POTAGER GARDEN TOUR : How to Have a Beautiful Front Yard Vegetable Garden | Boxwood Project

Create a beautiful garden with vegetables, fruits, flowers, and herbs in a well thought out space. We go through the design process step by step, then add some winter interest and finally tour the potager garden.

[Music] Hi, this is Kate. Welcome to Blooms in the Yard. I’ve been looking forward to making this video because today I’m talking about my protege garden. I’m going to talk about why I designed it the way I did, how I built it, and how it has changed over time. We’re going to do a photo tour through the years. At the end of the video, I make a change in the protege. I’ll give you a hint. It involves boxwoods. And then we will take a tour through the page. My page is the heart of my garden. And because it’s in the center of the garden, everything else has kind of built up around it. First off, let’s quickly talk about what a page is. A page garden is a French kitchen garden. It’s more decorative than just a functional vegetable garden. Protees combine vegetables and fruits with herbs and flowers in a visually pleasing way. They generally use pathways, layout and plant combinations to create a beautiful space. The divided sections called parts are a hallmark of the protege and they are where the design really comes to life. The simplest way to distinguish between a vegetable garden and a protege is just to say that the protege is more fancy and protege will involve flowers in my mind whereas a vegetable garden may not. Half the time I call my garden a protege and half the time I call it a vegetable garden. It just depends who I’m with. If I know this person’s not going to know what a protege is, then I just call it a vegetable garden to avoid having to explain it. Um, but in my heart is a protege garden. In summer, I grow tomatoes, green beans, basil, and cucumbers. Here you can see green beans beginning to climb the homemade obelisk. At this point, I had my herbs growing to the right, including cilantro, thyme, and sage. A blackeyed susan grows in the corner. I have since realized that the rabbits don’t eat the herbs, so I’ve moved them outside the fence and planted them in the flower beds. To the left and behind the pole beans, you can see that I have my strawberry patch and the flocks. Here you can see that I grow a variety of lettucees and greens in the spring along with peas and strawberries. The key to keeping it looking tidy is planting in rows. I follow the curved line of the center circle, and I’m sure to plant each row with contrasting colors so the design really stands out. This picture shows a transition period from spring to summer. If you look carefully amidst the red lettuce, you can see two small tomato plants starting to grow and a cucumber just starting to climb the fence to the right of some gladiolas. Every year things are a little different, but I always keep my staples. Spring is for lettucees, greens, peas, and cilantro. Spring is my favorite time in the vegetable garden because usually I don’t need to worry about watering and the beds always look tidy. Let’s look at some pictures of the process. I started by laying out the bricks here. You can see the design really well. On the right there’s a 4ft wide path leading to the driveway with a double gate. And coming down to the left is a 2 and 1/2 ft wide path leading to a single gate. This is the gate that I use the most as it’s the closest to our front door. Here we have begun to build the fence. My husband helped me to set the post in the ground with concrete, but I built the rest of it myself. The original plan had a narrow space for annuals outside the fence, and I had one corner jut out to plant some flowers. I have since changed the outside of the bed altogether, which we will look at soon. I made the fence modular. Each section can be easily removed and replaced. The construction is pretty simple. There’s just three vertical 2x twos screwed into two longer horizontal 2 by twos. Each section is secured to the posts with just two screws on each side. And then some square mesh or chicken wire was stapled around the edges. I left six inches of chicken wire to hang off the bottom of each section so that when I screwed them into the posts, the chicken wire would go all the way to the dirt to stop the bunnies from coming in. I wasn’t sure how well this would hold up, but it has done amazingly well. I’ve only had to replace one 2 by two and that was because a large branch from our old cottonwood tree fell on it. I didn’t even have to remove the whole section, just the top piece of wood. Between the bricks is filled in with a thick layer of paper base, tamped down, and then topped with 1 in of pearl that is tamped down. My first attempt was to fill the space with pearl, but it was not firm and it kicked around. So, I had to remove all of that and put the paper base down first and tamp it down and then just put a thin layer of pearl on top. In this earlier picture, you can see how loose the gravel was. Here is the double gate at the wider entrance. To indicate that this is the main entrance, I wanted to make a bit of a formal statement. So, I placed these small squares of brick edging around two boxwoods to flank the entrance. I felt like it was important to have two entrances, not just for easy access, but I also just felt that I would feel kind of claustrophobic or trapped if there was only one entrance. Some people might think it’s funny, but the thought crossed my mind, what if there’s a snake at the entrance and then I won’t feel like I can get out easily? Um, the circle path is only 2 ft wide, so having two entrances, I think, also just helps it to feel a little more open and not so closed in. In the corner to the right, I created a sitting area. This also helps to give the garden some breathing space when the plants are all filled in later in the season. They made a charming little sitting area. It didn’t end up being that practical, though, because it always felt a little too cramped to be comfortable sitting there, and the chairs would be swallowed up by plants by later in the season. Eventually, I replaced the chairs with pots. Here’s a picture of my pots. This last spring, I filled the small hyperfa pot with pansies, creeping jenny, and alysum. I filled the larger pots with some lettucees and kale. This picture is from early on and you can see that there isn’t much growing around the outside of the page. To me, at this point, it felt really like a square pllopped in the middle of my yard. It also felt offbalance with the page being on one side of the yard and nothing on the other. If you’ve seen my sunboarder tour, you might notice that in this picture, it’s non-existent. Here I have some chives growing outside of the garden. And here I have planted red impression tulips along the outside of the fence. At this point, I decided that I needed to do more to soften the edges so that it didn’t feel so stark. I began to widen the planting area outside the fence and make the edges curved with no right angles. I removed the bricks a little at a time and began to build some stone walls and borders. I felt that it would be too much stone to line the entire perimeter. So, I varied the edges between a clean trenched edge and a rock edge. The tall viburnum and panacle hydrangeanger on the left are on the north side of the fence so that they don’t shade the vegetables, but they provide some privacy for me from the street. In this picture, you can see the curved edges and how I have rock in some places, but in other areas, just a clean edge. This picture is taken from an upstairs window, and it gives you a good idea of the layout. The sun border was planted to the left to balance the yard. At the top of the screen near the street, is the mailbox garden, and at the bottom of the screen is what I call my rock garden because of the large boulder. The stepping stone path leads to our front entry. Here’s an example of some of the plantings now outside the garden that soften the edges of the fence. In summer, the pot becomes a profusion of color with self-seing annuals and some plants that the rabbits will not leave alone in the rest of my garden. Here’s a picture from last year with purple mow and larks. The mow ended up taking over and had to be moved out. It was originally moved in because the rabbits kept eating it. It is in holding until I find the perfect place for it. The zenas are another flower that the rabbits love to eat in spring when they’re just seedlings. So, they have moved into the vegetable garden. I still plant some zenyas in my sun border. Some years they farewell and other years they succumb to the bunnies. But this way I always have some growing safe in the pot. Here are some Chinese red noodle beans growing along with the zenyas. The beautiful climbing rose lady in red ended up in the page due to the bunnies as well. Some years they will leave the my roses alone and other years they just kept eating them down. and I really cared about this particular rose, so it moved into the garden. I have found that the fence is a great place for plants to flop onto when they might otherwise need staking. For the last few years, I’ve started to always grow zenyas along the inside of the fence on either side of the main gate. Lately, I’ve been asking myself if the pot has become too much of a wild meadow in summer. Would anyone even recognize it was a vegetable garden? I find that I have to point out all of the tomatoes, raspberries, and cucumbers. The good news is that it can be whatever I want it to be. It’s constantly changing, and in gardening, there aren’t really mistakes so much as learning experiences. This winter, I’m sure I will spend some cozy evenings designing next year’s page garden. Here’s the page in winter. As you can see, there isn’t any winter interest inside the page. It’s pretty much just dirt other than the bare raspberry canes and rows. I’ve been thinking for some time about making a small boxwood hedge inside the circle. This week I saw some boxwoods with a price I couldn’t pass up. I’ve thought about putting boxwoods, a little boxwood hedge around the middle of this for a long time. I’m finally going to do it. I’ve tried several annuals. The lettuce looks great in the spring, but I’ve tried some annuals in the summer and I’ve never been happy with anything. Now, I haven’t ever tried the beonas and I do like the beonas because they’re staying tidy, but I’m also looking for winter interest. I think I’m going to really like it because well, I I already like it better, but I liked it the lettuce in the spring, but this will be better in winter and it will be better in summer. And I’m thinking in the spring I can still put the lettuce in the middle. So, I think it’s going to be good. [Music] One whole bag, 11 to go. One quart-siz hole. Found these rocks. So, this might be a long morning. That sun is brutal right now. It’s 7 in the morning, but I’m dripping. I’m going to wait. The sun goes behind the tree for maybe an hour at 9:00 a.m. So hopefully I can come back out and get this done quickly. Today is not going according to plan. I’m on hole number three. I was really trying to do it this without dislodging these bricks. good. And you would think that would be a problem, but hopefully things will go better from here. [Music] Because I want to keep this hedge at hopefully 12 to 18 in. I’m going to be diligent about cutting it back several times a year. I’m doing the center one first and lining it up with the pole. Hopefully I got this obelisk centered when I put it in. Um, so I’m doing the center one and then the side ones from there. kind of trying to space these corner ones correctly, even though the green bean plant is making that a little bit difficult. [Music] More rocks and more rocks. [Music] I’m halfway there. [Music] These rocks are not huge. The problem is just can’t get any leverage because I have such a small space. It’s maybe a foot less less on the corners. [Music] Let me get out the crowbar again. [Music] [Music] Sadly, this just became a much bigger project than I wanted it to be. I don’t have any paper base right now. I do have some gravel and some sand. So hopefully that’ll be good enough. I made this little contraption when I built this brick path in this page. It’s just a heavy pipe, heavy metal pipe to kind of give me the weight and screwed it into these blocks of wood. But it was kind of just the right size to tamp things down. [Music] This is bringing back bad memories. This is not fun. when I first did it. Leveling it. [Music] And of course, this gravel’s not the same color, but I’ve been The original gravel was sort of a bluish, and I like that color better, but I haven’t been able to find that same color, so I’ve kind of put off popping it off for a while. Just like with house projects, sometimes every project creates another project. Like you buy a plant and then you need to put it where another plant is and then before the day is over, you’ve moved to like five things. Or maybe that’s just me. [Music] My hair’s not long enough to put up, but you would think I wouldn’t have to with it being so short, but I got to get it off me. Okay, I went in for breakfast, got my hair put up, the clouds came out. I’m so excited about the clouds coming out. I think I really should have been born in the UK because I could take a little bit of drizzle if I don’t have to deal with the blazing hot sun all the time. I have three boxwoods left to plant. So, let’s get at it. Get this done. The good news is we’re on the last boxwood. We’re in the home stretch. Uh-oh. Instantly hits rock. Not too bad. Um, I’m hoping that having these boxwoods here will kind of maybe a little bit help with the dirt washing out because the dirt does wash out of this circle and into the gravel. But if it doesn’t help with the wash out, that’s okay, too. I also just want some nice winter interests. [Music] Okay, that’s kind of a sad harvest, but okay, one more. [Music] Okay, let’s take a look at the protege garden as of July 8th. This morning I did the last of the clean out. If you had seen it for the garden tour June 14th, you might not even recognize it. It’s a lot different. The middle probably looks a lot different. I did end up taking out those green beans. I Googled a picture of them and it said spidermitites and I was like, “Oh, great. I just planted these boxwoods.” I’m not sure if that’s what it was, but it definitely the problem wasn’t getting better and this way I get to enjoy my new boxwoods. So, I did go ahead and spray them with neem oil as a precaution and hopefully they won’t get a spidermite infestation. But I am really loving the simplicity of it. I’m really sad to lose the green beans because my daughter eats them like crazy and I do want to have some vegetables in my vegetable garden. Um, so I’m going to decide what I want to do. I mean, I could replant green bean seeds. It’s just will I get the same problem or not? I don’t know. Okay. So, if we go beyond that, I did clean up this pepper area pretty much. We’ve got our ornamental peppers and then our peppers that we’re going for eating. This is a good example. These are the red peppers. So, we can see the bottom bottom ones turning red. And then we have all of these along the top. So, I’m excited about those peppers. I did leave that kale in there just for some interest. Now, our cherry tomato is going to be able to get all the sun at once and it can grow and be happier. I did get rid of all the lark spur was starting to turn brown and not making me happy anymore. I now have a little gap in there. I’m thinking I might plant some cilantro. There’s a pretty dalia back here. growing in amongst the asparagus. I thought about cutting the asparagus down. I don’t I don’t know how much that will hurt it or if it’s better to leave it up for a long time. So, if anybody has any advice on the asparagus, I would happily take it. Here’s another Dalia. I think this is either lilac time or lavender perfection. Um, those are kind of the two those are kind of the two that I have grown that are in these shades. Look how pretty the solosia looks behind this color. Okay. So, there’s that section. Then here, I didn’t used to have the original design didn’t have these bricks here. But I realized the strawberries kind of kept spreading. And I thought, well, it’ll be easy to know where they belong if I just put some bricks there. So, I did do that. In these strawberries, I did leave the straw flowers, although I cut them down. I did remember where this little pink snapdragon came from. I had bought this snapdragon, a different kind, and there was a little, you know, extra plant in there that was obviously not the same plant. And so, I just stuck it here to see what would happen. So, I remembered where that came from. And then I do have the cucumber growing along the fence. This area hasn’t really changed much. Just been cleaned up. All the poppies are gone inside the fence. And then we have our pots currently here. I am thinking, you know, after looking at all those pictures, should I do a bench or chairs again? that it was a nice more open feel. So, if you have an opinion on pots or seating, I would happily listen. Behind these pots, we have the blackeyed susan vine. And then there’s a couple little things planted in this corner. The blue um oh gosh, Sirius blue salvia. And then this solosia, this pink solosia. I can’t remember the name of it. And then here we just have a sunold tomato which is starting to fill in a little bit more. Um, we do have a couple of volunteer tomatoes back here which I’m going to just leave leave some of them. This is the morning glory. And again, I from looking at those pictures, I saw a really pretty picture of the sunold tomatoes growing with my morning glories, and it kind of inspired me to let that one stay. Um, my raspberries, all of the old canes have been taken out. Um, these honestly kind of have some yiness on them, too. So again, if I have any experts that can help me, I just am not good with pests and diseases, but you know, the new growth looks good. Okay. So then in our next quadrant we have the basil and kale, the white beonas, this variegated oregano in the corner, and then my red climbing rose, which hasn’t started blooming there. I think I see at least one bud on there. It hasn’t started blooming again. I should say it did bloom earlier in this season. Let’s see. Here’s a bud. But it usually is a really good reboomer for me. Oh, yeah. There’s a couple more buds here coming. So, I’ll be excited to share those because I mean that rose is it’s just like your classic red beautiful rose. Okay. So, then down here we just have this massive um Mountain Magic tomato. It’s kind of leaning leaning towards the fence, which is okay because then it won’t fall over, but it’s also kind of smothering all of those zenyas and dalas. But I don’t know if I want to pull it towards me because then it might fall this way. So maybe I just need to put a get a good solid steak in there that will hold it up straight. But there are so many tomatoes coming on this plant. So pretty with the flowers. Loads of tomatoes on that plant, which is why I like to why I like this one. I’m trying to pull it up. Okay, it did kind of stay up, but I think I need to at least go get a good steak or something to to keep it up cuz it’s going to fall down. Down below, then we have the rosemary. That cilantro sign is I did take that cilantro out that had bloomed and gone to seed and I did leave the seed. I don’t know if you can see it. I spread the seed out. So, we may get get some if we get a decent amount of rain. Here’s my little collection of green beans that I kept off of the green bean plant. And this brick is how I keep my door closed because when I designed this garden, I didn’t it wasn’t a perfectly engineered thing. when you close the gate. Okay. So, it latches like this, right? And that’s all good, but it kind of it doesn’t stay perfectly in place. Um, kind of goes back and forth, especially in the wind and stuff. And so I just slide this brick down here. I put the brick there and that kind of holds it all in place. So it’s a little bit jerryrigged, but that’s just where that brick lives and that’s fine. It’s such a gorgeous morning. It rained. It was a little bit drizzly. The sun’s just just this second starting to come out, but it’s looking so much more clean and I can really now start to enjoy enjoy it more. I don’t like it when it’s messy. I I am I like a tidy garden. Let’s see what’s this stuff doing. This is kind of falling a bit. I need to pull that tighter. So for my dollas for staking them, I use the fence. And you can see I’ve just got this wrapped around the fence. And I’m just going to pull that to keep it standing up better. So I’m going to do that real quick. Tie it up and we can resume the tour. Okay. So, I pulled them up a little bit and getting those tomatoes off of these other zenyas and dalas will will help too. I think will help them be a little bit happier. I am really enjoying the simplicity of the boxwoods. I just think our gardens need those restful moments. Thanks for coming along with me as I’ve shared the details of my protege today and some of the design ideas. As I said earlier, it’s changing every year. I’m always experimenting with new things and repeating favorites from past years. I hope that you enjoyed exploring my protege with me today. Thank you for watching Blooms in the Yard and I hope that you’ll Stay tuned to see how this garden continues to evolve. [Music]