The Lazy Gardener

I am a lazy gardener. And no, this is NOT a picture of my garden. This beautiful garden photo is courtesy of BHG.
This photo is an example of a french potager style garden . I LOVE potager gardens and I'll tell you why. For those of you not familiar with potagers , a potager by definition is a garden that combines both edible and ornamental plants; a vegetable garden that is utilitarian in nature but designed with beauty in mind; much like an English kitchen garden, but often formal and symmetrically designed in the French fashion. That is why I LOVE potager style gardens. They include beauty and function.
Potagers are very similar in that respect to the English Cottage garden. They just tend to be a little more on the formal side.
Now don't get me wrong , I love having fresh vegetables right outside my door, but shouldn't"t it be an attractive vegetable garden?
My grandparents always planted a row of glads and zinnias in the front of their garden. Perfect for a vase on the kitchen table.
 My mother-in-law always planted marigold to keep pests away. Function and beauty.
I had my own version of a potager garden one year at the dairy farm and I LOVED it ! Unfortunately, I was the only one.
 I took 4 very large tractor tires and positioned them in a square, in the center of the square I placed a round decorative piece that was once part of a barn cupola , it was SO cool ! In each of them I planted vegetables surrounded by flowers. At the entrance I placed and arbor with two smaller tires on each side. In these I planted squash and gourds to climb the trellis. It didn't get weedy , I could mow the path in between the tires , it was BEAUTIFUL ! I would just sit in a chair and admire my handy work !
 Alas , one of the afore mentioned moves ( to town ) and my wonderful son ( he really is , but he has never really appreciated my garden skills) insisted we remove it ! No large tractor tires for him to mow around ...
Fast forward to present day.

 Again,  I am a lazy gardener. I start out in the spring designing an attractive garden , with flowers intermingled with my veggies. But it's Iowa , and it gets HOT and HUMID and I get REALLY lazy and by August , this is what MY garden looks like.I'm not the best photographer in the world, my flowers don't show in this picture. I do have cleome and cosmos planted around my tomatoes, cucumbers , peppers and eggplant.
It may not be the beautiful potager that I envisioned this spring but we have plenty of tomatoes and peppers for our omelet each morning and enough share with our friends. In the end , I guess that's what matters most.
Till next time...