I want a pretty vegetable garden

I'm about to redo my veggie garden, which also serves as a flower garden and also butterfly garden. I want it to look pretty! Right now it's just separate beds, but I'm thinking about making one or 2 large beds, maybe with a focal point in the middle. Anyone have pictures of their pretty veggie bed to inspire me? Thanks tons! Liz

Hey Luciludog; This is my favorite "kitchen gardens" at the Chateau Villandry in France.
http://www.chateauvillandry.com/IMG/jpg/l_DSC_5698-2.jpg
You are probably looking for something on a more manageable scale but it may give you ideas and inspiration.

Wow! If only! Actually I was thinking of something like one section...but this is the only one on the web I've seen. Thanks tons! Liz

luciludog, google cottage gardens, lots of goodies in there

google potager!

Good luck, lluciludog. I'm starting a veggie garden too and also have many flowers to plant so I'll have to google cottage gardens also. Still wonder if any one has pics of there gardens. It helps w/ design aswell.

I've seen this Chateau garden before in pictures - I guess nobody actually eats anything out of it because that would ruin the design (?). It is a dream though. I still haven't figured out how not to be overwhelmed with weeds about mid-summer!

mulch mulch mulch

Some years I find it also helps to cross my eyes slightly and let them go out of focus before entering the garden... all of a sudden, everything looks SO much better! :)

Squash get big and look like exotic tropicals in a flower bed. Cucumbers sprawling through a sparse flower bed blend in perfectly and serve as a ground cover. They are a good underplanting for things that get tall. A few small groups like herbs, onions, radishes, carrots just add green to a bed, Lime green for lettuce. Carrots look like ferns almost. And onions and garlic are nice and spikey for texture. Peppers are pretty. If you know what it all looks like at maturity plus your flowers, the cottage garden look is easy. The trick is to scatter things around so they never look like a row of vegetables. The hardest part is leaving space for when they mature.

Another surprisingly lovely vegetable is okra--it's in the hibiscus family. I'm growing it for the first time this year strictly for looks, although we will eat the pods in gumbo. Waste not, want not, you know! Eggplant is really pretty, too!

twiggybuds,

Great post I agree with you! Okra is nice too!

I had forgotten about the okra and eggplant. I've even heard of red okra but never seen any. Eggplants are beautiful both flowers and fruit for sure. I love the old fashioned purple but they have new ones with different shapes and colors. Pole beans would work on a trellis or just for a screen and would really get jazzed up with a few morning glories with them.

i am just starting veggie gardening too and also plan to have flowers and veggies together----but i remember my mother saying marigolds are good to plant by veggies to keep away bugs

twiggybuds, the red okra is what I'm growing this year. The pictures are just so beautiful! And I've seen some eggplant plants that are all-over purple--leaves, flowers and fruit. I thought that was pretty neat, too, but I have yet to find any way my family will eat an eggplant. So until I can use at least some of it, pretty purple plants are out for me--I just don't have the space to grow something that we won't use!

i like eggplant---send them to me-ha
but that does sound like a pretty plant

Eggplant parmigianna or some such, you know the cheese, is the only way I like it but somebody else made it. I tried to make it once and it was yuck. My folks liked fried eggplant but it was one of the few things I passed on. Those purple flowers are so pretty that anyone having the space could just pinch off the babies and enjoy the flowers.

Okra does have a pretty blossom. Here's one of a Clemson Spineless blossom.

Now that's what I'm talkin' 'bout!

Nice, Big_Red! I'm hoping this summer to have pictures of my burgundy okra to share.

I never thought about growing my veggies on the patio with my container plants! Thanks!

I had a big laugh over squinting when looking at the garden - hey that works! Mulch - you aren't kidding - we had a whole barn full of moldy hay that we used for mulch - but it takes so much the hay's nearly gone. Next year we plan to get a grass catcher for the mower and put grass clippings from the pasture on the garden. I know I'll have to add extra nitrogen as the rotting grass takes it up.

I grew "Aunt Hettie's" (from Amishland seeds) red okra one year - it's supposed to stay red even when cooked. But I couldn't get one edible pod from it - they were woody even at one inch size. However, when the pods matured and dried (they got pretty big - about 6" or so), they had the most amazing ribs of alternating white and red. Quite extraordinary.

This message was edited Jan 25, 2008 11:43 AM

Oh - I got DG e-mail newsletter today - there is an article in it about formal gardens.