Potager or the French kitchen garden are more popular than ever in Franch. According to the French government survey taken in 1994, it revealed that 23 percent of the fruit and vegetables consumed by the French are home-grown. In the potager or French kitchen garden, the gardeners have use the companion planting technique where they intermingled vegetables, fruits, flowers, and herbs since the medieval times.
My all time favorite potager garden is of course the Potager du Roi near the Palace of Versailles.
The Potager du Roi or Kitchen Garden of the King produced fresh vegetables and fruits for the table of the court of Louis XIV. It was created between 1678 and 1783 by Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie, the director of the royal fruit and vegetable gardens.
Isn't it amazing?!! It covered twenty-five acres with a circular pond and fountain in the center, surrounded by a Grand Carré. The Grand Carré consist of a large square made up of sixteen squares of vegetables. The King could watch the gardeners work around the raise terrance. A high wall surrounded the Grand Carré. There are twenty-nine enclosed gardens, with fruit trees and vegetables behind the wall . The different chambers of the gardens created individual microclimates, which allowed La Quintinie to grow fruits and vegetables out of their usual season. There were also special gardens for melons, herbs, cucumbers, strawberries and cherries. He raised fifty varieties of pears and twenty varieties of apples for the King’s table, and sixteen different varieties of lettuce.
Ok so I'm not going to be have my dream garden anytime soon but I sure can daydream about it. I'm going to attempt to train my cherry and pear trees to look like this. Can I achieve this or is it too far fetch?
To be continue....
Le Jardinier Fâché
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