the italian kitchen garden

italian kitchen gardens and italian gardens

One of the attractions and true joys of the Italian climate is the fact that much of ones summer can be spent outside enjoying the Italian garden and countryside. Time in the garden can be spent simply enjoying the sun, gardening or eating al fresco. The Italian climate allows for the cultivation of superb organic Italian vegetables and the latest trend of making stunning, formal Italian vegetable gardens has made this all the more attractive. The Italian kitchen and the Italian garden can now be firmly united in a practical and even fashionable harmony.
The impractical Italian formal garden with its laborious and expensive hedge-cutting etc has now been replaced by the more practical formal Italian vegetable garden, which can supply the house with an aesthetically pleasing source of organic vegetables. This fact, combined with the upsurge in vegetarianism and general interest in organic vegetables has led to the strongest link witnessed between the kitchen and garden in Italy since the World War II.
During the war the Italians depended upon their kitchen gardens to provide them with all the vegetables needed in the kitchen and it was from this that many of the great Italian dishes were born. Tomato sauce combined with pasta or meat, vegetable soups and a whole host of other highly nutritious dishes were devised during this period of hardship and these dishes have now conquered the world for their simplicity, beauty and deliciously nutritious qualities. The modern formal Italian vegetable garden pays tribute to this strong link that was forged between the Italian kitchen garden and the Italian kitchen this period. In this modern climate, where organic food is gaining ground yet is still outside the reach of most shoppers, lots of people are beginning to grow their own vegetables, especially in Italy, where the trend is really taking off!
Italian vegetables such as artichokes, eggplants and of the course the many superb varieties of Italian tomato have received far greater interest over the past few years and the possibility of actually providing completely organic Italian vegetables for the Italian kitchen table has its obvious attraction. Over the past 15 years as a garden designer, working in Italy I have noticed a steady increase in the desire to link the Italian garden with the Italian kitchen. My ecological garden system ecologica was devised especially to cater for this modern trend and I am being inundated with clients, interested in creating ecological Italian gardens that sustain the cultivation of organic Italian vegetables and sustaining wildlife in their Italian garden space.
The availability of great vegetable plants that cost just cents as opposed to the hundreds of €uros spent on classic Italian gardens is really making the formal vegetable garden in Italy a very cost-effective, beautiful and eco-friendly solution for the contemporary garden in Italy, or for that matter anywhere else in the world!