The Ultimate Guide to Planning a Stunning Potager Garden

A whole world of gardening inspiration is at our fingertips today, but few gardens can match the elegant grace of the French kitchen garden or potager. Imagine stepping right outside your backdoor into a beautiful world of colors, flavors, textures, and smells. 

This garden combines form and function to delight your heart and fill your dinner plate with a gourmet meal. It has stood the test of time for good reasons.

In this guide, you'll learn the essential design elements of a potager, world-famous potager gardens, how to plan a garden layout, and stunning vegetable plants to include in a potager garden.

Joie de Vivre

Joie de vivre, which is French for “the joy of living,” is often used to describe people who enjoy life cheerfully and vibrantly. I believe the aim of a garden, especially a potager (pronounced po-tah-zhay), is to work with nature to cultivate life, enrich your life, and daily experience the joy of living.

I want to inspire others to grow gardens, live healthier lives, and have fun doing it! That is why I share top-notch gardening advice like these posts:

• Design Tips to Create Your Dream Garden

• How to Start a Garden

• Different Gardening Methods

• English Cottage Garden
  

What is a Potager Garden

Potager literally translates to “for the soup pot.” Since medieval times, French gardens have been close to the kitchen, providing edible foods and a year-round romantic appeal.

In a traditional potager garden, vegetables, medicinal plants, flowers, fruits, and herbs accented a symmetrical, precisely maintained space with artistic elements. Imagine a magical yet useful place where old charm meets sustainable gardening!

Today, a French-style garden is typically a productive vegetable garden in permanent raised beds, emphasizing symmetry, elegance, and coordinating colors and textures of the plants.

Another unique characteristic of the potager is its cyclical nature. It is a continuous cycle of planting, harvesting, amending soil, and replanting, during which plants change with the seasons and provide fresh food and beauty all year.

This uncommon gardening style uses transitional crops to allow you to grow more food in less space and continue growing throughout the seasons! Watch the video above to learn tips for growing transitional crops to make a garden for all seasons.

Benefits of a Potager Garden

A potager garden can help you save money and stay active while providing a peaceful place to relax. Here are some more benefits of a potager garden:

But a potager isn’t all sunshine and roses, so to speak. They have some drawbacks that you should be aware of.

The initial investment in creating a French-style garden requires more time and money than a regular garden, and you should plan on a higher ongoing commitment.

Potagers are usually very clean and precise, with a meticulously maintained appearance. To achieve and maintain this look, strategic planning is required, as is regular weeding, watering, pruning, harvesting, and mulching.

Add in succession planting and replanting transitional crops throughout the seasons, and it all amounts to hours of care. I would recommend planning on a few more hours every week to care for a potager garden than a regular garden of the same size.

Essential Elements of a French Kitchen Garden Design

While there are no hard, fast rules for making a French potager, some key elements distinguish it from other gardens.

• Symmetry - Potager gardens are known for their symmetrical designs and geometric shapes. Consider splitting the garden into parts that mirror each other.

• Raised Beds - Raised garden beds are key in a French potager. They keep the plants in organized shapes and allow for high-intensity spacing and clear footpaths.

• Pathways - Pathways are vital for aesthetics and access. Lining pathways with the traditional gravel, brick, or stone prevents weeds and adds nice texture and color. You could also use wood chips or soft ground covers to lay the footpaths for a less formal feel.

• Focal Point - Every French kitchen garden has a special spot that catches your eye. These are usually found at the heart of the garden.

• Boundaries - Framing the garden space with a boundary keeps pest animals out of the garden, shelters it from the wind, and adds to the aesthetic appeal.

Adding these features to your kitchen garden layout can turn a simple veggie garden into an elegant potager. These elements can be incorporated into any size, whether you have a small urban garden or a large outdoor space.

Famous Potager Gardens

Perhaps the world’s most famous potager garden is at Chateau de Villandry in Loire Valley, France, recognized as a World Heritage Site. As you can see in the photo above, the kitchen garden features geometric color-coordinating plots of vegetables, flowers, and herbs surrounded by perfectly shaped boxwood hedging.

Potager du Roi, or the King’s Kitchen Garden, at the Palace of Versailles was Louis XIV’s potager. Spanning over 23 acres, it has 16 square vegetable gardens around a central fountain and 28 other gardens on the peripheral.

While I don’t expect most people to create potagers nearly that large, looking at famous potagers is a great way to gather inspiration when designing your own potager garden layout.

Designing and Planning A Potager Garden

A French culinary garden is just as much about design as it is about the quality of the produce. The main design goal is for the garden to look organized and strategic, mixing style with sustainability and using an intentional color palette.

After you pick the perfect location for your garden, measure that space. Then, draw out to-scale design ideas in your garden planner or on paper to help you visualize and decide on a final plan.

Follow these steps to guide you in designing your potager:

1. Center - I recommend starting your design at the center or main focal point. Choose an interesting central element that will draw attention. It could be a water feature, sundial, birdbath, tree, stone feature, or fancy trellis with a climbing plant.

2. Beds - Plan your raised beds out from the focal point in a geometric pattern of neat shapes. Rectangular, L-shaped, and sectioned garden beds are good choices.

3. Paths - Make sure to include pathways in your plan. They are typically angular or circular and symmetrical. Pathways need to be interconnected and allow access to all parts of the garden without harming the plants.

4. Vertical - Think from the ground up when planning your potager. Add vertical elements and consider the height of the features in your garden. For design purposes, planting varieties at different vantage points will add visual layers to the garden (but remember to keep it balanced). You can do this by planting in containers and raised beds, adding fruit trees, and using trellising methods like arched cattle panel trellises and handmade bean and pea tuteurs.

5. Borders - When using raised beds, the beds themselves create borders. But you could also add hedges or plant living bed borders along the outside edge of each bed.

6. Unique - Add your own personal flare with unique elements. Incorporate things that add interest and texture, like stone surfaces, garden sculptures, rare plants, attractive compost bins or worm bins, or something else you love.

7. Seating - While not necessary, it is a good idea to incorporate places to sit and relax in your potager. If you have limited space, be creative: Consider a circular bench around a fruit tree or seating built into raised beds or along a boundary.

8. Boundary - The final structural element is the boundary that frames the potager. Common boundaries include a house, clipped hedges, trellises, fences, fruit trees, and stone or brick walls.

9. Plants - Deliberately placed perennials and rotating crops of seasonal vegetables will keep the garden productive and attractive year-round. Accent with herbs, flowers, and fruits that you enjoy.

A project like this could take a while to become a reality, but every step is worth it when you have a vision for something this beautiful.

What to Plant in a French Kitchen Garden

Choose plants you like and will actually eat, starting with your main vegetable crops. After all, a kitchen garden's purpose is to provide food for the table. Within the crops you want to grow, look for decorative varieties to help create a feast for the eyes and the taste buds.

Think about symmetry, color, and texture when choosing your plants and planting locations to bring balance and natural sophistication to the garden. Pro-Tip: For the best results in the garden, consider each variety's sunlight needs when planting as well.

Asparagus, fennel, and chervil are French favorites that act as good filler options for placing in between more colorful plants. There are so many wonderful varieties to choose from; I can’t list them all here! 

Shop MIgardener for a huge selection of 700+ heirloom varieties of vegetable, flower, and herb seeds, plus seed potatoes, garlic and flower bulbs.

A potager garden is like a living painting that changes with the seasons. Every season brings new tasks, different flavors, and the opportunity for you to grow bigger!