I am an avid "big garden" gardener, but I also keep a strip behind my house which is the beginning of my future potager.
I love having a few special varieties close to the house to fuss over, mulch, water and weed. My big garden is tidy and well cared for, but lacks the aesthetics (and optimum growing conditions) of my little "potager".
In my potager I have 7 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, 4 special eggplants, 2 special bell peppers, patty pan squash, okra and some herbs all edged with Marigolds. It is 4 ft by 25 feet, and I would love to have it twice that size right now. It is up against the south wall of my brown shingled house and the sun and heat are perfect for tomatoes and eggplants.

I have started a collection of books to help in planning my expansion. Here is my list.

The New Kitchen Garden by Anne Pavord (five stars)

Designing the New Kitchen Garden: An American Potager Handbook by Jennifer Bartley (four stars)

The Big Book of Kitchen Gardens by Time Life (three stars)

It is pretty rare to find any magazines featuring potager gardens. Miracle Gro put out a success with vegetables magazine issue, which was not the same as their waterproof books series, last spring. I have never seen a similar magazine before or since, but it had an article on two nice potagers. I am always on the lookout for another issue, so if anyone knows anything about it, I'd love to hear.

I usually budget in about $100 for gardening books each winter to hold me over until spring. The books on my wish list are...
The Kitchen Garden Book by Dick Bird
The Kitchen Garden Yearbook: A Month-By-Month Guide to Growing Your Own Vegetables by Daphne Ledward
Taylor's Weekend Gardening Guide to Kitchen Gardens: How to Create a Beautiful and Functional Culinary Garden (Taylor's Weekend Gardening Guides) by Cathy Wilkinson Barash

If anyone has any recommendations concerning those books, please post.

Good luck ,and welcome to the potager forum.

The Art of French Vegetable Gardening by Louisa Jones is a must have! It's the first book I turn to for inspiration and ideas. The photography is wonderful.

My advice would be don't skimp out on fencing, paths, and edging. Spend as much as you can reasonably afford, and work as hard as you practically can installing hardscape in the first year, and the rewards in subsequent years will be tremendous. We put a lot of time and money into our potager when we built it 3 years ago and I don't regret any of it. Of the entire yard, the potager is by far the place where we spend the most time. My wife and I are always out there puttering around; the kids' swing-set sits there unused while they chase each other around the paths in the potager, forage around for something good to eat, hunt for caterpillars and toads, or make piles of the pea-stone I used for the paths. The potager is the crown jewel of our landscape, and IMHO it's almost impossible to spend too much on it.

Regarding fencing, we used white vinyl picket fence. It's reasonably priced and easy to install. My wife likes it because it is low maintenance, but if I had it to do over again, I'd pick something more natural looking. It looks a little too much like plastic for my tastes. My DREAM FENCE is a 2' high stone wall topped with a 2' high black iron fence. The solid stone wall would look great and keep the bunnies out, as well as providing a back edge for raised beds. The iron fence on top would add height, look great, and could have vines trained along it. I figure if I do all the work myself (including all the masonry - ugh! My 40'x40' potager would need about 160 linear feet of stonework at 2' high), I could probably build it for about $3K. If I hire a mason, it would probably be over $10K. Expensive? You betcha! But worth every penny. Some day... ;-)

Again, my strong advice is don't skimp! Make it bigger and better than you think you need. Spend more than you ever envisioned spending in both time and money. I swear to you that you won't regret it.

-Diggity

farmer at heart, thank you so much for your suggestions. I'm hugely big on pictures. so I bet that mircle grow publication would really be fun for me to leaf through. I tend to think things through for a long time (planning in my head) before I actually get to putting them into practice. so i'm going to run over to amazaon to see if your books are still available. Again, many thanx.

Diggity, you and I are kindred souls! I own louisa's book "the art of french vegetable gardening" and two copies of her book "the french country garden". the pictures in both books make me swoon. i must have talked 50 people into buying copies of her books. i just love them. BTW, there's a to-die for picture of a potager garden in the french country garden book.

I also bought yesterday a book entitled "l' art du potager". it hasn't come yet, but i hope I'll enjoy it.

Thanx for the tips on hardscape. i'm more of a "do it right the first time" gardener. so i try to put in the most permanent structures i can afford (translation = usally means the costliest). but on the other hand, i do do a lot of "pre-planning/pre-thinking" before i ever dig a hole or lay a brick.

You both have given me some wonderful suggestions that are much appreciated.

Good luck! And post pictures when you're done. :-)

-Diggity

I took the recommendation from somebody here and got "Gardens of plenty" by Marylyn Abbott. ItÂs one glorious photo after another. I loff it lots.

As I am expanding my small garden, I am looking at "Carrots love Tomatoes" by RIOTTE
I've been getting by with an 8x8 raised bed, but have the railroad ties to make 2 4x8' beds!
That is THIS year!
I've got alot more room for lots more stuff!
Due to a bad back, just need to find a 20 something to do the work! NT

diggity, OK, I'll post pictures (she says shyly). I always think my garden isn't very exciting to anybody but me. so i'm always hesitant to post pictures -- but you did ask ;-)

lizelle, thank you for the suggestion. I got a used copy from Amazon. I'm sure I'm going to love it.

So now i think I've got my winter reading materials ready. I can't wait to start doodling and daydreaming.

Thank you again everyone for your input. You've made an old lady happy!

jxa44,

potagers and veggie gardens are always interesting! we wanna see pix!!!

lizelle! lizelle! I got my book today -- gardens of plenty and it's just the kind of inspiration I was looking for. thank you soooooooooo much for suggesting this book. i am salivating all over it :-)

So glad you like it as much as I did. IsnÂt Amazon a great place. You should get the other two books by Marylyn Abbott as well. "Thoughts on garden design" and "Gardening with light and color". Truly beautiful books, wordy of any shelf.