After I tried to explain the layout, it occurred to me to mark it in the soil. Here is the layout with the 4' wide by 5' long beds with 30" paths. The outside line is where the fence would be. On the right, the fence will be where the existing wire fence is now.

Thanks for your patience!

Lisa

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Lisa- I love your potager design. I think your paths are wide enough and the beds look like a great size. The shed is very cute and gives a nice cottage look to the garden.

The shed looks like the perfect place to put up some trellis and a couple of climbing roses. That would give you some height in the potager. An obelisk in each of the back beds would look nice too...maybe for climbing beans? I like the shrubs, they're pretty while they're blooming and kind of balance the dogwood, but I understand that pictures are not the same as being there...so the shrubs might not be as nice in person.

Are you putting in an arbor over your picket gate? That would also give you some vertical space. Not everyone does that, but I see it mentioned all the time, over on the potager forum :)

Looks great so far and I'm looking forward to seeing more pictures!

Perfect! I can't wait to see it!

I assume your photo is taken mid-afternoon? That's what it looks like from the shadows. If so, I would grow cucumbers and beans on a fence on the left side, adding a small raised bed there just for those vines. You can plant a lot in the size beds you have. I only have 160 sq ft of planting space in my 4 raised beds. I'll be growing beans, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes and a variety of herbs and companion flowers. Don't forget about basil and nasturtiums. Some cosmos along the outside edge of the fence will bring in pollinators. As will dill. You can eat nasturtiums too. Peppery. Very good in a spinach salad with a little cilantro. Top with a light sun dried tomato vinaigrette and some pan seared scallops. Mmmm, mmm. Wait, were we talking about gardening or eating? ;)

I'm a lurker here (I love it, but my garden is not very cottagey, so I never feel that I can contribute much!). I have 6 wooden raised veggie beds, which are each a little over 5' x 3', so a total area of ~90 sq ft. I would love to have more space, so that I can fit even more tomato plants in!

It depends what you want to grow in your potager beds -- if you are planning lots of herbs and a few veggie plants, then you should have lots of room, but if you want to grow as many veggies as you can, then I would add the extra foot in length to each, you would still keep the lovely symmetry. Last year we had only 3 of our beds (about 45 sq ft) and we could never produce enough tomatoes so had to add store-bought all summer (we had about 10 plants last year). So it just depends what you want to grow.

Your garden is beautiful, it looks like you've really transformed it in a short time! The potager will be lovely...and gives me lots of ideas about how to beautify my raised bed area!

Your original plan to do 4x4 beds might be a better idea. My old garden had four 4x4 beds and two 4x5. I always had to step inside the 4x5s to turn the soil. That extra foot makes it difficult.

My current potager has six 3x9 foot beds. Much easier to work with!

Wonderful. Go for the 3x5 beds so you can reach in from either side along the length of them. 4x4 is too deep, it'll give you a back ache reaching in. It's going to look lovely!

MeMo

Thanks so much for all of the ideas. One challenge that I face in working with stone is that the material itself reduces the planting area within the beds. So, what sounds like 20 sq ft (4'x5' bed) is really closer to 12 sq ft at best because even the smallest stone is going to eat up 6" of the perimeter.

Here's an overhead shot of the area that includes a small raised bed that encircles one of my dogwoods, so you can see what I mean. The outside dimension of that bed is 4'x4', but the planting area is less than 3'x3'. Of course that stone is pretty large since it was just the leftover from my retaining wall in my front garden.

I intentionally chose much smaller, thinner stone for the potager to maximize planting space. The good news about the stone is that it gives me a substantial surface to sit on, lean on, walk on, when needed. With that said, do you still think a 4'x5' exterior dimension with a smaller planting area (probably 3'x4' or so) is a problem?

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LL, I am definitely planning on climbing roses--so thanks for seconding that thought! I already planted Altissimo in the back right corner. That's part of the reason the quince needs to be cut back, because right now the rose is in the shade. I was originally thinking of putting a Molineux hedge under the little red roof overhang, but then I started thinking that I'd rue the day I planted them there as I get stuck by thorns whenever I'm working at that end of the potager. Now I'm thinking of adding something like Graham Thomas as a climber on the left side to balance Altissimo on the right. I have an old homemade ladder that is hanging inside the garage that I plan to cut in two lengthwise on an angle to match the slope of the roof and put half on each side as a trellis for the roses.

Yeah, the shrubbery looks nice, but the fence guy needs for it to go. I'm not broken up about it, because it really is an ill-planned hodge-podge right now. It'll give me a chance to do what I want to do there.

Also, I love the idea of an arbor, and it's something I've thought about. However, I'm worried about it casting shade on the potager. The entry gate will be smack in the center of the south end, so it would cast shade all day. I've considered doing something less substantial than wood (like iron?) and planting something that isn't too "leafy." What do you think? You can see from the overhead shot that I'm lucky to have full sun at all. There is stuff casting shade all around, but that area really gets 8+ hours but not much more.

Please keep your thoughts coming! I started playing with the stone already, but the serious work will wait until I'm sure I know what I want. Having the layout painted on the ground is helping.

Thanks again,

Lisa

Lisa- That's a good point about an arbor casting too much shade on the garden. I think the climbing roses in the back will give you the same idea, without blocking the sun. A pretty picket gate will be wonderful.

After seeing more of your yard, I see why you don't need to keep the shrubs. Your yard is beautiful!

As for bed size, go out and pretend to garden with your outlines. If you can't stand outside the "bed" and reach the middle, it's too big. If you can, you should be fine :)

I am building many of the beds in my potager with stone as well. My asparagus bed's footprint is 6 x 26 but with the boulders in place, the planting space available is actually 4 x 24. With that in mind, I think the size of your beds is fine.

For ornament, I would consider looking for a something for the center. A tall pot, a bird bath, sundial, etc. to give some veritcality in the middle. Some other ideas would be a tree rose (very traditional for potagers) or a small scale tuteur with a climbing vine of some sort (edible or ornamental).