​A traditional potager is an ornamental vegetable garden where vegetables are grown with flowers and herbs, often in clumps rather than rows. It is in contrast to the tidy allotment where rows of veg neatly stride across the plot and flowers are often restricted to the edges or are purely for cutting.

This is so much simpler to sow, hoe and harvest, when crops are in straight rows. So why bother to mix things up?

The idea of a plot that is productive and beautiful is very appealing, although serried ranks of perfect veg have their own beauty too.

Rachel Atkins reads Geoff Stebbings' feature on the challenges and rewards of mixing flowers and veg in a modern potager.

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