A kitchen garden, or potager, is close to the house, and helps fill the kitchen table with food. Both my front and back yards are formal kitchen gardens, where I grow fruits, vegetables, and herbs. I have 31 fruit trees and several grape vines.

You can see more pictures of my backyard garden on my Edible Landscaping page. You can see pictures of my White Garden, which is in my front yard, and is also filled with edibles, here.

I live in the desert in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the United States. I garden in a zone 9. My garden calendar can be found here.

“An almost forgotten means of economic self-reliance is the home production of food. We are too accustomed to going to stores and purchasing what we need. By producing some of our food we reduce, to a great extent, the impact of inflation on our money. More importantly, we learn how to produce our own food and involve all family members in a beneficial project. No more timely counsel, I feel, has been given by President Kimball than his repeated emphasis to grow our own gardens. . . .

“We encourage you to grow all the food that you feasibly can on your own property. Berry bushes, grapevines, fruit trees—plant them if your climate is right for their growth. Grow vegetables and eat them from your own yard.”

(Ensign, May 1976, p. 124).

Ezra Taft Benson, Former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, “Prepare for the Days of Tribulation,” Ensign, Nov 1980, 32