The Kitchen Garden

When Steve and I were in Lancaster last month, we toured the grounds of Wheatland. As you may recall from my earlier post, Wheatland was the home of President Buchanan. I was impressed by the working kitchen garden there by the back entrance to the home.


I was a little taken aback by it's wild look. At first I thought perhaps it was untended and the herbs and vegetables that were growing were simply volunteers. Well, click here to see the photo from Wheatland's website. As you can see, this is how it is supposed to look.


This makes me think that all those perfect gardens that we see on in books, magazines, and TV are more for show than for real use. A real kitchen garden is going to be in constant flux. Some of the beds will be empty, some will be squeaking out the very last of the season's harvest, some will left fallow on purpose, while others are freshly prepped, waiting for next season's seedlings to reach up through the soil.


I'm looking forward to starting my own kitchen garden next year when we get our own place. I hope mine is as abundant and beautifully wild as this one.