Your vegetable garden can be both functional and beautiful, offering fresh produce for you to enjoy throughout the growing season as well as a stunning focal point in your backyard. Let creativity guide you when envisioning this special outdoor space, as anything is possible. Here at The Todd Group, we have built and planted amazing gardens that draw people outside—and provide a truly local source of fruits and vegetables. Here are a few ideas to inspire your design:
1. Tie in the design with the rest of your property.
Your garden should feel like a seamless extension of the rest of your home and landscape. You can tie everything together by coordinating materials, and taking design inspiration from elements of your home’s architecture. Add arbors at the entrance that match the arbors at your front walkway or entrance to your great lawn area. If you’ve built the garden up with raised beds, use the same stone you have elsewhere.
2. Use stone or brick to amp up the sophistication.
The bed edges of the soil plots of your garden can certainly stay level with the grass, but a raised garden feels more stately and permanent, and you can bring in Belgian block, brick, or stone to create an attractive edging around the planting beds. We do not recommend wood edging, as it doesn’t withstand the elements as effectively. It will break down and require maintenance or replacing over time.
3. Create an inviting entrance.
Your vegetable garden doesn’t have to be your grandmother’s garden. Give it a striking look by adding custom fencing around it—which doubles as protection from rabbits, deer, and other critters—and an arched entrance with gate. Add fragrant, climbing vines or roses to make things even more welcoming. We have lots of examples of beautiful garden entrances—ask us, and we’d be happy to share pictures of past work.
4. Incorporate design elements.
The options are endless when it comes to transforming your vegetable garden from a space for growing into a quiet sanctuary. Add a paving stone or decorative pea gravel path throughout the beds. Give visual interest to the garden by including vertical elements such as tall obelisks or natural bamboo for staking for climbing vegetables like climbing beans, peas and cucumbers. Add artistic elegance with a well-placed ornament. Build the garden around a central feature like a fountain or formal planter.
5. Mix in flowers for color.
Vegetable gardens grow best when mixed in with lots of flowers to attract pollinators. Bonus: flowers add color and variety to a vegetable garden, and can be a mix of flowering shrubs, perennials and annuals.
One last tip: Do things right behind the scenes. Make sure your garden is in the right place—full sun is best. Soil should be amended with a healthy compost. Your irrigation system is important to ensure you do not over- or under-water. Drip irrigation is best used as you want to avoid overhead watering. Going forward, best practices are to amend beds every year and rotate certain vegetables each season to avoid diseases and encourage proper growing.
Let The Todd Group help you create the vegetable garden of your dreams. This will augment the other incredible features of your property, give you another outdoor destination, and allow you to do plenty of “garden-to-table” cooking this summer and fall.