The Gourmet Garden Monty Don's French Gardens

'What images does France conjure up for you?

'Now, for me, there are beautiful houses and gardens of all kinds,

'but also glorious markets, street cafes

'and some very formative experiences.'

When I was 19, I came to the south of France

and lived in Aix en Provence for six months and

ever since then, I've loved France and everything to do with it.

And I want to share that passion for the country with you

through its gardens.

'I'll discover what their gardens reveal about French history,

'their love of food, the soil and the arts,

'and why they value order and structure so highly.

'I'll be travelling the byways of the French countryside...'

This is what a 2CV was made for.

'..meeting local gardeners...'

Bonjour! Je m'appelle Monty.

Bonjour. Enchante.

'..tasting the very best of their harvest...'

Sometimes this job is really good.

'..getting to turn on huge fountains...'

I can hear the water.

'..and trying to find out what makes French gardens,

'and indeed the French, unique.

'Today, I'm looking into how the famous French love of food

'translates into their kitchen gardens.

'It's a busy weekday market in Aix en Provence.

'Beneath the shade of the plane trees, the stalls are rich with

'delicious-looking fruit and vegetables.'

Ooh, I'd love a cherry.

Bonjour. Des cerises, c'est combien?

24.9.

'This is not just for the tourists.'

Merci.

'Unlike the UK, where we buy more of our food from supermarkets,

'about a third of French people still buy their fruit

'and veg from markets like these.

'The displays are all part of the shopping experience.'

Look at that.

That's just beautiful.

Well, wouldn't you just want to have that at home?

'40 years ago, when I first came here,

'it was completely transforming.

'I'd grown up in a Britain where the food was remorselessly dreary,

'regarded as a bodily function rather than

'one of life's great pleasures.'

So to come here and be exposed to the market

and all these incredible vegetables, and taste, and the smell of it all.

And to eat food that I'd only heard about

and then to connect that with the vegetables that

I was already growing at home and realise that

perhaps I could grow these, too.

And the connection between what I was doing with my hands

in the soil and what I was eating was life-changing.

'Now, all these years later,

'I want to see how these fabulous fruit and vegetables are grown.

'The story of the French kitchen garden begins in

'mediaeval monasteries and unfolds via the decadent vegetable gardens

'of the grand chateau to modern-day rural smallholdings.

'One in two French people regularly buy local produce, because the

'attachment to the particular region and its soil still has real meaning.

'I'm getting around in a little 2CV.

'Of course, it's fun to drive

'but, in fact, a 2CV is exactly the right car for the job.'

They were developed before the last war as an agricultural vehicle.

They were designed to take a farmer and his family,

with a load of eggs, to market,

across roughly ploughed ground without damaging the produce.

That was the important thing. They had to be reliable and tough.

And so it is the ideal car to drive around France

looking for that connection between growing and gardens,

food and the land.

'My first port of call is in the rugged landscape of the Cevennes.

'It's a remote and largely impoverished area

'and many years ago, I made a long walk right across it.

'But today, I'm here to visit a nunnery,

'the Monastere de Sona, which is a first for me.'

The reason I wanted to come to a monastery was because the root

of vegetable-growing started in the monastic tradition,

where nuns and monks would grow vegetables and herbs

for the kitchen, and also for medicine,

and also the process of doing it was a kind of prayer.

It was a devotion.

So that tradition actually continues through to the present day,

but it starts, or started, in the monasteries.

It's very difficult to contact them, they don't speak,

you can only ring them once a week, so I hope to God they're there.

I must remember not to blaspheme.

Mustn't say "hope to God", or stuff like that.

Can I hear footsteps?

-Bonjour.

-Bonjour.

-Je suis Monty.

-Pardon?

-Je m'appelle Monty.

-Bonjour.

-Bonjour.

'Today is one of the rare days

'when they break their silence to receive visitors.

'There's been a monastery on this site since 1300

'and the mother superior, who spoke perfect English, showed me around.'

Our vegetable garden is very - how can we say that? - modest.

And you can't say that it's exemplary from the aesthetic point of view.

Excuse me. I'll just grab the hat.

So how many of you work in this vegetable garden?

'There are 16 nuns living here

'and as well as a rigorous regime of prayer, they run a winery.

'And they still manage to be almost entirely self sufficient.'

You say it's modest - it's a big area. It's a big vegetable garden.

-It is, it is.

-Lots of work.

It is a lot of work but we are a lot of people eating here.

A lot of people eating is one thing,

you have to have a lot of people working.

-As well.

-Yes.

-That's true.

And these are courgettes, squashes or pumpkins?

Yes, pumpkins, and courgettes. We have two kinds.

Everything is sort of, like, mixed up.

You've got lots.

-We have about one ton production...

-One ton?

-..of pumpkins per year.

-What do you do with them?

-We eat them through the whole winter.

-OK.

'Ask a silly question.'

I love all vegetables. I'm not bored, I'll look at anything.

You'll look at anything?

Here we have our cucumbers.

So cucumbers, you see, growing so lushly and so well outside.

We struggle to grow cucumbers outside.

Would it be very rude if I cut one and tasted it?

Oh, not at all.

Oh, I'm dropping my phone, and my glasses.

Everything always drops out of my pocket.

I do it at home the whole time. So...

It looks nice. Ah, it... Smell that.

-Mmm. Refreshing.

-All cucumber freshness.

So this...

It's good, it's not quite ripe, but it's good. Want some?

Yes, I would. Thanks a lot.

Not quite ready, a little bit bitter.

I'm afraid I've wasted it.

It should have been in the soil a little bit longer.

Don't worry.

'I suspect that this monastic scene has changed little

'since its mediaeval inception.

'It has the same workmanlike mixture - fruit, vegetables and

'medicinal herbs that set the model for all

'subsequent French kitchen gardens.'

This is for real.

They do not grow vegetables because they like the experience or

because it peps up their diet.

They grow vegetables because that is what they eat,

and if they don't grow them, they don't eat,

and their choice of vegetables is influenced by that.

There's an awful lot of things that will store well,

a lot of things that grow well here.

They can't afford to play at it in any sense of the word.

So there is an edge to this,

a kind of really deep survival seriousness,

which they seem to go through with extraordinary grace.

But these are very hard-working, efficient, busy people.

BELL RINGS

'A bell marks the start of the brief 20-minute break

'allocated for dinner, and I join the nuns to share their home-grown meal.

'The food is simple but good.

'Though alas, it's not a saint's day, so no wine.

'And everyone tucks in with gusto, accompanied by devotional reading.

'The highly practical mediaeval monastic gardens led to

'the development of the potager -

'the French style of kitchen gardening

'where looks matter as much as the quality or quantity

'of food that's grown.

'And I'm visiting a beautiful example in the Luberon,

'a couple of hours east of the Cevennes.

'After the un-manicured harshness of the Cevennes,

'the Luberon seems more affluent.

'The sun is still scorching.

'My little car isn't made for long, hot journeys.'

GEARS GRIND

A classic 2CV experience, caught between two gears.

'I've come to the vineyard of Val Joanis,

'near Pertuis, to visit its ornate potager...

'..where flowers elegantly combine with fruit and vegetables.'

That is a healthy, happy hollyhock.

Just shows you what they like -

lots and lots of sunshine.

'The word "potager" comes from the French "potage", meaning soup,

'and originally referred to the patch where the ingredients were

'grown for the bowl of soup that was the mainstay

'of most people's midday meal.

'But this has evolved to become something much more elaborate,

'and as meticulously controlled as the vines that grow

'all around the garden here at Val Joanis.'

All the skills and discipline of growing

and training vines can be seen in this garden.

They have oak trees trained and growing as

very tight strict triangles.

In fact, there's some oak trees over there,

which are just thin little columns

with finials on top and joining in lattice work.

And the whole thing, the whole garden, is a display,

an expression of the skills of man in controlling plants.

And that, really, is the root of the French potager.

It's controlling food production so not only it looks good,

but it does what it's told.

'So this garden takes the idea of a monastic garden

'and then turns it on its head.

'Rather than existing to grow enough food to see you through winter,

'it is an ostentatious demonstration of wealth, power and taste.

'This style of gardening began in the north of France,

'but before I head off that way, I want to try

'and get to grips with the French love of soil.'

OK, let's have a look.

'My guide is Arnaud, Val Joanis' wine-maker, or vigneron.'

Very dry.

This year is very dry.

'The key to this respect for the soil is the word "terroir",

'which is an almost mystical combination of soil and place.

'It gives every wine its distinct local character.'

The soil here is very dry, bone dry.

-Clay?

-Clay.

-Any lime?

-Lime.

And how important is it?

-You must know the soil, you must know the climate.

-Yeah.

And is that something you have to grow up with,

or can you learn it from a book?

No. You can't.... It's the...

-The feeling?

-..The feeling.

'So how does this alchemy of soil, sun and the vine

'distil itself into a glass?'

Mmm. Gosh!

So here we are, in Provence, beautiful day, a fine wine, cheers.

Cheers.

'Terroir is an elusive concept

'but it is at the heart of the French relationship with their food.

'We'll see how it applies to growing vegetables and other fruit later.'

-Your soil is so stony.

-Yes, we have a lot of stones.

-You have masses!

-Yes, but it's very good.

'But now it's time to leave the sunshine for a while,

'head north and visit the most famous potager in the world.

'This is the Chateau of Villandry in the Loire Valley -

'500 miles away from Provence and another climate entirely.

'This garden, which looks very old, was in fact only created just

'over 100 years ago, based on the notion of what the kitchen garden

'might have been like when the chateau was in

'its Renaissance heyday in the 16th century.

'On my way to find the head gardener, I get distracted

'and bedazzled by the sheer number of celery seedlings.'

39, 40.

So there are 40 times four trays, that's 160 trays,

and each tray takes 20.

So that's 3,200 pots. How about that?

'I find Laurent in the lovely 18th-century greenhouse,

'shaped like an upturned boat, potting up peppers.'

So how many plants do you raise here for the potager?

70,000.

Of the 140,000 plants, how much is eaten?

How much is grown to eat?

'The produce from this potager is not destined for potage,

'or any other kind of meal. Everything here is for show.

'In fact, Laurent told me that the vast majority of vegetables

'end up on the compost heap,

'including no less than 30,000 lettuces.

'It's been suggested that, in the 16th century, it was intended

'as a display of the exotic plants newly arrived from the Americas.

'A kind of edible cabinet of curiosities

'to be proudly displayed to visitors,

'which is exactly what it is today.'

Of course, Villandry has always been popular and very well known,

but it became especially popular in Britain in the 1980s, I think,

because up until then, the model for aspiring vegetable growers

and social climbers was the Victorian walled garden,

and inside that walled garden you had your vegetables in long rows.

And then in the 1980s, Rosemary Verey made the potager really popular,

and that word entered into gardening fashionable talk.

"How's your potager?" they would say in Hackney and Islington.

And the difference was that you chose your vegetables

and you laid them out for decorative purposes.

You still ate them, and you still wanted to grow them well,

but decoration and little box hedges became part of the scene.

And, of course, the model of all that, the big daddy of all potagers, was here at Villandry.

'The potager is only part of a much bigger and wonderful garden at

'Villandry, but its ornamental rigour sets the tone

'for the whole place.'

Here, the herb garden,

and even plants like horseradish has

had its leaves trimmed off, all uniform size and length.

And lovage, which in my garden is an explosion of a plant,

six foot tall and bursting out all over the place,

is marshalled into a sort of tight, orderly battalion.

There's no question, to my mind,

that Villandry is one of the great gardens of the world.

And if you're in France and if you have any interest in gardens,

come here.

But I find the potager disappointing.

It leaves me unsettled.

And I think that's because function and form have grown too far apart.

Where vegetables are not grown to eat at all,

something really essential is lost.

There's no sense of becoming, of growing, of evolving.

And then, of course, the pleasure and excitement of harvest.

And if it's all just grown to be a static picture,

it's just not enough, and of course it needn't be vegetables.

It could be coloured glass or waxworks,

and that would give exactly the same effect.

'Nevertheless, with its box-hedged beds containing uniform ranks

'of ornamental vegetables, there are a thousand gardens

'around the world, including my own,

'that owe a direct debt to Villandry.'

That's it, we're cresting the wave, will I get to the top?

-We're just about to do it/ Yes!

-GEARS CREAK

Ooh, Gawd! Broken.

There we are.

There are 15 cars behind me.

HE LAUGHS

'I'm on my way to a potager near Paris that grows and sells a huge

'amount of produce and, I think, should be much better than known.

'Every year, hundreds of thousands of tours flock to Versailles,

'home of France's most flamboyant ruler, Louis XIV.

'He commissioned the magnificent gardens here,

'which we saw last week.

'But hardly any of these visitors go just round the corner

'from the palace to another of these creations,

'which, in its own way, is just as extravagant.

This is the potager du roi at Versailles,

made for the Sun King, Louis XIV, in the 17th century,

and they've been growing fruit and vegetables here ever since.

'The place is just huge, covering over 23 acres of walled garden,

'created to supply the King with fruit and vegetables that he adored.

'I met up with Antoine Jacobsen, who is the current head gardener.'

-How many people work here?

-There are ten permanent gardeners.

-Oh. So not that many.

-No, not enough.

THEY LAUGH

'The potager du roi is a superb demonstration of one of France's

'great contributions to horticulture - elaborate pruning -

'which is based upon the principle of restricting growth while keeping

'as much fruit as possible, and making it look as good as possible.'

Most of the trees that we have in this garden are 19th century.

There's one just over there that is late 18th century.

-Which one? Show me.

-Right here.

-Oh, this one.

-Yes. This one here.

-Which you never see in Britain.

-In this case, for this shape,

the idea is to have as much light get into the tree as possible,

so that we have fruit along all the branches.

If you want this branch to have some light, we have to take this one off

and leave this one, so that the top one can continue to be vigorous.

Every branch, every stem needs consideration?

Each tree gets individual attention. Each tree has to be understood.

''Until the end of the 18th century, all pruning was limited

'by what could be achieved with a single bladed,

'curved pruning knife, a serpette.

'But then the secateurs were invented, by a Frenchman of course.'

It was the curved blade and the fact you could use just one hand

meant you could put your hand in, holding a pair of secateurs,

and make a very precise cut on quite floppy material.

And that had the effect of refining pruning

and changing the shapes that were produced.

So, by the mid-19th century,

people were pruning their fruit into much more ornate

and sometimes really fantastical shapes, all because they could.

'This potager works for me in a way that Villandry doesn't,

'and this is precisely because it IS a working garden.

'Form and function meet.

'And nowadays, when the fruit is harvested,

'it's sold at the garden gates to passers-by.

'That's what a revolution can do for you.

'The decorative potager is France's most famous kitchen garden tradition,

'but the urge to grow one's food is deep in the French psyche.'

INDISTINCT SPEECH

'These are the jardins ouvriers, or worker's gardens,

'in one of the poorest districts of Paris.

'Over 40% of those out of work or retired

'grow some produce for their table.

'As in Britain, the allotment movement followed

'the drift of workers coming from the country to the city,

'bringing with them the skills and experience of growing food.

'Eliane D'aviot has had her plot longer than most,

'and I'm paying her a visit.'

Bonjour.

THEY LAUGH

Je m'appelle Monty.

OK, I won't slip, don't worry.

Bonjour monsieur. Vous allez bien?

Je crois que vous jardiner ici pour 40 ans.

C'est formidable. Et vous avez des fleurs?

-THEY LAUGH

-You share it.

'It strikes me that Eliane's allotment shares as much

'with its British counterpart as it does with the French potager.'

Ohh, merci!

THEY LAUGH

Merci, madame. Vous etes tres gentille.

-Au revoir!

-Au revoir. Et merci beaucoup!

-Merci a vous!

Au revoir!

SHE LAUGHS

Oh, that feels like a jar.

A-ha!

So nice of her.

Chutney...I think.

Prunes. 2011.

Prune...actually jam, it looks like.

There is something about the freemasonry of gardeners,

and particularly of allotmenteers, that transcends nation and age

and circumstance, and it's just filled with a kind of benign,

easy generosity.

And, of course, it makes me feel like a bit of a heel.

Let's see what else I've got.

Turning up and taking gifts, not leaving anything in return,

but actually, it sows the seed of something good.

There's other pots of jam in there, there's all kinds of things.

And me a stranger.

And actually, the goodwill that produces does ripple through

and, you know, there's something about allotments

and places that is a sort of lingua franca.

It's different. All the flowers and trees are different to any allotment

I've seen in England.

But you know where you are, you feel at home.

'Like most of her fellow allotmenteers,

'Eliane was not born in Paris.

'The allotments are the urban version of a tradition that

'comes from the deep rural heart of France, which is nowadays

'found most readily here, back down in the south.

'It's easy to underestimate how very different these two cultures are.

'If the classic kitchen garden of the north is

'a rich man's decorative potager, then the south has

'the productive plot of the paysan to support his family

'off their small piece of land.

'I've come back to the Cervennes to visit a couple I got to know,

'who have a 21st-century version of the paysan way of life.'

One of the things that fascinates me

is that paysan, or peasant,

is an honourable state in France, whereas if you call someone

a peasant in England, you're not really being flattering.

The peasant culture was very simply living off the land.

The peasants were people who fed themselves

and fertilised their fields and looked after their animals

off the land they had.

It might have been very small indeed.

Now, do I go left or right? I think I go left.

And that still remains something that the French practise and,

more importantly, respect.

And all their food culture stems from that.

That you grow your food on the patch of land you have.

'This is le jardin des Sambucs, hewn by Nicolas and Agnes Bruckin

'out of rocky land, which was once her grandmother's chicken run.

'They have a small cafe here

'and grow almost all the food for it themselves.'

Here we are, this is where I'm supposed to go.

CAR HORN BEEPS

I think I'm blocking the road. OK.

Pardon!

Here we are. Gosh, it's grown.

-Nicolas!

-Monty! How are you?

I'm very well. Very nice to see you. You've got your tooth as well.

Yes! Took a long time. I have it now.

-You look very handsome.

-Ah, you remember that.

When I came here last time, Nicolas was missing one front tooth,

and he looked very dashing and dramatic.

-I was looking like a pirate.

-You were!

How are you, Monty?

-Tres bien! It's very nice to see you.

-Not too hot?

-It is hot.

-It's going to be very hot.

-Is it, is it?

'The Cervennes has long attracted an alternative lifestyle,

'and the garden does have a touch of the hippy about it.

'But there's a real charm in the stone paths that corkscrew

'round the slopes and the loose, untrammelled planting.

'The garden nestles into the wild landscape that surrounds it

'and provides precious shade in the searing sun,

'but unlike the elaborate decorative potagers of the north,

'the vegetables are grown separately, on a plot down the road.

'It's 40 degrees today and yet, last winter, it went down to minus 17.'

Voila, little bit of air.

-There is a breeze.

-A little bit.

'And yet Nicolas manages to grow all the fruit and vegetables

'for their family and for their small cafe.

'I want to see how he goes about it.'

Strawberries.

Have they been good this year?

Yeah. Perfect, perfect. Strawberries like a cold winter.

-Cold winter, hot summer.

-Yes.

-And water.

-And water.

What variety is this?

That's "Mara du Bois".

"Mara du Bois"? Very good. I grow "Mara du Bois".

My "Mara du Bois" not as good.

Slightly perfumed.

Mm, lovely.

Look, your soil is so stony.

-Yes, we get a lot of stones.

-Masses of stones.

But that's very good.

Because it heats.

-The stone heats up?

-Heats up the earth.

And it keeps the water, also.

We have a natural mulch. Stones are very good for mulching.

But quite hard work.

Yes, it's not an easy soil, yes.

They used to say, where I live, they say,

"Your soil will break your back,

"maybe break your heart, but never break your bank balance."

Ah, very nice.

I like your tools.

-Yes.

-What do you call this?

This is a sappe.

We say mattock. Where I come from, it's called a stocker.

And what do you do with that?

You chop weeds.

Ah, the weeds. It must be more sharp.

Yeah, like that, or you turn the soil over.

-OK,

-OK. Like that.

-Oh, yeah, yeah.

-It digs, it's good.

But here we have this one. This is a special one.

That's good, that's heavy.

-It's called a bigot.

-A bigot?

-A bigot. Here, everybody has one.

Everyone has one?

In England, you'd very rarely see that. Nice.

-Typical for here.

-It's heavy.

-Yes.

-Hard work.

-Yes.

Hard work, it's quite a hard land, so it goes together.

This goes very well. This is a broken one.

Like that.

'Nicolas doesn't just grow strawberries.

'He cultivates everything, from potatoes to aubergines,

'via 15 different varieties of tomatoes, and it's all organic.'

Do you grow all the vegetables or do you buy some in?

We buy some in at the beginning of the season,

because we grow most of ours, but at the beginning of the season

we had to buy a few because we don't have any plastic tunnels.

What about in winter, when you have very cold, harsh weather?

Do you have enough vegetables for yourselves?

Oh, yes, we have our potatoes, our poireaux, to make soup.

Soup every day. Midday and in the evening.

It makes me hungry to think about it.

And then we eat a little more meat in winter

to get a bit fatter, to pass the winter.

'The way that Nicolas coaxes so much from this difficult soil

'and climate is truly impressive.

'It seems to me to be the embodiment of modern paysan self-sufficiency.

'And then Agnes transforms it all into a pretty plateful.'

Oh, that looks so beautiful.

Let's have a small meal after this walk in the gardens.

Let's!

These are goat's cheese,

rolled in menthe.

-And those lovely flowers.

-Voila.

-Very good.

-OK.

-Good.

'The trend here, as in the UK, is for merging smaller farms to

'create larger ones, although more than a quarter of French farmers

'still own less than 15 acres.

'Most of Nicolas's neighbours grow just one thing,

the speciality of the region.

'I've come to the other side of the valley to meet his friend Bruno

'to take a look.'

Oui!

Au revoir.

'Bruno harvests his entire crop of onions by hand in August

'and sells them via a small local co-operative.'

Interesting what Bruno was saying,

because he's the fifth generation of his family to grow onions here.

-And also what I find amazing...

-BELL RINGS

-That's nice, to hear a bell.

-BELL RINGS

That's the 6.05 bell.

What I find amazing is that not only are onions produced in this

very specific region that are acknowledged to be

the finest in France, but also, they have no rotation.

There have been onions on these terraces continuously

for over 100 years.

And they still grow wonderfully well.

'I love the idea of terroir. That specific combination of place,

'soil and climate, which means that one location can produce onions

'distinct from anywhere else and, of course, it's not just onions.'

This is really interesting.

Here you've got strawberries from Carpentras and from the Ardeche

and then a different variety there.

Now, the English gardener is really familiar with growing

different varieties of strawberry and choosing which one they want.

But the English shopper tends to just buy strawberries.

And the real difference with France is that the housewives, the chefs,

the consumer, will very deliberately select the variety, or the region

the food comes from, with the same care that we grow it in England.

-Deux euro?

-Deux euro.

-Merci beaucoup.

-Merci.

They're said to be exceptionally fragrant and they really are.

You know how, with a strawberry, there's that moment of bliss

when you realise it's not just as good as you thought it was

going to be, but a lot better?

'This love of provenance and terroir is still alive in modern France.

'26% of farms have disappeared in the last ten years,

'mostly smallholdings being absorbed by larger farms

'and for these small farms, it can prove a lifeline.

'The Dordogne, for example, used to be a major tobacco-growing area

'but now farmers have had to adapt.

'The Boyer family in Carsac-Aillac,

'like many others, are using the land for a regional speciality.

'I've come to see Thierry Boyer

'in the old tobacco fields by the river.'

-Bonjour.

-Bonjour.

HE LAUGHS

Oui, c'est vrais.

-A vous.

-Merci.

Go in underneath, on the side.

Until I feel it.

There it is. I missed.

-Voila!

-Good!

I'm going to have another go now.

'These white asparagus are more expensive than

'our own green asparagus.'

OK, in here.

'The French love them and will pay accordingly.'

Tres bon.

Light, drains well, rich...

'But what's also interesting about these asparagus

'is that they are organic.

' "Bio", as the French call it.

'And the amount of bio production has more than

'doubled in the last ten years.'

That's probably a one-way road. Who cares?

'There's one statistic that I find truly ambitious.

'The French spend more time eating

'and drinking than anyone else in the Western world.

'So I want to see what happens when you marry the traditional values

'of self-sufficiency and respect for local varieties

'with modern organic production in a Michelin-starred restaurant.

'There is, however, a minor hitch.

'I've run out of cash to pay the ferry man.'

Pardon!

There is something about going by ferry,

even if you're just going across a little waterway,

a river. It's exciting. It's an unmodern thing to do.

It's an adventure.

I don't know what you expect to happen at the other end

but it's different.

Life is going to change somehow. And it's so short.

I've got to get back in the car or I'll be left stranded here.

That was fun. That was good.

'Although I couldn't pay the fare,

'I was allowed across the River Rhone on my way to the Camargue.

'This is the dead-flat, marshy stretch of land that merges

'into the Mediterranean,

'famous for its wild rice and white horses,

'and I've come here to visit a restaurant with

'an unusually intimate relationship with its kitchen garden.'

Now, this is the reason that I've come to the Camargue,

because this restaurant, La Chassagnette, is bio,

meaning it's organic. It grows all its own veg,

and was one of the first organic restaurants to get a Michelin star.

'As the guests eat, they look out onto a garden that not only provides

'most of the ingredients for their meal, but is also lovely.'

Nice to see the cosmos. This is cosmos "Dazzler".

Actually, funnily enough, just before coming out here,

I planted mine out back home, they're nothing like as big.

But look at the way the new flower is that very rich reddy colour,

almost plum, and it fades to a pink.

It looks lovely just scattered through the vegetables.

I'm looking for Claude, the gardener.

Claude!

-Bonjour.

-Bonjour!

-Ca va?

-Ca va! Et tois?

-Oui, tres bien.

-Oui.

-CLAUDE LAUGHS

-Ca va bien?

-Ca va.

Voila! Des tomates.

Wow!

Tu vois, regarde des tomates.

What that has, it has a tenderness to touch

that you never get in an English tomato

because they never get that ripe.

English tomatoes tend to be much firmer.

And although it may look less than perfect, I can tell you,

I just want to bite into that and the taste is fantastic.

This is enormous!

That is a whopper.

It's the size of a great big baking apple, or small melon.

And of course, what you have is the warmth of the sun.

A cold tomato has far less taste, and this smells of days of sunshine.

La chair de la tomate.

The flesh.

The flesh here is really solid.

There's no sort of wet pippy section.

THEY LAUGH

It's got body. This is a muscular tomato.

This has been in the weights room,

pumping iron, and the result, it's like a watermelon in scale.

It's got a different texture. It's very, very nice. Lovely.

'These tomatoes go from the vine to the kitchen in minutes.

'No food could be fresher.'

Hello, Armand? Bonjour. How are you?

Very good.

So, what are you cooking today?

Today, we have fish with tomatoes.

So we have these tomatoes in olive oil.

-So that's just olive oil?

-Olive oil and basil.

-And the basil is from the garden?

-Yes.

-Go ahead.

-Really? OK.

Superb.

Just put the fish in the olive oil, like this.

This tomato will now be used as a seasoning.

Does it matter which variety you use for this?

Today it's "Noire de Crimee" we're using.

Because we want not too acid... but concentrated,

a lot of density in the tomatoes.

-So you choose your variety for the dish?

-Of course.

I also prepared some onions.

And that is, so far, all from the garden?

Everything's from the garden.

So, when you organise your menu, do you see what's in the garden?

Exactly.

We can say it's the garden who detects...

what's going to be in the menu.

The idea is to have a restaurant who helps the garden,

-and not the garden for the restaurant.

-That's unusual, isn't it?

-Yes.

-As a gardener, someone who grows food, that is wonderful,

because when you're cooking at home, you're going into the garden,

you see what's good. You gather it and you cook it.

It's the garden that decides what's it's going to be for you.

At home, did your parents grow vegetables?

No, but my grandparents used to sell vegetables in the market.

-So vegetables are always part of my life.

-Very good.

I'll let you get on, I know you're going to be very busy,

-but thank you very much.

-Thank you.

-Fascinating.

'This place is a perfect example of how the directness of

'paysan culture can be maintained and celebrated

'without compromising the highest culinary standards.

'It's been a fascinating journey, from the self-sufficiency

'of the nuns to the embellishment of Val Joanis

'to the uncomplicated flavours of the Cevennes.'

Lovely.

'And I've seen how the French love of order and control turns

'pruning into a fine art, vegetables into formal bedding.

'And there's no doubt that the French passion for food

'goes hand in hand with a pride in terrior,

'and an appreciation that choosing the particular and specific

'will always translate into the best you can eat.'

C'est bon.

'But it's time to pay a visit to the French kitchen garden that I think

'combines all these qualities into one triumphant performance.

'It is in Berry, which is in la France profonde,

'right in the middle of the country.

'I think this place succeeds in marrying the virtues of

'a high level of productivity, theatrical and playful display

'and the French delight in their food, all in one glorious garden.

'The potager at the ancient monastery of

'Priorie Notre-Dame d'Orsan is only 20 years old,

'but it takes its inspiration from the site,

'and the tenets of mediaeval monastic gardens

'where everything should be both useful and beautiful.'

This is a block of wheat growing in the lawn.

You might think that that is quirky, fun, a little bit eccentric,

but actually it's very, very practical.

Like everything else in this garden, it's grown to eat.

It'll be harvested, and the grains will be ground and made into bread.

And there's no reason why you can't grow anything edible in a garden.

There isn't an area that's suitable for farming

and an area that's suitable for gardening.

The two can come together.

And I think that gives an energy to a garden.

If you're really going to use it,

you're really going to grow it as well as you can.

But here, whether it's eaten or not,

everything down to the protection around the crop,

down to the little snails on top of the bamboo, must look good.

'The owner, Patrice Taravella,

'is an architect turned garden designer.

'And he's asked me to lunch.'

-Lovely, that looks very good.

-I hope you like the vegetables.

I love vegetables.

All these from the garden?

All is from the garden, yes.

How did you begin the garden here?

Perhaps, WHY did you begin the garden here?

The first summer, it was so warm, so hot,

that I felt we had to plant a tree because we need shade.

It was...everywhere was rain, we had no roof,

no shade everywhere, and we want shade.

And one tree, two trees, three trees and then...

SNAPS FINGERS If we make a garden. Just like that.

-And you'd never made a garden before?

-No, never. Never, never.

My first garden.

HE CHUCKLES

So why did you want to make a garden that included food?

Vegetables and fruit?

Because for me, a flower, I like the flowers and the trees,

because there is a fruit after.

Not the flower to cut to put on the table.

I can do, but it is not my interest.

'Patrice now runs the converted monastery as a small hotel.

'Everything that is grown in the garden is served to

'the guests as it comes into season.'

There isn't a garden that doesn't use support of some kind,

but I've never seen a garden where the support system looks so good.

Not particularly original, but the way that it's all put together,

actually, is really inspiring and exciting.

This is obviously for the tomatoes, and there are wigwams.

There's a nice sort of tent-like structure, which I'm going to copy.

A roller coaster lattice work there, all to support tomatoes.

There's a playfulness about it that I like, because it's all

practical, all standard stuff, but there's a little spark to it.

'Although the garden is not particularly big,

'it feels big because it's subdivided into dozens of compartments.

'It's easy to get lost, with peepholes and views

'and a maze of hedge-lined paths.

'There's a reference to mediaeval symbolism in all this,

'following the tortuous road to salvation,

'but it is, above all, a brilliant manipulation of space.'

The space is constricted, expanded,

you're led down certain alleys that lead nowhere,

there are dead ends, you have to retrace your steps.

There are little windows, there are doors.

All this makes it very lively and energetic.

Very exciting, because you don't know what's round the corner.

I think this garden weaves together its strands brilliantly.

You've got the monastic element, where monks grow food with devotion.

You've got serious food production, which is served to paying

members of the public to a very high standard.

And you've got a garden that purely sets out to look beautiful.

And they all come together. I love the way nothing's wasted.

Everything, be it a rose or a cabbage,

is grown with great seriousness.

But the tone, and the way the garden looks and feels,

has a real playful element.

It's elegant and it's useful.

Now, surely, that's the definition of a potager.

'Next time, I'll be looking at gardens of great French artists

'and considering the question of whether a garden can be

'a work of art in itself.'

My goodness!

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