Hi Mary. I'm the girlgroupgirl (I do not use my real name on screen, just in emails) and I am in downtown Atlanta.
I'm not a slow gardener, but it sure feels like it these last few days!! I've harvested veggies and flowers, watered some with grey-water (watering ban is in effect) but it's been 100 so I've tried to stay indoors as much as possible (which I hate!!).
I've decided to grow two more raised beds next year with veggies. This year I added some flowers to my veggie beds, next year my aim is solid vegetables but to use rainbow colored veggies for an ornamental and yumalicious effect! This year I've begun with yellow tomatoes, two types of purple beans, a yellow bean and some stripey tomatoes.
Nothing like a psychedelic dinner!
I have sugar baby melons and also Sprite melons in, but they are a bit slow. I planted late!

GGG

Hi, I'm gurley and I'm a plantaholic.

(Hi GGG)

I garden in central South Carolina and like just about everthing. Lots of tropical plants like banana, canna, ginger and elephant ears.
Fruit trees; although I'm giving up on the peach I'm still going to try to make a go of it with the pear, plum and apple trees.
Veggies; my squash have filled my freezer and I'm not really sorry that powdery mildew is starting to win - we have had enough squash and zucchini to feed every neighbor and co-worker.
Next year my main veggie garden is being moved to raised beds behind my husbands shop and my potager is going to be reserved for the apple trees and some more well behaved herbs and veggies. Some small sweet pumkins are currently having thier way with the entire potager.
I may plant some cabbage there over the winter - I think rings of cabbage around the circle might be pretty - haven't decided yet.

Hi! I'm Diana, or Di, either one works with me. : ) I garden in sunny So.Ca. at a mile high elevation on the northern slopes of the beautiful San Gabriel mountains. I've been gardening here for 16 yrs. and love it. DH and I share our home with 3 furbabies - Emma, Gracie and Lewis.

My potager is about 5-6 yrs. old. I grow various vegies in it, as well as seeds and propagated plants. Right now it mostly holds toms, peppers, squash, beans, carrots and berries - blueberries, my favorites. The hollyhocks have seeded all over the beds so I am constantly pulling them. Some I've let grow and some just come back every year without fail. You can see pics in the link below.

I also grow apples and apricots. I will soon be adding plums, thanks to a little enabling from a cottage garden friend. And I grow gourds and mini pumpkins up a portion of fencing behind the potager, where they're more easily trained and don't take up as much space.

Other interests are quilting, major league baseball and home decorating. We are in the midst of remodeling our downstairs and I go to bed every day bone tired and wake up the same. lol! The kitchen demo is getting close so I'm sure there's a lot of take out in my future. Any quick recipes that will keep in the frig/freezer and not need more than a warm up in the microwave are gladly welcome!

Diana

Michelle here from Iowa. I have gardened for 8 years. Last fall I revamped the plain veggie garden into what I like to call a potager. I have veggies, a cutting area, an asparagus bed and a holding/propagation area. Since it is just the 2 of us now, we don't need lots of veggies and I hate canning.

Michelle

I'm Nan- I can usually be found over in Cottage Gardening and just found this forum! (where was I?) I have a small potager that really started out as a vegetable plot in the small amount of full sun I have out back, and I'm working to expand it on the other side of the fence via lasagna beds. I've also devoted a lot more space for a cutting garden and plan to espalier some fruit trees in that area. I hope to learn/see how you've worked your potagers to make them not only productive but aesthetically pleasing. I may be the only person in my neighborhood that thinks lettuce is as pretty as it is to eat! LOL
-Nan

Hi! I'm Kristin - I garden in Massachusetts on the North Shore, zone 5 or 6 (I practice zone denial so I can never remember which!). My potager is new this year: lettuce, spinach, chard, herbs, tomatoes, tomatillo, eggplant, peas, beans, hot peppers, summer squash and zucchini, nasturtiums, glads, strawberries, and zinnias. A peach tree and a cherry tree (that's new), too. I want to add blueberry bushes and raspberries (and a fence!) next year. I only get about 4-5 hours full sun in my sunniest spot - crossing my fingers that'll do the trick! I lurk this forum frequently - I'll have to post more often!

Hi,
I'm Haziemoon. I started gardening last year. I garden in Colorado. I found this site while trying to get plant info, and have been hooked ever since.

I tried my hand at veggies last year, and loved it. So
I put in my potager this spring, and can't wait for it to look like the ones I've seen here. I'm also really into cottage gardens, so I've been working all spring and summer
putting in flower beds.

We also grow grapes and peaches. So I've been a sponge for knowledge.

If I'm not in the garden I'm logged on to the Garden Web Forums.

Haziemoon

Hi all,

I am Almendra from the East Bay area of San Francisco, Ca. I have been gardening since 1992, but I have taken brakes while pregnant, nursing and toddler care, which is when I stuck to indoor plants.

My Potager/Cottage garden is only about 3 yrs. old, even though I have lived in this home for 6 1/2 yrs.

I am trying to have a beautiful garden that doesn't need much water, and the plants that do, I am training them to adjust to minimum amounts of water. My focus now is to minimize the lawn which I have achieved in the backyard, now I am focusing on the front yard.

I am currently growing apples, peaches, cherries, grapes, figs, raspberries, blueberries, lemons, limes, oranges, strawberries, sage, mint, currants, various edible native plants to this area, sunflowers for attracting beneficial insects, yarrow, nasturtiums, tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelon, thyme, roses, armeria, rockroses, society garlic, rudbeckia, coreopsis, indian blanket, etc., etc., etc. I mostly have one each of the big ones such as apples, unless there is a need for a second one for cross pollination.

I grew an avocado from seed but beware of the roots. They take over your land and even go under your concrete sidewalks, so we pulled it out.

Most of these plants are 3yrs. old or younger, so I am very excited to see the outcome yet to come.

I love this forum as well as the cottage garden one. Thank your for everything you share.

Almendra

Hi!

I'm Jen and I am just starting gardening in WI. I am mostly working on hardscape right now, but hoping to get plants in the ground late summer.

I have an area set up as my potager and am slowly gathering everything I need to make my raised beds. I have to have a potager because I have two wee westies that think if it's green it's a treat, if there's dirt, it's the perfect spot to nap or roll in(especially when wet!), if it's mulch, then that must be the perfect spot to bury a bone.

I should have pictures soon!

Jen

I'm here too!
My name is Georgeanne and I grew up next to a fairytale cottage with the most beautiful potager outside my bedroom window. I could lay in bed and look right into their magical garden. These neighbors reproduced a Welsh cottage down to the thatched roof. (Fire regs made them change it before I was born).

So what did I do... I married a farmer/teacher and built a house in the middle of a hay field.
Our plan is to create beauty and be able to eat it. Hopefully before we keel over. Starting from scratch is tough, no shade, no secret bowers. So the little red hen said "I'll do it myself".

This Spring my potager plans got put on hold while we attempted a daring rescue mission of our fledgling, waist high maze. I DO have a potager, it's just planted all over h***'s half acre.
Next year when we get our patio/potager in will be exciting. And I'll be retired and pulling all projects off the back burner.

On a positive note...my flower beds are half full.
georgeanne

Hee, hee, I think I have a new "favorite" forum... and a bunch of people who understand what I've been trying to do. How delightful! GGG, I am pleased to see you here, although I do kick myself for somehow not connecting with you when I lived in Cherokee County, GA. I hung out on Georgia Gardeners and Cottage Garden forums, too.

Anyhow. My family returned "home" to the Heart of NY last summer, after 3 years in GA. I am happy to be back here, but find things that I miss about our brief Southern sojourn, and am certainly re-adjusting to the much shorter growing season...

Where we lived in GA there were not anywhere near enough existing homes to house all the newcomers to the area, so we bought an 8 year old house in a subdivision, and got to experience our first Homeowner's Association. Luckily, the rules were not strictly enforced, but there were certainly many raised eyebrows when I planted SUNFLOWERS in the front yard (only place on the property sunny enough), and TOMATOES behind my morning glories, and--horrors!!--cucumbers in between the phlox and zinnias.

Our "new" home is 96 years old, and I've been discovering some of the perennials here as the year has unfolded. The veggie garden was very small, being overrun by out-of-control herbs, and in a weird, angular shape. It just didn't inspire me, at all. So, while I'm in the process of recovering from a stroke at age 46 (just this past fall, after we moved back to NY), I'm using my gardening to re-build muscles and stamina!

I absolutely love round and curved design elements, and the gardens here were very much straight beds. Whilst driving along on a PA road when visiting Mom, I saw a garden that immediately registered as "my dream garden!" (Luckily noone was tailgating, because I practically stood on the brakes!) I had just started a round garden in GA when we decided to move, so I filled it back in. I went back to the PA garden with my digital camera, and took a dozen or more shots. On returning home, I adapted the design to the space we have. In the interests of not putting myself under too much pressure (this is supposed to be fun, right???!!) I have committed to planting only 1/4 of the circle this year. So far: sugar snap peas are curving around the outside border, with lettuces enjoying the shade they provide. Next come heirloom tomatoes: Big Rainbow, Green Zebra, Glacier, Italian Beef, and a pink French one, can't remember the name. Fin de Bagnol beans are not germinating well, but there are some volunteer squash and cucumbers that I'm delighted to have, since my seedlings of those failed. Basil's in with the tomatoes, and some marigolds are on their way. A few sunflowers are on the border, but I'm probably not going to have as many flowers this year as I hope to have in the future.

Sorry to be so long-winded, I'm just so happy since I finally got my classroom packed up today (everything's taking me a little longer these days...), and can spend lots more time on the gardens now, if it stops raining, that is!!

Mountainsong, in the Heart of NY

I'm so happy to see so many people "Roll Call"
this forum has been so slow!

I check it twice a day! and this has been the most active
post! Thanks manzomecorvus! you brought life here again!

Keep the posts coming!

Hi I'm Fern from Saskatoon Saskatchewan. I've been developing a "Pottager/Cottager" garden this year in my 17 x 17.5 ft townhouse back yard. I'm slowly proceeding with planting my new flower beds and am interested in learning how to combine some herbs and veggies with my LUPINS - I love lupins. I also grow totally awesome cucumbers so I guess that those are my passions Lupins and cucumbers although I keep wanting information on other plants and someone on another forum suggested that I was suffering from Plant lust with my tiny space

Fern

I'm Mil, and apparently a gardenholic, since when a package arrived yesterday, my girls asked if they could help plant them....BEFORE I opened the box and they found out what was in it!! *LOL* (Irises from my mom)

I'm not sure if I'm making a true "potager", since my theory is that if it looks good, and does well, leave it alone. I've got chives next to my roses, tomatoes in between the Phlox, Mexican Heather, and Ganzia, and peppers in with my daisies. My grapes are surrounded by Marigolds and Dianthus, and my Blueberries and blackberries form the border to the children's gardens. Mint growes in a couple of toliets in my front yard, with mums and some small daylilies. I've also got some rosemary in my strawberry bed, and another mixed in with the roses, zinnias, and various others. I let my onion go to seed, just because it looked neat, so next year I'll probably have onions coming up everywhere. =0)

I'm redoing the "veggie" garden this year. My "plan" is to use tires to raise the beds and plant in them, and mulch in between them. It will probably not be very formal, and flowering plants will be mixed in with food producing plants according to what my children and I decide looks good. I'm looking at the possibility of painting the tires in bright colors. I have no formal layout planned. When working with circles (tires) I have a feeling that no matter that the plan IS, the tires will dictate the actual shapes. =0)

The only hardscape I have is my compost bins (made from old palllets), and a garden shed (simple metal shed with a pebble floor). Unless you count the old dog kennel, which now houses my chickens, and moves all over the side yard.

It may seem like chaos to some, sometimes it is =0). But the kids and I are having a blast (even if I do get less help with weeding, than I do for planting!). Veggies and flowers everywhere. So does that make it a pottage/cottage garden or a cottage/pottage garden? Informal pottage? Slightly formal cottage? *LOL*

Mil

You're right Haziemoon, this is awesome...and its nice to know there are so many fellow sufferers of plantlust out there!

I have been reading everyone's posts and I can just picture y'alls gardens. I am really lusting after fruit trees right now, and I love imagining what some of these potagers look like with all the flowers and veggies nestled among the fruit trees. I do have one fruit tree.

Notice I say fruit tree here. I vowed not to buy fruit trees until I finished the beds (y'all know how THAT is going). Last year a neighbor thrust a pot in my hands and told me to take it before she killed it. I looked at the stick with drooping yellow leaves and asked her what it was. She told me it was a peach, plum, or pear....she couldn't remember what! So I replaced the tiny pot with a much bigger pot, replaced the adobe with real dirt, and gave it some bulbs to tickle its roots. Now I have a beautiful thriving.....fruit tree. And darn if I could tell you what it is....at least y'all sound like you know what you are growing!

Glad to see all the people here. I found this site this spring and have been lurking around, oogling the pictures. I live near Ottawa, Canada. I have been gardening for about 30 some years, and currently have a 10-year-old overgrown, out-of-control cottage garden. However, if I sell my house and move, I have decided that I will want a proper potager. I have fallen in love with the form.

I'm Nicole and I will be trying to start a potager. :) So, I'll just drag y'all along, if you don't mind. :)

I am in the Sacramento Valley (CA) where we have long, hot summers and pretty mild winters; though not mild enough for things like hibiscus.

I will be doing veggie gardening in my suburban front yard; so, I gotta make it look good. That is why I am here.

I already have a bunch of fruit trees jammed into a small space in my backyard. I surrounded them with flowers and I had no idea it actually was considered a potager.

Looking forward to further posts!

Hi I'm Brion, also known as Diggity. Not sure where the handle came from, but it seems to fit. 34 years old and been gardening for about 32 of those years - no kidding! I got hooked on potager/kitchen gardening during a trip to France and the style and techniques have really re-shaped my whole concept of gardening. Started my own website (www.thekitchengardener.com) as a hobby, but haven't had much time to update it lately, what with actual gardening taking up all my spare time and that pesky thing known as "work" taking up the rest. :-)

I was a major advocate for the creation of this forum last year, pestering the good people at GW on numerous occasions. I thought it would never get created, and in the meantime I got sidetracked for a few months when I changed jobs. When I finally had a few moments to check in with GW again, lo and behold, there was a potager forum! I check in here from time to time and offer what I can, and learn what I can. We seem like a great group, all.

-Diggity

diggity, GREAT WEBSITE!
I've also been gardening since I was able to scrub a vegetable in a pot. My grandma believed in putting children to work very young, (she worked full-time by the age of 13!!)

One of the greatest skills a child can learn is to grow food.

GGG

Diggity!
So glad you pushed for this forum!
Nice website too.

Haziemoon

Hi folks! I'm klickitat online and live north of Atlanta (Hi GGG!). Though I've been learning from my mistakes the past 4 years since moving from NYC, my gardens have not yet evolved into proper potages. This is the first time I'm growing edibles and have already planned out next year's crop to be more "formal" and structured. Reading all of these posts helps me learn more about which direction to go in.

Hi all,

I've only been able to check in every week or two the last couple of months, glad to see everyone is well, and this forum is picking up!

My name is Janna, been gardening in NorCal for 4 years, socal for many years before that. My potager is growing each year, this year I have a 10'x5' raised bed, as well as a couple raised rock beds.

I have a sports photography business that is keeping me very busy, my four kids (11,8,5,2) do a pretty good job also. I am also a lifelong Angels Baseball fan (Diana, I went to two games this past week :) ), and I love to scrapbook our family memories.

Happy gardening everyone!

Hi there, I'm Nancy (Ninjabut) up in Santa Rosa (50 mi north of SF)in the wine country.
I started vege gardening 5 yrs ago when my DH and I quit smoking. Partially for something to keep busy, and also to get more healthy.
Unfortunately, I also put out my back "getting healthy!"
We have 1 1/4 acre, but the perfect spot to have a garden is a 15' x 40' section on the south side of our house. I'm trying to landscape by sections, cause doing the whole acre is overwhelming!
We started with an 8x8 raised bed which does us pretty well for most of our veges, but I like the raised/contained garden so much I want to expand!
I'm going to hire someone to make some new boxes, one for asparagus, and one that I'm going to grow beans over, so I can grow lettuces, basil and some other shade lovers (my basil under the beans is doing so much better than the one out in the sun!)
Does anyone know of a vine that horses will not eat and aren't poisonous to them? TIA Nancy

Hi All,

I'm Happy -- gardening in the great state of Texas near Ft. Worth. Land of black clay, fire ants, and heat. lol

I've gardened all my life, starting at my mother's side with a little quality time with her father also. Dh and I have lived in several places. Where we had dirt, we've left trees, shrubs and perennials when we moved on.

For a time, we lived in Belgium. European gardens inspired me! Not just the big public ones, either. The small, precious ones on the way to the grocery store were the very best.

These days the veggie garden is becoming more and more potager like with the addition of 'pretties.' I judge the success of the year's veggie garden by how well the tomatoes do. (It is tough in this part of Texas.) Antique roses, daylilies and other colorful flowers populate my gardens.

Currently, I'm a homeschool mom of a bright, busy, baseball playing, teenage son. Our older son lives on his own (mostly....sigh.) Horses, dogs, cats and other critters are or have been a part of our lives.

In a former life, I was a professional portrait/wedding photographer. Retired to homeschool. :) I satisfy my craving for art by gardening these days. I've been married to my best friend for almost 29 years. He is a pilot and general handy man around the house. You have to love a guy that will dig holes, haul mulch and exterminate weeds. Not to mention purchase new rose plants even when you can't explain quite where they will live.

All you Angel fans, beware. I'm a major Texas Rangers fan!

Happy

Hi! I'm GardenPaws, and I garden in the more distant suburbs of Washington DC. I've been gardening since I was a little kid helping with 1/8 acre of vegetable garden in Wayne Co NY, and have recently realized that the two kinds of gardens I'm most comfortable with are potagers and wild/native gardens.

I like the potager concept because it seems to allow both more freedom and more design than cottage gardening. I'm redoing much of my yard to put permanent plantings such as berries and figs along the fence or house, then perennials backing lower edibles such as squash. mountainsong, your comment about tomatoes made me laugh, as most of mine form a loose hedge between my house and my neighbor's (we don't have a homeowners' association, thank goodness!).

Mostly, I put things where they work, and then try to make them look good. I use strawberry Tristar as groundcover beneath an ash (soon to be replaced by a serviceberry), and those are backed, also, by daylilies and iris (which are backed by peonies). (The Earliglows get a regular strawberry patch - I'm too lazy to try to incorporate them into a design, but have arranged for snap beans to climb strings behind them.)

As you might guess, I have a good many birds competing with me for the fruit, but there's plenty to go round now. I also deliberately plant things which will draw more of them into the yard - have a hummer coming to crocosmia and calibrachoa, and possibly to some of the salvias and agastaches, and we always have goldfinches feasting on the coneflower seed heads.

Apart from my garden, I work full-time (wish it were otherwise), sing, write, and take dance classes.

Nice to meet you all - thanks, diggity, for pushing for this forum!