Potagers

When is a vegetable garden not a vegetable garden? When it’s a potager of course. But does the distinction come down to anything more than pretension or French good taste?

- James Alexander-Sinclair

I have got myself into a bit of a pickle. “What would you like to write about this month?” say the nice people at Gardens Illustrated. “How about potagers?” say I breezily. So here I am, hoist by my own petard, finding myself in the position of having to come up with a neat answer to the obvious question: when does a vegetable garden become a potager? Some may say one is considerably more pretentious than the other and others maintain that the former is something that should only be permitted in France. However, I think that they have two distinct identities and anyway, we should try to be as one with the French. They may be surly on occasions but they have generously given us many good things.

I reckon – but please feel free to, politely, contradict me if you wish – a potager is an altogether more formal affair designed to be looked at as well as eaten, as opposed to a vegetable garden that is there purely for food and, as a side effect, healthy labour. This implies that a veg garden cannot look amazing, which is not at all true, but it is a different kind of beauty. It is a beauty born of fecundity, and the promise of ratatouille and raspberries rather than design. I would hazard the theory that the difference is that most people’s vegetable gardens are planned while all potagers are designed. A subtle difference but a difference all the sam