When I was in Paris last June, it was hot–hotter than it is today in New York City–with temperatures flirting with the mid-90s. I was not in Paris for work, but since I’m a bit of a workaholic, I convinced my friends to accompany me to Giverny, where we found a serene, green oasis. Despite my friends having little interest in plants and gardening, they loved our trip to Claude Monet’s jardin, because you don’t go to Giverny to look at plants; you go to Giverny to experience Monet. You go to find a deeper understanding of the great Impressionist, and we’re hoping you come to Monet’s Garden for the same reason.

Inside the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory are the stars of the show, the recreation of Monet’s flower garden and his iconic water garden. But outside, in the paths of the Perennial Garden and the environs of the Conservatory, you can read works–in English and French–from Monet’s contemporaries, the Symbolist poets. Impressionism was a full-blown artistic movement that extended to the very edges of the bohemian circles of Paris and beyond. Linger amid poppies and peonies and phloxes and contemplate what Charles Baudelaire meant when he wrote, “Voici venir les temps où vibrant sur sa tige/Chaque fleurs s’évapore ainsi qu’un encensoir” (“Now comes the time when swaying on its stem/each flower offers incense to the night”).

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Sonia Uyterhoeven is the NYBG‘s Gardener for Public Education.

Today I would like to tackle a few problems that we commonly encounter in the vegetable garden. How do we maximize space? How do we prevent the feast or famine cycle where we either have nothing to show for our labor, or too much? If you are working with limited space, as most of us are, organizing your vegetable garden in such a way that you maximize productivity and get the right bang for your buck is important. There are several strategies that can help you plan your garden creatively and effectively.

The first thing we need to do is to take a look at how our vegetables grow. Are we planting a vegetable that will, once it reaches the age of maturity, produce consistently throughout the season? Tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers fall into this category. You will just need to add a few of these vegetables into your garden to get a steady supply throughout the summer. Or are we planting crops that either grow quickly or produce one large harvest? I am thinking now of head lettuce, beets, radishes, carrots and turnips.
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What are you growing? What are you loving? What are the bunnies loving?

French Breakfast Radishes in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden (photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)