Have a Garden in your Home

A cottage garden has an entirely different concept from a usual garden, because of its limitation of size and of plant varieties. Either poor sections of the society have cottages or these are owned by rich as an asylum to escape from the routine din of modern life. In both case, the common factor is small piece of land available for gardening. This puts an essential prohibition on having even a single tree in the garden. Another limitation on a cottage garden may be that of watering the plants. Since the space is limited, a cottage garden must be closely integrated with the cottage, and the passages should also be avoided not to waste land.

A cottage garden may have any or all of the three purposes - to supply fresh vegetables for the kitchen, to have some small fruit plants, and thirdly to have some flowers for beautification of the cottage. If water scarcity is the case and a wall or corner of the cottage is available for supporting garden plant, there is nothing like a bougainvillea shrub in the garden, providing a shower of flowers without needing much of caring and watering. It may also be used as a deterrent to intruders because of its thorns.

Papaya and banana plants suit a cottage garden, but these must be planted on the northern side of the garden in northern hemisphere and on southern side in the southern hemisphere of the globe to provide these with full sunlight and avoid their shades falling on the garden land. These plants start giving fruits in 1-2 years time and continue to do so for 3-5 years. Papayas must be planted in cycles so that some plants are always in a position of fruition. Regarding banana, care need be taken to remove the plant shoots after its fruit get matured to make place for newer shoots. Along with these, a lemon tree may also be considered because of its low height and early fruition.

On the vegetable front, cottage gardens can not afford experimentation, so only local and seasonal vegetables must be grown, including some leafys like spinach and amaranth; some beans like french-beans and pea; and some tubers like amorphophallus, carrot, radish, colocasia and artichoke. Artichoke plants grow upto a height of 2 meters so these should also be put on the fruit plants side.

A rose hedge of about 1 meter height on far boundary of the garden from the cottage side may be be a good idea for two reasons - to prevent intruders entry and to have beautiful red and pink flowers round the year. Choice of delicate and exotic flower plants is purely subjective to the garden’s local circumstances. Additionally, I recommend lavender plants in the garden for their mild sweet aroma.

Make sure that you have a small pit in the garden for your organic wastes from the garden and the cottage to get converted to compost manure without any efforts. Even cottage’s waste water may also be made to drop in this pit. For health and taste reasons, avoid using any chemical fertilizers in the garden.