Growing food in a small garden

There is something deeply comforting about growing and eating your own food. Popping something in the pot, freshly harvested from the garden, feels very different from cooking something freshly unwrapped from cellophane. 

But doesn’t growing your own food mean you need a large garden? Not necessarily. Certain vegetables need lots of room but it is possible to grow food in quite a small area, even a container. We have a small garden at the back of our terraced house. It is about 5 metres wide by 10 metres long, with two small paved terraces (one for morning and one for evening). We want our garden to be interesting all year round, even winter. We have trees that provide three seasons of interest and perennials that provide four seasons of interest. We also have a small potager.

A potager is defined as a small, ornamental, formal vegetable garden. One of the most famous potagers is Villandry, in France. Our potager is a very long way from Villandry, however! I could be accused of stretching the definition for my small veggie plot but I want to make the point that it is as much about ornament as food production. Just because something is functional does not mean it cannot look attractive. Our potager has a little lavender hedge along one edge and chives, intersown with parsley, along the other. The chives, a very versatile herb, are already growing strongly and will have pretty flowers in the summer. They are perennial and very easygoing. We still have some winter leeks that create lovely vertical lines and have great colour.  I will soon be planting out mangetout 'Shiraz' which, as a climber, will give height and has attractive purple pods. The potager is ornamental all year round and I can always nip out and get something for the pot, even if it’s just chives. It takes up about two square metres of our garden – and helps us feel that little thrill of eating home-grown food on a regular basis.

Our potager in the recent warm spell