The Potager du Roi was created by Jean Baptiste La Quintinie, a lawyer by training who had a thing for reading ancient texts on horticulture and undertook his own experiments. He acquired a great reputation, working in the most beautiful parks – those of the castles of Rambouillet, Chantilly, Sceaux, or Vaux-le-Vicomte - until Louis XIV called him to Versailles to design and direct the fruit and vegetable garden for the new Palace.
It took five years, between 1678 and 1683, for La Quintinie to complete the 9-hectare masterpiece, which remains nearly unaltered today. As initially planned, the Grand Square of 3 hectares is composed of sixteen smaller squares surrounded by counter-espalier grown pear trees. It contains about fifty species and varieties of vegetables including traditional vegetables and also condiments, gourds, pear-shaped tomatoes, “kilometer” beans, Jerusalem artichokes or ancient vegetables. The pruning of some 5000 fruit trees requires an extensive number of hours of work to train wall-trees (espaliers) or to fix them on trellises (counter-espaliers, which have replaced La Quintinie’s round-headed trees by the XVIIIth century).
Regarded as an agricultural theater, the King’s kitchen garden is and has been a place of experimentation. La Quintinie and his successors have mastered the art of producing out of season fruits and vegetables. Thanks to very creative and inventive techniques such as cold frames, bell-glasses and layers of warm manure to protect the productions, the gardeners were able to supply Louis XIV with figs for six months, strawberries in January, peas in April and asparagus in December. La Quintinie can be considered as a precursor for producing early fruits and vegetables as well as out of season productions, which is common nowadays.
(Adapted from: http://www.potager-du-roi.fr/)
 |
| Espalier Apple Tree |
 |
| Early Tomatoes Produced in the Greenhouse |
 |
| Carrot Variety |
 |
| Carrot Variety |
 |
| Cherry Tomatoes |
 |
| Sweet Pepper Varieties |
 |
| "I'd rather sweep the beach than weed the courge." |
 |
| Ornamental and Herb Garden |
 |
| The Shop where produce, fruits, preserved goods and information is sold to visitors and community members. |
 |
| Apple, Pear, & Rhubarb Juice |
|
The Backstory
The production within is made possible the same way it always has been, with many hardworking hands. There are maybe 15 full-time gardeners who are composed into the fruit-team, the vegetable-team, and the ornamental-team. These grouping are historic and have created a well rooted hierarchy within garden politics. The vegetable-team is traditionally looked down upon as they (we) work in the dirt on their hands and knees. The fruit-team works standing up and produces the more prized produce like apples, pears, peaches, and figs. Thus in French and English kitchen gardens, they've always been high on the hierarchical ladder.
 |
| The Vegetable Gardeners Headquarters. |
 |
| Before you get impressed... Most of the time we worked with hoes and small hand-rakes. |
 |
| Simple beauty. |
 |
| Waiting for someone to open the lunch-room. |
 |
| Work Jeans = Art |
 |
| Melissa and I ate the most salads of our lives. |
 |
| BBQ on the last day of work for all the gardeners. |
