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The article offers information on kitchen gardens. In France, Jardin potager which means garden of vegetables, is designed to produce fresh food and flowers for the table throughout the year. It is also a philosophy of living that brings people into a close connection with nature's rhythms and food supply. The overall design and layout of kitchen gardens should consider how plants are combined and the attractiveness of individual varieties.

This article presents information on beets. High in fiber and rich in vitamins A and C, beets have more iron than other vegetables, including spinach. And they are rich in calcium, potassium, and phosphorus, as well as folic acid, which helps protect you from heart disease and guards against birth defects. Better yet, the classic beet's red coloring comes from betalains--a combination of the purple pigment betacyanin and the yellow pigment betaxanthin. "The betalain pigments are potent antioxidants," says Irwin Goldman, a beet geneticist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Get a pot that is at least 12 inches deep, and you can grow beets on your deck, suggests Lance Frazon, of John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds in Bantam, Connecticut.

Relates the similarities between organic kitchen gardening in Belgium and the U.S. Countries influencing the Belgian gardening; Construction of a garden hoophouse to create Belgium's mild climate in the U.S.; Feature of a typical Belgian kitchen garden.

Several letters to the editor are presented in response to articles in previous issues including "Plant a Big, Bountiful, Beautiful Container Vegetable Garden," in the August-October 2009 issue, article on the benefit of coffee to plants in the June/July 2009 issue and an article on seed sources for perilla in the August-October 2009 issue.

The article presents questions and answers related to gardening, including how to speed up the process of growing a vegetable garden and another option for disposing dog waste.

The article features the vegetable garden owned by husband and wife Robert and Darlene Messina of Rockwall, Texas. The Messinas find that asparagus, tomatoes, onions, garlic, and peppers produce especially well in the cooler fall weather of their Zone 8 climate. The onions and garlic last until January. The couple also grows potatoes and squash, and they can their tomatoes each summer. They have planted many flowering bulbs. Annuals fill in around the bulbs.

The author dismisses the impression that maintaining gardens is an expensive undertaking. She is set to start a Villandry-style potager garden with cordon-trained fruit trees and a small scrape of turf dotted with naturalized bulbs, and a conservatory to house her agave collection. The author's interest in kitchen garden started when she read Joy Larkcom's books on oriental vegetables and Rosalind Creasy's "Complete Book of Edible Landscaping."

The article features James Laird, chef and owner of Restaurant Serenade in Chatham, New Jersey. As a young chef working in a small restaurant in the South of France, Laird learned that having a restaurant entails having a garden. When he moved back to the U.S. and opened Restaurant Serenade, one of the first things he did was to create a garden. His intensively planted kitchen garden provides his restaurant with seasonal herbs, salad greens and vegetables, and him with plenty of fresh ideas.

The article discusses the author's garden fantasy. She states that some of her fantasies came true such as growing fresh peas for her daughters to gobble, tomatoes for sauce, savoy cabbage for the traditional Italian Christmas Eve meal and enough cayenne pepper. She mentions that she is planting willow bushes because she wants them for making baskets.

The article discusses various reports published within the issue including one on how to create a kitchen garden which is practical yet sophisticated and another on the basic practice or technique of organic gardening.

The article focuses on Kam's Kookery and Guilford Gardens, the cooking school, catering company and suburban farm of chef Kamala Gamble in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Gamble moved from Chicago, Illinois to Oklahoma City nine years ago. When she couldn't find the range of produce she was used to cooking with, she decided to grow it herself. Guilford Gardens produces enough summertime vegetables for Kam's Kookery. It outlines gourmet gardening tips from Gamble and her recipe for Savory Sweet Potatoes with Roasted Garlic, Asiago Cheese and Fresh Thyme.

The article presents an interview with gardener Jack Staub. When asked about the advantages of trellises and arbors to kitchen gardens, he refers to decoration and expansion of growing space. He cites sunbright runner bean as an edible plant that does well on trellises. He offers tips for using tripods in containers.