Creating a kitchen garden offers numerous advantages. Crisp fresh vegetables, fruit and herbs to be harvested as required enrich your own menu. In addition, water and organic fertilizers can be used more sparingly than in purely decorative gardens. This not only protects the environment, but also your wallet. If you plan correctly, you don't have to put a lot of effort into the kitchen garden to quickly achieve high yields. The following tips and hints for laying out the kitchen garden can help.
planning
The most important thing for the successful design of a kitchen garden is first and foremost comprehensive prior planning. This not only helps with the sensible division of the available space, but also with the following selection of plants. It can also prevent typical mistakes that can be easily corrected on paper - but would require a lot of effort and time later in the garden. Accordingly, the planning of the kitchen garden should be carried out carefully. The following points and tips should be observed when creating the plan:
- Make a true-to-scale sketch that includes existing elements such as trees and paths
- Take into account and enter the soil type and quality as well as the lighting conditions in the areas
- Inspiration and advice can be obtained from garden neighbors
- Plan space for paths between the beds, compost and, if necessary, fallow or animal-friendly overgrown areas
Choice of plants
New garden owners or hobby gardeners in particular, who switch their green corner from ornamental to useful plants, have plenty to do in the initial euphoria. Fruit trees and berry bushes are purchased by the dozen, and seeds of the most diverse plants are brought in by the bag. It does not take into account how much effort it takes to properly care for the plants. It is also often neglected that not all plant species are suitable as direct neighbors. It is better to start with a few types of plants that are particularly easy to care for. In this way, certain successes can be achieved and the effort remains manageable. The variety can then still be expanded if the practical effort can be assessed more realistically.
Fruit trees
Home-grown fruit is not only delicious and healthy, it also belongs to it
- For quick yields, rely on bush trees, half-trunks and columnar fruit
- for particularly large harvests, even with self-pollinators, plant at least two or three specimens of the same variety
- Choose resistant cultivars in order to keep the effort low
- for long-term yields and trees that provide shade, plant tall trunks
If you have enough space, you should plant both plants for quick yields and the tried and tested, traditional standard trees at the same time. Until the high trunks bring in their first notable harvests, there is no need to do without fruit. If the high trunks really begin to prove their worth, the other tree forms, on the other hand, have usually reached the end of their high-yielding phase, as they are much more short-lived.
Berry bushes
Most berry bushes are wonderful enrichments in every kitchen garden and easy to look after. After planting, they can almost be left to their own devices, and with numerous varieties the effort is surprisingly low. Just like the space required. Recommended varieties are:
- Aronia
- Goji
- Josta
- raspberry
- Gooseberry
- Black, white and red currant
- blackberry
The following tips can also help:
- Choosing low-prickly varieties makes harvesting easier
- Resistant cultivated forms reduce effort and the use of protective agents
- For yields in the first year of standing, plant the bushes on prepared soil in autumn
- Make sure there is enough space between rows and plants so that harvesting is simplified or even possible at all
vegetables
Harvest the ingredients for the crisp, fresh, green salad entirely from your own kitchen garden - a dream for many. Which does not have to remain unfulfilled. Again, however, at least for the species, it is better to use in measure than in mass. Vegetable plants that are particularly easy to care for, which are therefore ideal for beginners or hobby gardeners with little time, include:
- Beans and peas
- salad
- Kohlrabi and other types of cabbage
- pumpkin
- zucchini
- Sweet corn
- Radish and radish
- Carrots
- Swiss chard
- Onions and garlic
Tomatoes and green cucumbers are also included if there is a greenhouse. In addition, resistant varieties should again be chosen. Please also note:
- The space required and the distance between the plants, kohlrabi grows deformed if the distance is too small, zucchini spreads rapidly
- Duration until harvest and sowing time in order to be able to stagger the yields
- The prevailing climate and suitability of the vegetables in order to avoid failure
If you are unsure, you should always take a look at the gardens in the area. It quickly becomes apparent what is growing and flourishing or what is taking care of itself. Your own experiments are of course still worthwhile, but should first be carried out on a small area.
Herbs
Herbs are not only aromatic spices and beautiful decorations, they are thanks to the vitamins they contain also extremely healthy, can serve as a basis for teas or used in natural medicine will. Accordingly, they simply cannot be missing in the kitchen garden. They are usually very easy to care for and usually require little space. It is important to give them the right substrate as needed. Normal garden soil is not suitable for many. In addition, it is beneficial to plant the herbs higher up in the kitchen garden, for example in pots or raised beds. Spirals as a herb garden are decorative, but do not allow easy access. Harvesting and care are made more difficult. Tip: Some herbs, such as gold balm, have a repellent effect on some pests because of their essential oils. As a natural protection, they can therefore also be planted in the kitchen garden.
Raised beds
Hours of stooping in the bed quickly puts you on your back, raised beds provide a remedy here. The increase also has the advantage of keeping some pests away. For example, the plants are then no longer easy to reach for snails and mice. The soil heats up faster and the plants can be covered more easily. The raised beds in the kitchen garden are therefore particularly ideal for sensitive plants. Further advantages are:
- easy filling with special substrate
- Sowing and planting can take place earlier due to the faster heating
- Can be used as a greenhouse or tomato tent replacement due to the option of covering
- can be better insulated with sensitive plants for overwintering
- targeted, water-saving watering
Glasshouse
A greenhouse in the kitchen garden can increase the variety of plants; the greenhouse does not even have to be heated. Those who are just laying out the kitchen garden can do without it. Even after that, however, it does not have to be laboriously built. Instead of a model made of glass, a greenhouse made of foil can be used for pre-growing or cultivating sensitive plants.
compost
Compost is a wonderful fertilizer and additive to the substrate, and garden waste can also be sensibly disposed of on it. Space should therefore also be planned for composting in the kitchen garden. Divided into three sections and safely demarcated, compost that is already ripe can be used, while the fresh one rots in peace and the last area is used for active disposal.
Unused areas
After the cultivation of strongly consuming plants, areas should be allowed to lie fallow every now and then. During this time it is recommended
Attract beneficial organisms
Even if only resistant plants are grown in the kitchen garden, pests and some diseases that transmit them cannot be ruled out. To promote a natural balance, an area in the kitchen garden should be turned into a wild corner. Neither lawn mowing nor weeding is allowed here, but bee pastures, wild herbs, grasses and hiding places should be offered.
Interesting facts about the creation of a kitchen garden
The initial planning of a kitchen garden requires a detailed approach and some effort. However, if you carefully subdivide this, planning areas for composting and beneficial insects in addition to cultivation areas and paths, you can significantly reduce the subsequent workload. If the right plants are also selected, the first rich harvest will not be long in coming.
- The ones to be grown Vegetables should be based on individual taste and the space available: even on the balcony or terrace you can put lettuce, a couple of tomato sticks or Herbs are grown in pots and boxes, however, it must be ensured that the plants get enough sun to prevent the yield and growth to decrease.
- You save space by growing the vegetables in Mixed culture, whereby hill beds offer themselves: The creation of these beds involves an increased amount of work, but they then last for approx. 6 years. Raised beds meet people who cannot or do not want to bend down in the truest sense of the word. They are a very clean facility, even if they offer less space due to their surrounds.
- at Cold frames it is necessary to sacrifice space, but due to the numerous possible uses, such as the Growing sensitive crops, growing plants or felling vegetables in winter is rewarded this.
- A Compost heap is indispensable in every garden, as is a small corner for herbs. Some of them bloom very nicely and can be integrated into a perennial bed without being called herbs there.
- the Separation of the kitchen and ornamental garden area can be done through several ways. Conceivable are z. B. Fruit bushes, thornless blackberry hedges, ornamental trees, but also the ready-made elements available in stores.
- Likewise is the traditional one Edging with boxwood, as it used to be used in monastery gardens, is now popular again: for them Small hedges around the individual areas of the garden are all small varieties of the Boxwood. However, this variant requires a little more care, because the hedges have to be cut regularly so that they become dense. On the other hand, the separation by paths is quite simple and practical.
- as Path material paving stones or gravel are suitable: Gravel has the advantage that it can be used to create curved paths that do not make the garden look so strict. A layer of bark mulch is also suitable as a covering for the garden paths. However, it has to be renewed every now and then because the material will rot over time. At the same time, however, this has the advantage that when the mulch layer rots, valuable nutrients are returned to the soil.
