A kitchen garden is an old fashioned term for a small vegetable plot that was usually found outside the kitchen door. This old fashioned idea has become new again as more people seek to grow their own fruit, vegetables, and cooking herbs. The idea is that you can walk outside, collect the components of dinner and come back in to cook them – all within a short period of time.

Whether you live in an apartment, on acreage, or somewhere in between you can have a kitchen garden of some kind. It may take some extra planning and a little more effort but you can grow some of your own food no matter where you live.

In an apartment the following can be grown on a sunny window sill:

• Basil
• Thyme
• Parsley
• Rosemary
• Leaf lettuce
• Spinach
• Kale
• Beets
• Cherry tomatoes

There are others as well. Consider that certain types of small carrots can also be grown in pots. You may need to do some experimenting but it can be done. If you have a balcony or patio you can grow even more, and the amount rises quite a bit the more yard you have.

In small areas consider growing vegetables that vine and cane be trained grow upwards on trellises and similar things. This is a space saving way to have a kitchen garden almost anywhere.

The traditional kitchen garden has anything that you might find on the kitchen table. It is usually laid out in a four square design with raised beds and intersecting permanent paths between them. The size of the garden will determine the number of beds.

A larger kitchen garden, or Potager as it is called in France, may even have beds for cut flowers, herbs for medicinal use, and fruit trees. The difference between this type of garden and the vegetable garden with rows is that the raised beds are easier to care for and the layout makes it simple to plan a four season garden with crop rotation.

Because the beds are raised they can be planted year after year without tilling. The soil is not compacted because it is not walked on.

The less space you have for your kitchen garden the more carefully you will have to choose your seeds. While sweet corn tastes fantastic when it is fresh you can't grow much in a small area. It may be better to grow green beans, lettuce, or some other vegetable that produces a lot of food in a smaller space.

Choosing heirloom varieties of seeds and fruit trees (like heirloom apples) means that you will be able to save your seeds from year to year. This cuts down on the overall cost of your garden because you only pay for the first year's worth of crops.

It is also important to choose seeds that grow into vegetables you like. If you absolutely hate green beans there is no purpose in growing them no matter how easy they are to grow! Choose hardy varieties of vegetables that grow well in your climate.

• Green beans
• Snap or snow peas
• Tomatoes
• Eggplant
  
• Peppers
• Leaf lettuce
• Kale
• Chard
• Beets
• Carrots
  
• Turnips
• Parsley
• Cilantro
• Basil
• Dill
• Mint
• Lavender
• Strawberries
• Dwarf fruit tree or two
• Grapes
  
• Zinnias and other flowers for cutting

By using organic gardening methods you can easily provide your family with produce all summer long, and if you have more space you may have enough left over for preserving as well. A relatively small investment of time and money will save you a couple of hundred dollars in groceries over a season.

A modern kitchen garden design may incorporate edible plants in with the landscape plants to create an integrated garden in less space. This can be a great idea if you have a Homeowner's Association that doesn't allow vegetable gardens, or if you have a 0 lot with no space.

You would plan your garden as any garden, with tall items like tomatoes at the back of the bed and short plants, like kale, at the front. Since the bed is usually more of a border than a square items are easy to get to.

If you are smitten with a particular era you can easily recreate the kitchen garden of that era with heirloom seeds.

For example, if you want to plant a Victorian kitchen garden you would go to one of the many companies that specialize in heirlooms seeds and choose seeds that would have been popular in that time period. Most of the heirloom seed companies say when the seeds were popular. Rare Seeds, for instance, says in the description of Alaska Garden Peas that they are an heirloom from 1880. You could plant these in your Victorian kitchen garden because they would have been familiar to the Victorian gardener.

Another component of an old fashioned kitchen garden was often a hive or a skep of bees. The hive was centered in the garden and the bees kept the vegetables and fruit pollinated. At the end of the season the homemaker had a nice batch of honey to sweeten all kinds of baked goods and breads with.

Some areas have regulations and zoning laws about bees and how close they can be to a residence so look into that before you decide to try your hand at a hive.

Keeping a kitchen garden takes eating locally to its most basic form – providing food for yourself and your family, perhaps bartering with a neighbor for something you don't grow. Growing your own is healthy, frugal, and fun.