Page 46 - Simply Vegetables Spring 2021

with flowers in red, pink, white or bicoloured (red and white). There are also cultivars with green, purple, purple streaked and yellow pods. Smaller forms are available in the dwarf French and runner beans again with a range of flower and pod colours (which look nice in containers). Peas have a range of heights from 60cm to 2m so choose your cultivars carefully, they have white or purple flowers and green or purple pods. There
is also a heritage broad bean with crimson flowers that looks quite attractive.
The root crops are not so easy as the main colour is buried in the soil so cannot
be seen, but there foliage can add a lot of interest, texture and colour to the beds / border. Carrot foliage has a very fine texture and goes well with any large leaved (coarse) plants whether ornamental or vegetable. Nearly any carrot cultivar is fine but if the autumn / winter cultivars are chosen they will be in the ground for a long period giving less gaps. Beetroot is very useful with its red / purple leaves which as well as giving colour the leaves are edible. Salsify which is not often grown in the UK is worth a try if you want to grow something different, it is grown for its roots but also produces nice flowers.
Potager garden
to the border and will be in place most of the summer and will continue growing after the cobs are harvested if they are picked carefully. They need to be grown in groups to ensure cross pollination if you want cobs. There are also ornamental sweet corn that can be used.
Lettuce are easy to grow, provide the base for a salad and have both colourful and
artichoke if harvested you do not see the flower as you eat the flower bud! But if left has a blueish flower. Globe artichokes have grey green large foliage which stands out and gives a good display in the borders, it is considered an architectural plant by garden designers.
Asparagus is an excellent plant for potager gardens as the foliage is of a very fine texture and it will also give height. It is picked early in the season so once allowed to grow gives a long display.
There are many flowering plants that produce edible flowers but I will cover that in a future article, also many herbs are well suited to growing in potager gardens. The vegetables covered above can be used as part of a bed / border design or just dotted into borders in cottage garden style. Many can also be grown in containers to give interest and food.
Potager gardens make maximum use of space and the ideas can be used in any garden no matter how small so you can grow your own and have a colourful display. If any members enter allotment competitions or their sites are judged using some of the plants with colour should help to catch the judge’s eye. Many could be used in NVS branch displays to give extra colour to the exhibit and again should catch both the judge’s eye and the publics.
Alliums are a large vegetable family and also include a number of ornamental alliums to give flower colour. Chives are good for picking for salads and also produce many lilac flowers which are edible, they are ideal for the front of the border. For foliage effect shallots and garlic are useful for the front of border and garlic is reputed
to have some pest and
disease deterrent effect.
Leeks are very useful in
potager gardens for their
foliage effect, colour and
long display even over
winter. They have a good
foliage texture and are
available with green, grey
green and purple tinted
leaves and will also give a
bit of height to the borders. Red onions have a very decorative effect if spaced in little groups in the border, other colours are silvery white and yellow as well as purple and pink.
Other vegetables are courgettes both climbing and bush which have both edible flowers and fruits, the fruits come in striped, yellow and dark green. As Emily Plumb showed in her article in last Octobers SV they can be grown in containers or easily trained up supports to give height to the border.
Sweet corn will give height and texture
Kale Redbor
interesting textured leaves. As well as the normal lettuce leaved there are frilly, oakleaf and Lollo Rossa types.
The leaves can be picked individually as salad leaves or the heart harvested for
a salad. They plants are easy to remove and replace if spare plants are grown
in modules. The many red leaved lettuce look very
attractive in borders.
Fennel has a very fine texture and will give
height to the beds / border, some also have a hint of purple in their foliage. They can be used in salads or the bulb cooked which has an interesting anise flavour.
Moving onto the perennial vegetables there are the two artichokes (not related) both of which will give height to the borders. The Jerusalem artichoke is related to sunflowers and some cultivars have a nice sunflower type flower in August. The globe
Salsify which is not often grown in the UK is worth a try if you want to grow something different
46 Simply Vegetables
Potager display Chelsea 2016
Perilla nankanensis