Cottage or kitchen garden. Ideas?

[cc-rider]

If you could plant anything you wanted in a cottage or kitchen garden close to your house, what would you plant?

I'm hoping to incorporate the 12-tree orchard, the blackberries, strawberries, elderberries, rhubarb and grapes into the plan.

What else should I add? Are they perennials or annuals? I'm in zone 5, NW Ohio.

I was thinking culinary herbs such as oregano, thyme, sage, basil, etc.
Also things such as lavendar, comfrey, chamomile.
Horseradish?
What medicinal herbs should be included?
Gotta have some pretty flowers, too, so thinking day lilies and roses, bee balm, purple coneflower, and tiger lilies.

Farther out in the orchard area would be 3-sisters plantings, peas on trellis, more beans on trellis, tomatoes and peppers.... what else would be in an old kitchen garden? Oh yeah, lettuces, etc.

Thinking of bordering the different sections with marigolds and nasturitums (sp?!) What might be more appropriate?

[Callieslamb]

I plant my whole garden in a garden close to my house. So, basically everythink I grow.

[oberhaslikid]

Mine is onion ,Garlic and Herbs.That is what I use the most.

[ChristieAcres]

My own raised bed garden is evolving, based on our culinary preferences, medicinal needs for herbs, Companion Planting, and also aesthetic preferences. My backyard will be a Cottage Garden incorporating our present raised bed garden area (.6 of an acre & still growing more this Fall). If you haven't seen it, go take a peak at my raised bed garden thread (just posted more pics showing Nasturtium, Comfrey, Bee Balm, etc... I have almost everything you mentioned and more. My Marigolds will be going in for late blooming. I have plans to add a lot more herbs this Fall. The backyard will be evolving as we can do the work needed.

Here is the link to my thread:

Christie Acre's Organic Raised Bed Garden 2010- Pics :)

I didn't notice squash, garlic, or onions listed...

For herbs, try googling categories of your interest (perennial medicinal herbs, annual medicinal herbs, top 30 culinary herbs, Tea Herbs, etc...). There are multiple sites with Companion Planting Charts.

[Old Vet]

Plant anything you eat. The variety is endless unless you only like a few things. There is no reason to plant anything you don't want to eat.

[7thswan]

Well I have everything you mentioned except instead of blackberries-raspberries,red and golden. Also add delphiniums and Foxgloves, lupin,phlox,Hollyhocks. 3 kinds of grapes. Also have my orchard but you should plant some nuts, for me it's Hazelnuts. Flowers bring in the bees which we do not have many of. No hives-I'm too allergic, but maybe you could add that.My bunnies and chickens are right near the greenhouse, when weeding, they are right there to get the goods.One big garden for the regular veggies,a special area for the corn and sunflowers and rows of a special bird mix, another area for the vining plants. Among all this Roses everywhere. Planted 6 new climbing roses along the picket fence around the veggie garden. Got to have trellises for height and interest, not to mention more roses.Nasturtiums don't hold up to my winds and summer heat. The clothesline is in there with Jerusalem artichokes at each end and hedge roses.Besides the herbs in the garden, I have a very old bathtub right by our back porch with Basil ,chives,parsley handy for cooking. A luffa is growing on a trellis over the deck,along with sweet peas and a Trumpet vine and Clematis. Next to the porch is the pond, with ground cover type plants, but that could be done in ground cover Herbs like Thyme, Oregano ect. On the privacy fence around the hot tub, Jasmine-Heavenly! Cherry/grape tomatoes are here and there for nibbling while working.It takes awhile, but the garden gets bigger every year. Plant things close so that there is less weeding to do, and amend the soil in the spring when you can get to the plants easy. Organic of course. Oh ya, plant Mints where they can grow as they want, simply mow when they get outside their edges.

[cc-rider]

Lorichristie,
What was the reason you went with raised beds instead of just in the soil?

How are your 2x8's held together? I tried once, and they seemed to fall apart easily. Of course, hitting them with a tractor didn't help! <grin>

7thswan....sounds beautiful! Pics??

[7thswan]

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2257/2249603948_397887d773.jpg
This is my favorite picture, my dog is buryed here. Now where the tractor is my clothsline and rose hedges ect. are.

[7thswan]

[ChristieAcres]

cc-rider- Lorichristie,
What was the reason you went with raised beds instead of just in the soil?

How are your 2x8's held together? I tried once, and they seemed to fall apart easily. Of course, hitting them with a tractor didn't help! <grin>

cc-rider, LOL- 1st up? NO "tractor", sloped topography, drainage issues, a LOT of rain, cool weather, and a lot of humidity. Our garden area is 2-tiered, both levels slope slightly to the West, on purpose (no standing water this way). In our climate, raised bed gardening is our best option. They drain well, soil is warmer, and we don't need to till. If I was in a warmer drier climate, I would be gardening using wide-row in-ground traditional forms.

The beds are all built with rough hewn Fir or milled Fir. The are reinforced with rebar.

7th Swan- beautiful garden! Like the use of picket fencing. Due to deer and other critters, we have to have tall fences around our orchard/garden areas.

[7thswan]

Thanks, Lorichristie. My neighbor has a problem with the deer now that her son took his dog away to school with him, I suspect my dogs smell keeps them away.

[Kris in MI]

Our house is built into a slight slope, so the front of the house is on higher ground and the back has a walk-out basement. From the back of the garage to the basement level is quite a drop, so we built a retaining wall that has terraces in it (raised beds, sort of.)

In the terraces I have mints, lemon balm, garlic, dill, a bunch of herbs and some flowers. It's really handy for when I'm cooking/canning and want some fresh herbs. Every few years I put my salad greens into one of the terraces for handy salad fixin's, too.

[ronbre]

i think you meant that as a rhetorical question and you were actually asking for suggestions..

well when you plant your gardens, no matter where they are..go through all the lists you can find of edible plants or ornamentals if that is your bent, and mark down the ones that are your favorite, when it comes to food plants, mark down any that you would eat a lot of regularly, that will grow in your climate and zone.

then also add things that will benefit those plants, such as dynamic accumulators and nitrogen fixers as well as mulch plants..and those that will host beneficial insects..if you are not sure about these plants..download Gaia's garden off of scribd and read it so that it can give you ideas of what things you need for a healthy polyculture garden.

myself i have planted about everyfruit or nut tree that will grow in our zone, that i can find, and i have put down all the berry or perennial fruit, vegetable, plants that i can come by, i also have hundreds of species of ornamentals, and herbs, and medicinals..i layer them with a high canopy of shade trees and standard size fruit trees, with an understory of dwarf fruit and nut trees, under that a layer of shrubs, many of which feed people or birds, and then under that with a layer of perennials, herbs, root crops and vines..

some other good info on scribd is to search "permaculture" and you'll find a lot of good information, I love the early lectures of Bill Mollison that are avail on there..look for the date of 1981 and download that one to read..excellent info