What is a kitchen garden?
I rattled off the phrase “kitchen garden” the other day and the person I was talking to stopped me to ask, “What is that? A garden inside your kitchen??” Fair question! …so what is a kitchen garden??
What do you imagine when you think about growing food? Row after row of mono-crops on huge farms like Big Agriculture? Ploughing and hoeing and back-breaking labor? None of these things is required in a kitchen garden.
A kitchen garden is meant to be a smaller-scale garden close to your back door (or front!) where you can pop out of the house to harvest a few horticultural treats and incorporate them into whatever meal is being prepped in the kitchen. It’s not meant to fully replace the produce you purchase at the grocery store or farmer’s market - that would require a lot of space and time. A kitchen garden provides a beautifully fresh supplement to your primary food supply, especially when you grow herbs and salad greens (which are never as good at the store).
Kitchen gardens are typically grown in raised containers or beds, which would be impractical if you were growing a massive vegetable garden. Ideally your daily routine should bring you near or through your kitchen garden during the course of your regular day - if you don’t see it, you forget to tend to it. I have mine in a side yard next to my driveway so I see it every time I drive away from my house or come home, and it’s extremely rare that I’m not out there at least once a day.
And unlike a full-time farmer, your kitchen garden isn’t meant to take up hours of your time every day. Except for more intensive periods like planting, your general routine with a kitchen garden should be just a little pruning here, a little maintenance there, and happy little harvests on the regular. Of course, the danger in starting with a kitchen garden is that you’ll get addicted and soon want to expand to a massive vegetable garden (my dream!).
If you think your thumb isn’t green enough to grow a garden or you kill every plant you own (including succulents, haha), a small kitchen garden is a great place to learn and grow your green thumb. Coaching can get you through the learning curve with way less hassle and far more clarity, so reach out for a free 15-minute Discovery Call to find out more.
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