Kitchen gardens are a long-standing French tradition. Each region has areas which - depending on climate, terrain and design - boast a range of vegetables, fruit, flowers and herbs. This volume seeks to rediscover old-fashioned gardening techniques and obscure produce in an exploration of authentic vegetable gardens growing alongside chateaux or abbeys, small family plots, romantic gardens tended by parish priests, gourmet gardens planned by master chefs and ornamental gardens. The book is divided into four main sections, covering stately homes, country houses, dreams and utopias and garden produce, illuminating the history of the French countryside. Photographs reflect the colour and diversity of vegetable gardens from Paris to the Alps.
For Garden Week in Provence information, see www.susanwornertours.com. For updates on Louisa Jones' books and activities, see the blog at http://louisajones.wordpress.com/
Canadian born Louisa Jones has been gardening in southern France since 1975 when she and her husband bought the old farmhouse they still inhabit. She has written some thirty books about contemporary French gardens, recently specializing in Mediterranean regions. For her first illustrated book, Gardens in Provence (1992) Louisa visited more than two hundred gardens of all styles and sizes. She found that, in the Mediterranean, there is no separation between ornamental and useful or productive gardening. Traditional Mediterranean gardening is "multiple": many pleasures, many uses for all seasons. Like Mediterranean cuisine, it is locally based and economical, but capable of great refinement; pleasure-giving, healthy and accessible to all. It has proven its capacity to maintain a durable partnership with the land. Most recently, Louisa Jones has been exploring vernacular Mediterranean landscapes, worked and fashioned by humankind for millenia, that are today biodiversity hotspots and an inspiration to gifted artists. Louisa has also published two books with leading French ecologist, Gilles Clément. She writes in both English and French, and gardens every day. She also organizes visits to private designer gardens around Avignon in April and October.
