wow, that is expensive... I add veggies in my beds with flowers and I love it!
Karen

Too Funny!! Who knew we were worth so much!! lol!!

Fashionable vegetable gardening, huh? Sounds like an oxymoron! I couldn't get the page to download properly. It opened up but didn't give me the text.

Lorna

That bothers me...probably only because I take gardening more seriously though. Its not just a passing fad for me, its a part of my life. I bet that in a couple of years these people will have moved on too the next trendy thing in gardening, and everything else. How pretentious! I hate pretention and shallowness more than anything. Geez, couldnt they donate the produce to the soup kitchen if there not going to use it themselves?
CMK

That's hysterical.

$10,000 $60,000 $50,000 $70,000 $15,000 landscaping jobs.

My favorite part:

"She has planted six kinds of lettuce in a pattern using red and green leaves. She won't plant corn -- "It's messy," she says -- and favors organic vegetables with photogenic foliage, like asparagus, cabbage and eggplant."

Photogenic cabbage? LOL

Libby

My fav part was the ob-gyn who said, "Now we have this beautiful garden so there's never any reason to go anywhere else."
The garden is so elaborate and satisfying that she and her husband have ditched plans for a pool or a second home.

I feel the same way about my little patch.

Thanks for sharing this article.

Nell

That bothers me, too. A vegetable garden is one little way to try to be independent of the commercial food chain. We grow our veggies from seeds and we get composting materials from nearby horse farms. We do all the work ourselves and even though it doesn't cost thousands and we don't employ fancy pros to lay it out, it's still a lovely thing. One year my daughter looked out over the vegetable garden and said, "You know...it looks like an illustration in a children's book." And she was right.

I'm not worrying about salmonella because I KNOW where and how my tomatoes and peppers were grown. I'm not paying a fortune for fresh okra and eggplant. And our melons are superb.

But it does push me quite a bit because I feel that the vegetable garden is WASTED if we don't eat a lot of it fresh - AND put the rest up for winter. I HATE to see any of it go to waste, even though much of the overripe stuff is fed to our chickens and all of it makes excellent compost.

Somehow, the vegetable garden really brings out the puritan in me. All those old "waste not, want not" values just come bubbling up to the surface and drive me through this season.

Tammy- Here's the post I was talking about on the potager forum. Show this to DH and tell him a potager right in the middle of your backyard may just help property values...something we can all use after the last few years. And, the kids can keep the trampoline :)

Can you believe people spend this kind of money on a veggie garden...even a beautiful one? I'll stick with my budget friendly (buy on sale, clearance or make it myself) version (LOL)

Yeah, that bugs me a little, too. I can't conceive of being that detached and just writing a big, fat check and then not even bothering to eat the produce. I also don't like the notion of being part of any kind of yuppie trend!

I have to say that I was a little relieved to see that my little planned potager might actually add to my property value. I was a little afraid that it might be a bit of a liability if I ever decide to sell the house.

Thanks so much for posting! Rosefolly, I remember that your potager is stunning. I downloaded your picture onto my computer as part of my inspiration. Hope you don't mind!

Lisa

Huge mix feelings about this. However the poster showed it to us to see if we can take inspiration from it and I do. I see how the elements are utilized and happy to take examples from it.

Looks like I need to get a part-time job tending horses at some rich folks house just so I can eat their fancy veggies. haha

At first I hadn't realized this was an old thread - amazingly, the link opened right away!

I did think, after reading the article, it looked like most of the owners did at least eat the produce sometimes and gave much of it away. I suspect most owners of large vegetable gardens grow more than they can eat!

I also was inspired by French gardens, tho more by Villandry than Versailles, when first thinking of my potager, so I'm really not surprised. And I had to laugh at someone who is surprised at cabbages being photogenic - they are really cool looking as plants in the garden! (And yes, I did partly plant cabbages last year because they look so cool!) (Oh, and I do donate some produce to the local food pantry, fwiw.)

And considering the drought of work for anyone in the design professions right now, I'm hoping this sort of work continues. ;) Tbh, of all the trends out there, I like being part of this one.

I sure won't charge that much, but vegetable gardens keep me in business! That's what my clients all ask for. Howevever, they get a garden on a much, much tinier budget!
I had only one client who wanted the garden in the last photo. Her husband said she could have it on $2,000 including design and labor costs, materials and everything. We spent a whole day with them going back and forth. Finally she told him she wanted a $50,000 vegetable garden or NOTHING.
I think they have a bare spot of land in the back yard still. My favorite part of the story is that she told me I was a horrible designer because I didn't talk her husband into spending $50,000 (and she knew better than that when she hired me). I was surely on his side, and thought that for $2,000 in materials they could have a pretty darned swanky vegetable garden!

I've seen gardens as or more beautiful posted on the potager forum. I think it foolishly expensive and over-priced, but hey a job for gardeners and landscapers is always good.