Kitchen gardens add originality and creativity to homes

KITCHEN Gardens have traditionally been part and parcel of homes for decades and they are once again enjoying a resurgence. Not only are they highly functional, they also extend the exterior scope and usability of a property.

They are both practical and visually appealing in a property and it’s a trend worth pursuing.

It’s true that a Kitchen Garden means work, weeding and watering, and dejection when slugs have their way with your newly planted brassicas. But believe me, there is no greater way of adding life to your property than by creating a Kitchen Garden. You can cut a lawn all summer long but the return for weeks of effort is zilch. Whereas a Kitchen Garden means all your labours lead to a bounty of good, wholesome food.

It’s estimated a well-designed Kitchen Garden adds upwards of €4,000 to €5,000 to the asking price of a property. At first this might not sound like a lot, but this completely overlooks the ‘saleability factor’ a Kitchen Garden creates in the minds of perspective buyers.

Selling a property demands that all exterior features be just as alluring as the interior and there’s a high chance that buyers will be drawn to a readymade Kitchen Garden as a place where they can imagine themselves on long summer evenings thinning carrots and picking fresh herbs.

Social media is also packed full of wonderful garden designs for you to explore and you should also considering installing a polytunnel which extends the growing season for up to ten months of the year. Simply design an area specifically for raised beds in your garden that is easy to manage. Prepare it with some stone or bark chipping pathways in-between, all of which will catch the eye of buyers giving the property a sense of depth and a feeling of being more at one with nature.

The Kitchen Garden concept also links in seamlessly with the ever expanding interest in cooking and home baking shows on TV. Around 72% of people in Ireland admit to watching a cooking show regularly and have expressed interest in testing their culinary skills. Any buyers with an interest in this will instantly be bought by the presence of a functioning Kitchen Garden where they can grow their own produce.

A property needs to be about more than just the number of bedrooms and bathrooms it has to offer, it also needs to have originality, purpose and connectivity with nature. A Kitchen Garden ticks all these boxes.