Home » Gardening Information » Kitchen Gardening

A Kitchen Garden in Bloom: A Combination Cutting and Vegetable Garden

by Suzy Bales

It was with flowers that my love of gardening began, so it is only natural that my New York kitchen garden is a mixture of flowers and vegetables. A combination cutting and vegetable garden is not only practical, but also provides the table with flowers for many memorable meals. It encourages imagination and experimentation, and is also immune to criticism, as it is designed first and foremost to be productive. Missteps and clashing colors are not as noticeable as they would be in a flower class="border"r; the ubiquitous vegetable greens unite and calm all the colors, no matter how bright. And a garden as colorful and original as a child's crayon drawing is a happy place to work.

In my garden, flowers and vegetables are planted closely together and the distinction between the two is often blurred, making the garden unpretentious and at times even untidy. The flowers and vegetables enjoy each other's shade and support, and since they completely cover the ground, there is no hoeing—although there is some weeding.

The bones of my cutting/kitchen garden were established two decades ago, and have not changed since. The bulk of the garden is divided into 12 rectangular raised beds, each four feet across, and at the entrance to the garden is a circular bed. The beds are small enough that we can reach all the plants without having to step inside and risk compacting the soil. The only straight lines in my garden are the fence and the railroad ties enclosing the raised beds, and sometimes the flowers edging a bed.

Vines draw your eyes up, adding a vertical dimension, and giving the garden a finishing touch that other, low-lying plants simply can't provide.

The flowers

I have planted most of the flowers in clusters as they would be in a class="border"r, and placed them where they make the biggest impact; consequently, the front beds are thick with them. As you glance down the main path, you see the ribbons of blooms that dress up the ends of most of the beds. I've placed cascading plants such as nasturtiums and sweet alyssum at the perimeter of the beds to hide the rough edges of the railroad ties. Both can be planted in early April and are undeterred by cold snaps or late frosts. Often they're blooming before I remove the cold frames protecting the tender vegetables and flowers.

The first full bed I plant each April is a mix of salad greens edged with variegated 'Alaska' nasturtiums. The bright flowers spill over the railroad ties and connect the garden to the path. The peppery, speckled leaves of 'Alaska' have become a staple in our salads (they're more flavorful than lettuce). The flowers, too, are edible and can be used as garnishes or in bouquets. Nasturtiums quickly germinate and bloom when direct-seeded in cool weather.

Sweet alyssum is a garden angel. When I need something to edge a bed or fill a gap, I sprinkle alyssum seed in early spring, and it sprouts and blooms as quickly as if it were dropped from heaven. The tiny white flowers seem to froth and foam, sweetly scenting the air.

Shirley poppies, too, are early bloomers that come and go without crowding out others, taking their leave in early summer. They are the most impractical flower for cutting, lasting hardly a weekend in water, but I grow them because their beautiful gossamer petals are heart-stoppers. One seeding of Shirley poppies assures non-stop flowers for at least a month.

The vegetables

Some vegetables need room without competition—tomatoes, zucchini, eggplants, and pumpkins. I leave space between them and cover it with black plastic hidden by salt hay. These plants, too, have flowers around their beds. Signet French marigolds go naturally with tomatoes, since they allegedly frighten the nasty nematodes away. But I like change, so last year brazen purple basil escorted the meek Laurentia 'Sophia', with her violet stars, around the tomato cages. Sometimes I surround the zucchini with red gomphrena or 'Red Velvet' celosia, because both flowers are great for drying.

Conversely, a vegetable plant can add a structural element to the flowers. A bed of dahlias is edged with red cabbages, which look like solid wooden beads carved into rosettes and strung into a necklace. Ruffles of green-leaf lettuce boldly planted in clusters alternate with red 'Royal Oak Leaf' lettuce, giving a decorative flounce to a bed.

The herbs

I started by planting the circular bed at the entrance to the garden with only the basic culinary herbs. Over the years, I've added ornamental herbs, scented geraniums, roses, and salvias. Looking for more color among the greens of the herbs, I dressed the center of the herb garden with four 'Simplicity' rose bushes, massing ruffles of sweet alyssum and lavender at their feet. I chose the roses for their strong constitutions, as no chemical sprays are allowed in any of our gardens. Pineapple sage (Salvia elegans), another denizen of the circular bed, has pineapple-scented foliage that is flavorful in iced tea and other summer drinks, but I really grow it for its scarlet flowers that bloom in October and November when the rest of the garden is shutting down for the winter.

Many herbs are beautiful enough to jump the fence from the herb garden into the flower class="border"r. Lavender and catmint are welcomed everywhere. The flowers of chives I also find beautiful, but because of their onion breath, I leave them behind with the culinary herbs. I planted Allium aflatunense 'Purple Sensation' among the chives: the fluffy, light purple balls of chives make the darker purple balls of 'Purple Sensation' jump out and appear taller than their three-foot stems.

The vines

Flowering vines have crept into my garden over the last few years. Vining vegetables and flowering vines twine up and over the fence and up the trellises together. Vines draw your eyes up, adding a vertical dimension to the garden. They do more to give the garden a finishing touch than almost anything else.

It all started with scarlet runner bean, an edible bean with beautiful long-blooming red flowers. The flowers look much like those of sweet peas but without their marvelous scent, and the bloom times of the two plants rarely overlap. Sweet peas should be started indoors under lights in February and planted out in April to bloom in June and July, after which they usually expire from the heat. Scarlet runner beans are direct-seeded in May between the sweet peas, to be harvested later in the summer.

Once I planted one ornamental vine, there was no stopping. What started as a temporary experiment has become permanent. Wooden pyramids, tall ornamental metal columns, and a decorative wooden birdhouse have replaced my original flimsy metal trellises and tepees; these new structures look good even before the vines cover them. The last few years, I've clothed them all with annual flowering vines: morning glories (Ipomoea purpurea or I. tricolor), climbing snapdragon (Asarina procumbens), love-in-a-puff (Cardiospermum halicacabum), and Chilean glory vine (Eccremocarpus scaber). Cup-and-saucer vine (Cobaea scandens), hyacinth bean (Dolichos lablab or Lablab purpureus), and crimson starglory (Mina lobata) are three others that bloom late, at summer's end and after early frost, and make long-lasting cut flowers.

The whole garden is enclosed with a white picket fence and two arbors, one over the entrance gate and the other directly across from it over a garden seat, so I have plenty of places to grow vines. I planted each arbor with climbing roses. In a hurry, we selected our favorites without regard for color: pink 'Aloha', yellow 'Golden Showers', red 'Don Juan' (my favorite for producing edible petals), and multicolored 'Joseph's Coat'. They clash as they climb the arbor, but rather than change them, we named the garden seat the "electric chair" for the jolt of color it delivers.