Stacked up kitchen gardening: What you should know

June 22, 2016 admin

A kitchen garden (also called a potager) is different from your regular residential garden, which usually tend to be ornamental lawns and shrubs. It quite often is the central feature of your home garden, containing vegetables, herbs and fruits. The landscape of a kitchen garden tends to be designed with geometrically recurring shapes and patterns, which give it a distinctive look.

One type of kitchen garden that you often see around is a stacked version. This means that it consists of some levels, with each having (if necessary) a distinctive type of soil, nutrients, sunlight exposure, water management system and plants. Of course, there are simpler stacked systems that work mainly on sunlight exposure while also giving importance to the aesthetic aspect of the garden.

There are numerous advantages to a stacked kitchen garden:

It is a real space saver, as the garden ascends upward rather than spreading out over your entire lawn.
People with back issues often put off gardening because they are unable to tend the plants properly. With a stacked system, this is no problem at all.
It adds to the overall aesthetics of the garden if you something as unique as a stacked garden as the central feature.
Plants can get more than ample sunlight if they’re higher off the ground. This helps them to grow much healthier.
With more space, you can grow a greater variety of plants in your garden, with each getting their due.

There are many innovative ways to design your stacked kitchen garden depending on the material you have available to you. There aren’t any hard and fast rules, which leaves a lot of room for creative experimentation!

The stacked step garden is probably the most commonly used. You can either build one using precise measurements or reuse an old drawer as well. These stacked beds are a neat and minimalistic way of expanding your garden. A raised platform garden called a Salad Box is another well known stacked garden method for people facing back issues.

A gutter garden may be more beautiful than you think if made correctly. You just need some basic equipment to construct half-pipes which can hold soil and you’ll have an attractive space in your garden! Tiered gardens are an easy-to-do way of having a stacked garden in less space. Just stack some terra cotta pots and plant seeds around them when done. Feeling like going a little grand? Try the vertical tower garden that will stand out in any garden space.

These are only a few of the many options available in the world of stacked kitchen gardens. You can pick the one that suits you and your garden space the best and gives your home garden an extra dimension. Just choose your favorite shape and get stacking!