Garden Crops

The first bed- March 2009

Our ½ -acre “potager” garden is an experiment in diversity, organic management methods and small-scale, year-round food production. Potager, translated literally from French, means soup with vegetables (potage) and in Europe has come to mean vegetable garden.

We’ve adopted this flavorful definition of “garden as soup”- filling ours with hearty vegetables as well as other spices of life that make a garden a feast for the senses- fruit trees, herbs, flowers and berries.  A 7-foot deer fence protects our crops and helps create the feel of an outdoor “room” where we spend as many waking hours as possible.

View from the deck- flower/herb beds, raised beds, rows of squashes and beans in distance

The design is eclectic:  traditional wide rows of corn, berry bushes and trailing vegetables; crowded sections of English garden with sculptures tucked among cutting flowers; and raised beds utilizing WORD (wide, organic, rotated, deep) gardening practices packed with vegetables, herbs and flowers. Plus, we’ve tucked in several “away” spots for the tired gardener or visitor to sit and rest among the beauty.

We stretch our garden season with hoop houses- curved metal hoops over the raised beds that support garden cloth for frost protection and greenhouse plastic to seal in the warmth during the coldest months. Cool-weather crops can be grown all winter and spring planting begins 3-4 weeks early thanks to this clever idea!

We hope to share our bounty with others one day through a Taproot CSA , our website, and perhaps a booth at a farmer’s market.  Stay tuned…

Find out What’s Cookin‘ in the Taproot Kitchen

Garden through the seasons

Click here to read any blog posts we’ve written about crops!