Since this is the first year for my new potager at my new (old) house, I'm imagining I'll probably want to change some elements of the design. I thought of adding butterfly flowers to my garden, but they're perennials, and thus far, all my edibles are annuals.

How do y'all work this out in your gardens? Separate sections, or what?

Just curious. Thanks,
Mountainsong in the Heart of NY

Interesting, but I think it leaves the impression that potagers MUST be formal. I really don't believe that's true. Many people equate the potager style of vegetable gardening with parterres, and the article cited seems to imply the same connection. Potagers can be formal like that if you so desire, but they can be informal as well.

-Diggity (who will gladly chime in on any thread which discusses what is or is not a "potager," because he believes that many people are understandably confused by the word and the definition needs to be solidified for our own use here on this forum)

I have to agree with Diggity. With the talk of geometery and patterns, it tends to indicate that it's the only way to go for a "proper" potager. I think the confusion is obvious when folks ask questions such as "Is this veggie worthy of a potager?" The obvious answer is YES! It's a veggie garden first and foremost. But just that folks are asking tends to indicate to me that most people consider potagers formal, and that how it looks is at least AS important as the veggies in it (maybe more so).

To me a potager is simply a veggie garden that is "dressed up". It has flowers that may or may not be edible, mixed in with the veggies. It may have a fancy layout, or may not. It may have a water feature or may not. It may have raised beds (which I know is the norm on the forum, but if I didn't have to have them for the soil, I wouldn't), or it may not. It can be as fancy and formal or as cottagey and playful as your personal taste dictate.

Most of the potager books that I have found in the states show formal potagers. I am extremely disappointed with the books available to the US. They all show at some point or another the ONE fancy garden at Versailles, formally laid out as most of the gardens of castles were, and still are. I would like to find a potager book of the peoples' gardens. Those that did not (and do not) have a paid gardener, or several. The gardens I remember from Europe were warm and inviting, flowers and veggies mixed with apparently wild abandon. Some with raised beds, some without, some with both. The only thing I can remember that was the "same" in most of the gardens in Europe, was that a lot were far away from the house, and had a garden shed of some form.

Mil (who's "soup garden" is more like the people's and less like the kings)

Cheers Mil. I agree with your assessment of American potager/kitchen gardening books. A good example is "The Art of the Kitchen Garden" by the Gertleys. I suppose the title does suggest a more formal, showy style of gardening, so in that sense it's true to its title. But for me personally this book holds very little value - it is page after page of patterns and designs, with little attention paid to the production of food. Sure, the gardens are artsy and neat, but the focus is clearly taken off the veggies and put on the design. Furthermore, the Gertleys use hundreds and HUNDREDS of annuals in their formal gardens - especially alyssum and pansies. If you have a greenhouse, I suppose you can raise enough annuals by yourself without going broke, but for those of us who don't have a greenhouse, buying them in sixpacks would empty our wallets pretty quickly.

Interesting, though, that you noticed most European gardens were far away from the house. We noticed the opposite in France. Most gardens were very close to the house, and usually in the front yard - something you hardly ever see here in the 'States. It was very beautiful.

-Diggity

Perhaps I should have been more specific (generalizing always gets me into trouble)...Most my experience in Europe was located in Germany (Eastern and Western), and the German border areas (or Germanic areas) of Switzeland, France, Austria, etc...they all had garden "plots" that are outside of the city/town. The yards were always nice, they had lovely flowers (mostly bulbs that I remember), bushes and the oldest, most beautiful trees....*sigh* I really would love to find a builder that worked around the trees, instead of getting rid of all of them then putting a stick in the ground when the house is done and calling it a tree. Anyways.....I am remembering one house in Germany on our weekly walks that did have the most beautiful gardens in the front of the house, we would always stop to see what was new. =0) So most is definately not ALL.

There were flowers everywhere, just most of them were either in planters or parks, or the garden plots. I don't remember seeing any veggies in yards, but the garden lots had a million, and flowers, and fruits. Could be too that most of my experience was in the cities and towns or driving in between, so I was looking where there wasn't a lot room to garden in. =0) I asked a German freind once, and she told me that veggies in the yard just wasn't "done". At least in the city. =0)

Mil

When I first moved to France, I had no interest in a potager, figured I could buy the veggies in season with less effort than doing it myself so I planted flowers. Well, after 10 years here --and finding nothing but root veggies at winter markets--have I changed by tune! So with on-the-ground experience...my potager thoughts that tend towards Diggety's.
There are potages that take up every inch of useable space in a yard, potagers that are like English allotments away from the house (due in large part to the way inheritance law divides up land in France, not for any exciting dirt reason), there are very few "formal" potagers. however, most are done in rows, primarily for ease in working the crop. many have flowers here and there, with bulb flowers and otherwise perennials, just, in my estimation, to keep things from looking sad in the spring and during growing season as a way to keep bugs from certain veggies...in other words, practical.
Since everyone seems to have a potager (in sububan and rural areas--and this holds true throughout Europe), it also means that the rural market veggies in season are frankly and oddly not great except in the cities.
Look at old American garden books (early 1900s, for example). It is what our grand- and great-grandparents did.
so what's a potager? It is the best way to feed family and friends.

Wow, Off2acre, you're our embedded reporter! (Pun intended.) Any pictures of the neighborhood or your own garden that you'd like to post?

nice pun! I just moved so no potager, no pix...yet. But will take a few pix of other potagers.
Will plant a lot of potatoes asap to work the rather poor soil this winter. hopefully i can get the spuds in in time. want heirloom tomatoes, white corn in summer and chard and rocket in winter, lots of herbs and expand from there. (there are zillions of acres of corn--virtually all for animal feed--none for me and boy do i miss that beautiful Ky white corn from Findlay market in Cincinnati!)