“Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating.”
~Wendell Berry
What is a kitchen garden? A kitchen garden is a place closely connected with your kitchen and everyday life. It’s a distinct area of your home and landscape where vegetables, fruits, and herbs are grown for culinary use.
A kitchen garden can be as small as a collection of garden boxes on the patio or deck or it can be as large as a formal stone garden that covers hundreds of square feet. No matter the size, the purpose is the same: a garden that’s tended regularly and used frequently in everyday meals.
It’s not a vegetable patch or homestead. It’s much smaller and doesn’t require nearly the amount of work those do. Unlike a farm, which is cleared all at once, planted all at once, and harvested all at once, a kitchen garden is tended regularly. And different from row cropping or a big vegetable patch, a kitchen garden is a space for growing either a small sample of a wide variety of plants or a large amount of a small variety of plants.
Instead of a rambling field or an entire yard planted with vegetables, a kitchen garden is separate from the rest of the landscape and created to be a central feature. It’s not something to tuck behind the garage and hide from the neighbors. It’s set up to be beautiful-front and center. It’s a special centerpiece of your home life, a place to entertain and have guests, or just hang out with family.
This summer we put in our raised bed kitchen garden consisting of 4 beds, each one 5′ x 10″ for plenty of growing space. My son’s company, Swift Lawn & Land. did the drip irrigation and the actual garden install for us and we had a fantastic first growing season.
