Our dream kitchen garden is practical, prolific, and beautiful. Here are 13 we love—all working gardens, but pretty enough for leisure time, too.
Above: This Berkeley, California garden by Star Apple Edible Gardens has arched metal trellises to support muscat grapes, green beans, and cherry tomatoes above raised beds of field stone.
Above: Among this understated Rhode Island garden's occasional flashes of color are bright blue enameled teepees on which tomatoes grow. See more in Garden Visit: At Home in Rhode Island with Painter Georgia Marsh.
Above: In this kitchen garden in the Santa Ynez wine country of California, Addison Landscape sited the garden beds just outside the kitchen for convenient dinnertime harvests of tomatoes, lettuce, artichokes, apples, figs, and more.
Above: The Cape Cod garden of architect Sheila Bonnell has everything she needs for a quick dinner salad, including cucumbers, tomatoes, herbs, and lettuce. Grasses line the perimeter to hide the chicken wire fencing. Read more in Architect Visit: A Kitchen Garden on Cape Cod.
Above: Remodelista + Gardenista Architect/Designer Directory member Kriste Michelini collaborated with Esther Arnold on the design of her own kitchen garden in Alamo, California. Michelini wanted the planter boxes to be "sculptural," so the garden would be as beautiful in winter as in summer. See the whole project among the Best Edible Garden Finalists in last year's Considered Design Awards contest.
Above: Photograph via Bukowskis.
A three-hours' drive north from Stockholm, a farm dating to the 1700s has a sprawling kitchen garden.
Above: A young family turned 10 acres of land outside Melboure, Australia into a working farm, producing all the meat, vegetables, and fruit the family requires. Read more about the expanding effort in Garden Visit: A Modern Farmer and Her 10 Acres in Australia.
Above: This Southern California garden by Molly Wood Garden Design mixes edibles and perennial flowers for a kitchen garden that's suited for lingering. The project was a Best Edible Garden Finalist in our 2013 contest.
Above: Designer Lauri Kranz of Edible Gardens LA created a modern steel and glass solution for keeping animal pests out of a Hollywood garden while still letting bees and butterflies in. See the whole project in Steal This Look: A Deer-Proof Garden in Hollywood Hills.
Above: A drought-tolerant edible landscape by Kranz, spotted on the blog of photographer Brian Ferry.
Above: Demonstrating that household food can be grown almost anywhere, Danish designer Line Grüner created the Urban Greenhouse—a compact structure with planter beds, garden storage, and seating, made in Denmark. For more, see Small Space Gardening: A Tiny Greenhouse on Wheels.
Above: Blogger April of Wahsega Valley Farm built a bean tunnel using metal mesh and poles from her local hardware store. Learn how she did it in Vegetable Garden Design: DIY Bean Trellis.
Above: Louise Hassen of Sonoma, California transformed a 5-acre former chicken farm into a lush family farm and space for outdoor entertaining.
Above: This Menlo Park, California landscape by Arterra Landscape Architects has figs, apples, tomatoes, peppers, and more in horse troughs, in keeping with the owners' casual vibe.
Inspired? Start designing an eat-in garden:
- Hardscaping 101: Design Guide for Edible Gardens.
- Required Reading: The Beautiful Edible Garden.
- Ask the Expert: 9 Tips to Grow Edible Microgreens.
- Edible Garden: A Veg-Wedge on Legs.
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