Potager du roi 3.07

The potager du Roi, near the Palace of Versailles, produced fresh vegetables and fruits for the table of the court of Louis XIV. It was created between 1678 and 1683 by Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie, the director of the royal fruit and vegetable gardens. Today it is run by the École Nationale Supérieure du Paysage, the high state school in France for the training of landscape architects. It is listed by the French Ministry of Culture as one of the Remarkable Gardens of France by the Comité des Parcs et Jardins de France. It is currently under the direction of Antoine Jacobsohn.HistoryThe Potager du roi under Louis XIVThe finished garden looked very much as it looks today. It covered twenty-five acres (nine hectares), with a circular pond and fountain in the center, surrounded by a Grand Carré, a large square made up of sixteen squares of vegetables. Around this was a raised terrace from which the King could watch the gardeners work. A high wall surrounded the Grand Carré, and behind the wall were twenty-nine enclosed gardens, with fruit trees and vegetables. The careful arrangement of the different chambers of the gardens created individual microclimates, which allowed La Quintinie to grow fruits and vegetables out of their usual season.In his Instruction pour les jardins fruitiers et potagers, on the results obtained by his use of different types of manure, he wrote:"la chaleur, tant dans la terre que dans l’air ne peut régulièrement venir que des rayons du soleil. J’ose dire pourtant que j’ai été assez heureux pour l’imiter en petit à l’égard de quelques petits fruits : j’en ai fait mûrir cinq et six semaines devant le temps, par exemple des fraises à la fin mars, des précoces, et des pois en avril, des figues en juin, des asperges et des laitues pommées en décembre, janvier..."