A cottage kitchen garden is a romantic coming together of traditional ideas and notions that have their roots in the agricultural, pre-industrial past.
These gardens were subsistence gardens and made up of vegetable beds, chicken runs, herb gardens, wild flowers, apple trees and compost heaps, with lots of meandering paths.
For lovers of home-grown vegetables and fresh produce, a cottage kitchen garden is ideal and If you include a lovers bower, a kissing gate, a well and a natural pond, this could be the perfect garden for you.
Guide Size
Good size is 30 m x 10.5m
Typical Features
- A fairly open site is ideal.
- Small lawn
- Half of the total space devoted to fruit and vegetables.
- Fruit, vegetables and flowers mixed together.
- Meandering paths
- Natural materials – salvaged local materials are ideal.
- Try and have a feature like a well or oak water butt.
- Include a pond if you have space.
- Apple and plum trees a must
- Small shed in natural colour with plant climbing over
- Trellis with scented climber such as honeysuckle.
- Brick paved area near house
- Lots of pots
Typical Plants
- Traditional cottage flowers – no exotics
- Mixed borders - sweet William, hardy fuscias, delphiniums, lupins and Canterbury bells
- Stay away from modern plants – e.g. blues
- Foxgloves, Sweet pea, Forget me not and marigold
Loosely defined mix of fruit, vegetables and flowers, go your own way!
Maintenance and Care
A good kitchen garden is never tidy or finished but is always busy and in a continuous state of change.
Vegetable beds are always going to look scruffy as you will be either harvesting them or preparing for the next crop and flowers will always be coming in or going out of season.
You will probably constantly be making modifications.