Ornamental vegetable garden: making beautiful beds – 60 photos

Everyone who has a dacha or homestead plot, try to make it beautiful. But to have land, and not plant cucumbers, tomatoes, parsley, few people manage to do this: you want not only to admire the flowers, but also to enjoy your own harvest. Their own tastes better. So they shamefully hide the vegetable garden somewhere behind the garden, on the edge of the plot. And for nothing. Properly made and planned vegetable garden can be a decoration. There is even such a concept as landscape design of the vegetable garden, and it can be French or English. Like this. What is interesting is that it is easy to make beautiful beds with your own hands. Only for self-decoration you only need to know a couple of secrets and rules.

Decorative vegetable garden

You have probably noticed that vegetable and aromatic crops are beautiful both during flowering and fruiting. Even potatoes bloom with lovely flowers, and the rich color of their haulm can be envied by some flowers. Beautiful multicolored shiny peppers on the bush, red-green tomatoes, even a cucumber bed, with curly plants on the arch and that do not look bad. There are also colorful salads, different types of cabbage, all kinds of parsley-dill and other useful and fragrant herbs. This was noticed by aesthetes and began to decorate the beds beautifully. There are even two different types of decorative vegetable gardens.

French vegetable garden

In the classic version, these are symmetrical beds, in the center of which a sculptural group is installed, a fountain, another recreation area is organized. Such vegetable gardens were made near castles, and they were also a place of rest. The strict geometry of the planned plot emphasized the magnificence of the castle even more. It was always a priority.

In the modern version of the beds can be square, rectangular, in the form of a sector of the circle. All of them are divided by clear paths, along the edge of the beds are planted border plants. It is clear that the French vegetable garden in its purest form on their 6-10 acres will not stick, but to do something similar is very even possible.

In general, there are two types of beds – at one level with the soil and elevated. It is easier to organize a vegetable garden at one level, but it is more convenient to process raised beds. For their fencing can be used boards, you can cut into strips of slate, if desired, the fence can be made of stone, woven from vines. This is who can or wants to swing at what. A few examples of how to make a fence for beautiful beds look at the photo.

Read more about organizing high beds here, and the general rules of site planning are described in this article.

For beds at the same level with the ground instead of borders you can use plants. For example, parsley, regular or curly, lettuce of different colors. It is clear that the plants will gradually cut, but you can first plant densely, gradually thinning the planting. If the area allows, on the edge of the beds can be planted velvet or marigold, only a low border, other plants that give dense greens and grow small in height.

The main focus of the French vegetable garden is in the layout and evenly planted rows. The second is in the alternation of colors. The third is in beautifully made paths that set off the greenery.

To make everything look beautiful, it is necessary to alternate shades of plants, and to imagine how everything will look, it is better to draw in color. Draw who can: on a computer in the program for designers or on an album sheet. There you can also develop and the scheme of arrangement of beds, if you draw everything to scale. Then the ideas will need to be transferred to the site. Several variants of the layout of beds are on the photo.

And so that you do not think that in our conditions nothing like this is impossible to create, below are a few amateur photos from real dachas and homestead plots, where French beds have already lived for more than one year.

We hope that the examples of decoration of beds inspired you, and how to make fences for them we will tell you a little below.

English vegetable garden

It is not as symmetrical as the French one and it is dominated not by a castle or a house, but by a lawn. Vegetables are interspersed with flowers and all the plantings emphasize the appeal of the lawn. The house itself is also more of a vertical bed: ivy often curls along the wall, pots and vases are standing, hanging. Everything is well-groomed and “wildness” does not smell.

Actually, the English vegetable garden is difficult to separate from the garden or flower garden. Here the principle of “all together” applies. But somehow they manage to combine everything, and very harmoniously.

How to make drip irrigation beds and flower beds read here It is not very difficult, in addition, there are ready-made sets (read about manufacturers here).

Making beautiful beds with your own hands

How to plan a vegetable garden, you probably realized. It remains to learn how to make raised or high beds. The fence for them can be made of boards, slate, remnants of roofing iron, other similar materials.

A little about the dimensions. Raise the bed can be at a height of 20 cm, and above 1 meter no one will do – it is difficult and inconvenient. The width of the bed depends on whether you can approach it from one side or from two. Estimate at what distance from the edge you will be convenient to process plants. Sit down and try to reach with your hands, taking into account that you will have to stay in this position for a while. This will be the optimum width for you. The length of the beds more often depends on the plot or the area that you plan to allocate to this culture.

Having determined the dimensions, you can calculate how much material is needed. When deciding what to fence the bed, conduct an inspection in the shed. Perhaps there are some materials left over from the construction, from which you can make a fence. If the materials of one kind are not enough, you can make some of one, some of another. To make everything look beautiful (we are making a beautiful vegetable garden) make different fences through one. This will also give a zest to your vegetable garden.

In the article about high beds you can find techniques for making some fences.

Fence made of slate

If there is slate – the work of arranging the bed will be easy. It is cut into strips of the desired width, taking into account that 10 centimeters will need to be buried. To save material there is a second option: hammer the pegs into the ground, and to the pegs screw self-tapping screws (nail) slate, the bottom edge of which is just a little drowned in the fertile layer.

By the way, the fence can be grown or woven. A hedge is an excellent background for beautiful beds in the French style, and wicker – for a vegetable garden in the style of “country”.

From boards

There are many variants of borders and fences for beds made of boards. From the simplest – four boards, chipped together in a square or rectangle, to complex designs.

In the simplest variant you take two long boards, two – short (according to the width of the bed). To the short on the edges of the edges nail a bar with a cross-section of 50 * 50 mm. Its length is 15-20 cm more than the height of the boards. Then to the free side of the bars nail the long boards, collecting a rectangle.

If desired, you can complicate the design. From the boards you can make a non-standard or even a tiered bed. And it is not as difficult as it seems. See the ideas on the photo.

About the manufacture of a pond can be read here. And in this article – on how to turn it into a fountain.

Non-standard approach: unusual shape and / or materials

Beautiful beds with their own hands people make in unexpected places and from unexpected materials. The fact that the curbs are laid of stone, many people know this, but concrete is used to bind them together. And this is long and laborious. But if you make a fence of metal mesh, and pour stones inside, you will get an original fence. It is called “gabion” and has recently become quite popular. To prevent the earth from spilling out, the inner part of the mesh (from the side of the bulk soil) is covered with geotextile.

You can make a beautiful bed and from branches. Ordinary, gaunt. The main thing – do not forget to treat them with bioprotection, so that they do not become a source of disease for plants.

Even from plastic pipes you can make a vertical bed. The stand is also assembled, by the way, from PVC pipes, but of a smaller diameter. In the pipes, holes are made, in which plants are planted. Occupied only a couple of meters of area, but the vegetable garden is decent.

You won’t believe it, but a vegetable garden can be planted…. on the wall of the house. Just long narrow boxes are mounted on the wall one under the other. Illumination is enough for everyone, it is convenient to take care of, takes up almost no space at all.

A plot with a slope – it is always a little more difficult than a level one. But how many non-standard ideas can be realized. For example, such a bed for greens or aromatic herbs.

Are you pondering what to make paths between the beds from? Got some old carpeting? Cut it into strips and put it in the vegetable garden. When watering, water passes through, then does not evaporate, weeds do not grow. Beauty in the vegetable garden without cost is possible…..

And some more interesting beds for aromatic herbs or greens.