"Of Vegetables and Art"

On a cold, wet day in London in the early nineties I was doing what all gardeners do when away from their patch, trawling through the garden section of a large book store. I came across a title that was to change the way I looked at humble vegetables and their plot, The Art of French Vegetable Gardening by Louisa Jones.

The exquisite photography and empassioned text led me into a world where the vegetable garden became not only an area of production but also a thing of beauty. French Ornamental Vegetable Gardens or potagers are places where vegetables, herbs, fruit and flowers all grow gloriously together.

In my childhood, backyard vegetable gardens had been so utilitarian with vegetables marking time in rigid soldier straight rows divided by crisp concrete paths, all tucked away at the bottom of the yard.

Louisa's text inspired a rethink in my own vegetable garden: why not add a spiral of Asian herbs, some dahlia tubers or even an espaliered fig? The potager style can be as easy as just recklessly mingling vegetables, herbs, flowers and fruit all together (the romantic potager style). Or it can be a very ordered series of plots or parterres with hedging and a central feature (the formal potager).....