The Kitchen Garden

The one thing I missed from our old house more than anything was my herb garden, only this time I had the room to not only expand my herbs, but grow vegetables too! I knew I didn't want a traditional row garden and I definitely wanted herbs, vegetables and flowers grown together. Not only would it be pretty with everything combined, but it would also let me practice companion gardening. Once the spot was picked it was so close to the house that once again its colonial style dictated part of the design. Of course, for me all of that combined meant research, research and research.

Eventually, I put my design to paper; a 36' by 16' rectangle on the "inside" with four 4' by 16' beds on either side of the "gates" (fencing to come.) The interior beds are mirror images with one exception. On either side of the main walkway the beds are 8' at the back, 6' wide on the sides; the two beds together form a sort of hexagon in the walkway. Behind each of them is a rectangular bed and at the back another long rectangle. The only fracture in the mirror comes at the far end from the house, where the long rectangle is broken in two, leaving room for a future trellis and bench. The bench you see now is strictly a placeholder.

The inside is mainly devoted to vegetables and their companion plants. The outside beds closest to the backyard holds edible herbs and the ones facing the front are old-fashioned herbs of the kind Brother Cadfael himself would have grown.

Creating all of this was, well, horrible! I learned a technique from The Vegetable Gardener's Bible by Edward C. Smith for "easily" making right angles--"The Magic Triangle." Apparently it was first developed by the ancient Egyptians about 4,000 years ago and the formula is: if one leg of a triangle is 3 units, the 2nd is 4 units, and the hypotenuse is 5 units you have a right angle. Got it? Okay now repeat it approximately 40 times and keep your sanity! I began sometime in April and finished the end of May. It was a little late in the growing season for planting vegetables, but after all of that I still had to try. Things are growing slowly and as you know I've had some challenges from the deer. The crows too. I came home one day after planting seeds over the weekend to find the straw removed from the beds! Oh well, we're plugging along!