put pen to paper and created a scaled garden plan:

Let me start my saying this plan is in no way ironclad.  As with all things in life there’s bound to be some details that will need to change so I’m open and prepared for that, BUT, this is what I’d love to see as the basic garden infrastructure.  With this plan I’m able to get in all the elements on my wish list…(centralized vegetable beds, chickens, a greenhouse, etc.).. and do it in a way that maximizes the long narrow-ish space.  So let’s go over a couple of the details I’ve already been asked about:

Vegetable Beds: As you can see from the plan the beds will be generous sized and will take advantage of the length of the space. I prefer to have only a few large beds than lots of  smaller beds. The question I’ve been asked is what I will make them out of? Will I build wooden raised beds ? Will I use a material like cattle troughs? Will I practice no dig? And the long and short of it is: I don’t know yet.

I haven’t yet decided whether I want to build raised beds or if I want to grow from our existing soil.  This is where a soil test will come into play.  I’ll be getting the soil tested to determine if I can work with what I have and go with a lasagne style/no dig situation and just compost and amend the heck out of  our existing soil, or if I have to build deep raised beds and bring in all new soil.  Once I figure that out I’ll be able to determine the look of them.  I really really love the look of rock or stone bordered beds though.

A Living Fence: This is another detail Ive been asked quite a bit: how exactly  will I  seperate the garden from the main lawn area, particularly because we have Callie? My initial thought was to build a short fence made of wood and cattle wire, but I really much prefer something a bit softer and and more natural.  We already have A LOT of fence in the backyard and I didn’t want to add even more across a pretty big spanse. Thankfully we have a dog who is really well behaved and I have no fear that she will get into the growing beds, so I don’t necessarily need to come up with a way to keep her out of the garden completely.  Drawing inspiration from the gorgeous lavender fields of France I instead decided to create a living “fence” by planting a hedge of lavender to seperate the garden zone from the rest of the yard.  Our Meditteranean climate is ideal for growing lavender so i think it should work.  It will eventually grow in bushy and around 2-3 ft tall creating a great natural fencing.  Plus lavender is a natural attractor of beneficial pollinators like bees and hummingbirds which is perfect for the garden.

via

Greenhouse: I’ve had a few people ask me about this as well.  The most common question is If Ill try to build something myself from plans.  Nope! Those are so pretty though, right?! Especially the ones made from recycled windows and doors. Seriously, so dreamy, but I know my limitations ya’ll. I have a lot going on in life at the moment and taking on this project is going to be laborous enough so anywhere I can source something out, Im gonna do it.  I’m hoping to find one secondhand.  I’ve been checking Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace since last year looking to take one off someone elses hands. If I can’t find one I’ll probably just get a basic inexpensive one from Harbor Freight, the hardware store, or online.

Flooring: Will we use wood chips? Keep the grass? Put in pea gravel? Make it all brick? Honestly I don’t have a clue yet. The one detail I do know is there will be some type of pavered pathways, but as for the main flooring material I’m not sure. I’m leaning toward wood chips, but we’ll see.  I just know it needs to be relatively inexpensive.

Alrighty friends! There you have it. Its time to start putting this plan to action so up next in my next garden series post you should see an update on the very beginning stages of the area coming together.  I should have the results of the soil test, started building the beds, and have started some planting.

Until next time friends…..

Posted By: Shavonda Gardner · In: gardening, thecottagebungalow