Tour Liz's Edible Garden


Saturday June 21st
12-5 PM

 Information

In 1999 we found our antique Gambrel perched on the edge of a small, unadorned lot hugging the curve of a busy village street.  I knew it was the perfect home for the garden that would grow with my family.

 I have been told there are no rules for a cottage garden.  With this in mind, I decided that a design with no rules was the perfect design for me.  The combination of formal and informal elements is a plan that allows me to add plants that I chose on impulse or receive as gifts.  A cottage garden gives me the freedom to mix fruits and vegetables with edible and non-edible ornamentals in a variety of ways. And, a cottage garden allows me to move my plants anywhere, as many times as I want while still looking like I know what I am doing.  Don't be fooled though, I don't really know what I am doing, but I love doing it (and redoing it).

The front edible garden was originally a hard patch of grass that resisted all flowering plants.  Inspired by the kitchen gardens I had seen at Sturbridge Village and Mont Vernon, I designed the tiny plot to reflect the order and formality of a much larger vegetable garden.  Because the garden is small, each plant must do double duty by being useful in the kitchen and act as a decorative element on the dinner table as well as at my cooking demonstrations.  Each year the beds are different as I mix herbs and edible flowers with the vegetables my family loves most.  Rose bushes from my mother's house dot the garden with color and ramble over the picket fence throughout the season.