THE KITCHEN GARDENS OF ZERMATT

You won’t find tomatoes, and you usually won’t find weeds. It’s still too cold at night to put out tomato plants by late July, and weeds are an unwelcome pest that would consume valuable garden resources in Zermatt, high in the Valais canton of southern Switzerland.

What you will find in this tightly packed village are verdant salad gardens, lush potato patches, and orderly, thoughtful use of precious space.  Tucked into every conceivable patch of land, a productive kitchen garden seems a necessity of life to many Zermatt families.

Locating a garden in Zermatt is more like planning an urban plot than starting a country potager. Space is at a premium in this mountain valley, where every buildable piece of land with a Matterhorn view commands top value.  Landowners must use any sunny spot that’s handy and available – and use it wisely.   

Finding a Spot

Tucked between the Vispa River, which flows from the high Alps down to the Rhone River, and a rock face that edges one side of the valley, this small garden provides succulent green and red lettuces for guests at this hotel.  Native purple fireweed growing on the hillside and hybrid geraniums on the balconies enhance the colorful scene.
 

Keeping It Beautiful

In other cases, the gardener may decorate the garden plot with lavender or other flowering plants.

Too Beautiful to Harvest?

It’s difficult to find a garden that shows the signs of recent harvesting. The plot pictured below offers a rare example that the owners have recently removed lettuce plants.  Because of the cool nights (~10C or 50F), the lettuce rarely bolts, so the mature plants can be held in the garden until needed for the table.

Succession planting is also evident in the rows of Quatre Saisons type of red-tipped lettuce in the foreground.

Fitting it All In

Potatoes –a staple of the Alpine diet – grow abundantly at right in the picture below, while a generous patch of parsley plants is being started in the foreground. At left you can see part of a late pea bed, supported with sticks and string.  A few cabbage plants are tucked into an empty space. Beyond the fence, a patch of raspberries is trained on stakes and wires.

Thoughtful Replanting

Because space is at a premium, the gardener in another plot found it wise to tuck a late crop of red and green lettuces among the ripening onions.

Straight to the Table

Bottom line: the freshest imaginable lettuce comes straight to your lunch or dinner table in crunchy salads that satisfy and nourish. 



And you can be sure they've come from one of the local "lettuce factories" -- like the generous tract we sighted when walking through the Winkelmatten district in the southern end of town.