Cottage garden?

[Hollyhocksarenotmessy]

Does anyone grow veg mixed in with other plants, as a cottage garden, rather than having a veg patch? How do you find it? Easier? Harder? Looks good, or looks odd?

You can have borders of only edible plants.

You usually grow veg in rows so if you are having a cottage garden they might look a bit strange.
but you could grow them so they look pretty.

You will need space between plants for watering.

It depends on what you want to grow, Some veg plants are pretty.

Do a search on cottage garden vegetable patch or similar.

I tried brocolli and Kale in a mixed flower border.
It did not go well.
The slugs ate them.

Currently growing them again in large pots (and some other crops like carrots, mustard leaf, herbs etc) with violas, tbh, my brocolli is alright at the minute but I think I’m going to lose my kale seedlings to them again.
My Swiss chard is ‘holey’ too and cabbage butterfly caterpillars ate pretty much all my rocket.

At the minute, I’m feeling like it’s more work than it is let on to be and feeling pretty frustrated with brassica/root/salad type vegetables.

The herbs (I grow them under roses) grow well with no problems but if the veg fails again this year I’ll be sticking to my trusty perennial flowers.

I did a bit of this when I had a tiny garden, it was nice. I had a really useful book on the subject called The Ornamental Kitchen Garden by Geoff Hamilton. I picked it up second hand on eBay. You certainly don’t need to grow veg in rows.

I do this because I don't have space for a dedicated veg patch. I like how it looks, although some of the summer veg is now looking a bit tired. But for example I really liked the drama of the big courgette leaves and flowers earlier in the year. Also red and yellow stemmed swiss chard is looking good. Another thing I've done is use strawberries as groundcover in odd spots around the place

I've put 5 big raised beds on my lawn as I prefer to keep them seperate. I grow sweetcorn every year and they need to be in a grid to pollinate so would take up a lot of a normal flower bed. Some things like salad veg would work dotted around the garden but lots need their own space I think.

Have a look at potager garden ideas www.growveg.co.uk/guides/how-to-design-a-potager-garden/ - sounds similar to what you want.

Alys Fowler did a programme called The Edible Garden where she did this with her whole back garden (about 20 foot by 60 foot), you can find the episodes on Youtube and there is a book.

I think as it's not the typical way of growing you just need to be confident and accept you may have some failures or encounter different problems than when growing vegetables in a traditional, separate space. I'm planning to do something similar in an area of our garden as well as having more traditional veg beds.

Good luck if you decide to go for it!

Thank you, very helpful comments and advice from you all. I do wonder about keeping pests off so I'm sorry to hear about slugs eating the lot. We've got a big garden but as renting we aren't allowed to change the layout. There are some very empty bits of beds (although I suppose something might pop up in spring) that I might try some veg in. Things like a runner bean Wigwam and onions and garlic might work well. I also already have strawberries in pots so could plant them out as ground cover- there are masses of weeds everywhere, so thanks for that idea. I'll look at all the links.

I'd go with raised beds OP. I put raised beds on my lawn, and it works. When you move, just remove the raised beds and reseed.

I have lots of pots on my patio and they are a mix of veg and other plants. I have tomatoes, aubergine and dwarf french beans, snd potatoes mixed with pots of lavender, rosmary, fushias, petunias and some pots just have bee friendly wild flowe mix in them.. I also have some salad leaves in troughs. And some cucumber climing up the fence behind the pots.
It works well bug wise as i think the pots keep them seperate but i do have an automatic watering system.
I think its really pretty.

I also didnt get on with brassicas! But they did t work at my sllotment either.
Leeks and spring onions and chives worked well too.