most French families' lives, whether in the country or the city. "When I first lived in France," she told me, "it was to me an absolutely astonishing idea that everything I needed was right there in the garden. In fact, this was necessary, because there weren't any stores nearby. But it was tremendously enjoyable as well. Part of the daily experience was to go out in the morning and pick whatever I was going to have for the noon meal. Then in the evening I would go out and choose vegetables for the evening meal. The light and sounds would all be different. Those daily vegetable gatherings slowed the whole day down."
Georgeanne Brennan sows a new bed of beans in the potager garden in Sacramento, California. Small plantings planted in succession are well suited to fresh eating.
The point of the potager garden is to make available a continuous harvest. This means that you are continually starting seedlings to fill in spaces as they appear in the beds. Sometimes, as with carrots and beets, you begin the seedlings in the beds themselves, but you start most vegetables (for better supervision) in the nursery area or in flats or cold frames. You then transplant seedlings into the beds. As Georgeanne put it, "This garden fits into your life; it doesn't dominate it. Once the garden area is prepared, an average of twenty minutes a day is required to keep it up."
Cooking from the potager garden varies both seasonally and regionally. "When you drive through the mountain villages in July," said Georgeanne, "you will see beautiful leeks and cabbages, but three hundred kilometers to the south ripening tomatoes and eggplants appear. The regions differ that distinctively." In the United States, too, such gardens vary from place to place. Thus, if you live in a cold climate, to maintain a continuous harvest, you need to use row covers and cold frames for protection, and you have to mulch heavily in the fall. Such a garden would actually be similar to those in northern France. On the other hand, if you live in a mild climate, chances are your summer garden would resemble a Mediterranean French garden.
I enjoy driving through the French countryside with an eye out for home gardens. The crops in this fall garden include chicories, New Zealand spinach, yellow zucchinis, carrots, fennel, and brussels sprout
The potager garden was grown near Sacramento, California, on the edge of the great Central Valley. Summer temperatures in this part of the country are high, often hovering at 100°F for many days. The winters are mild and seldom dip below the mid-twenties. Therefore, heat is the major gardening problem. When summer really moves in, it is too hot to start lettuce, and if you want to start fall and winter crops, you need to put them out under shade cloth. Lettuce survives the winter if it's started in fall, as do other cool-season crops such as mâche (corn salad), dandelions, leeks, cabbages, and the root vegetables.
When Georgeanne and Charlotte selected vegetables for their garden, they chose primarily French heirloom varieties, those popular in the nineteenth century but still carried by French seed houses. Georgeanne explained: "France is having some of the same variety-erosion problems afflicting most other modern nations. By using nineteenth-century varieties, we could do our share in addressing this problem while still growing exceptionally tasty varieties."
Georgeanne's descriptions of preparation techniques for most of the varieties she and Charlotte grew should give you a good overview of the potager garden. In her detailed explanation to me, Georgeanne started with the two varieties of radishes: 'Flamboyant,' a long red-and-white French breakfast type, and 'Sezanne,' a round one with a magenta top. According to Georgeanne, radishes in France are often served as an appetizer with French bread and butter; for centuries this has been a favorite midmorning snack for farmers. Next, she pointed out the two bean varieties: 'Coco Prague,' a French horticultural shelling type with splashy red-and-white pods and one of the traditional beans used fresh in soupe au pistou, and 'Aiguillon,' a thin filet-type snap bean. The two varieties of tomatoes were 'Super Mamande,' a development from the old 'Marmande' and a good French stuffing tomato, and 'Oxheart,' a flavorful, meaty tomato. Georgeanne's excited anticipation of the coming summer garden became obvious as she talked of the tomatoes. "They'll be ready in high summer, and there's absolutely nothing better than going out to the garden and picking a few before dinner. They are still warm from the day's heat then, and all their flavor and aroma are at the maximum. As you can see, like the French, I love tomatoes and feel that life without them is inconceivable."
Also included in the garden is a winter squash, 'Musquée de Provence,' a fluted buff-colored squash filled with thick, dense, orange meat. Charlotte and Georgeanne keep the squash in the garden until the first frost and then put them in the garage for the winter. One of Georgeanne's favorite ways to prepare this squash is to cube it and cook it slowly with olive oil, garlic, herbs, and grated cheese.
I asked Georgeanne to explain in detail how the potager garden was harvested. In the typical American garden, full-size vegetables are gathered sporadically, but a large harvest of even one vegetable from the potager garden would be unusual. The idea is to do a daily mixed harvest, taking what is necessary for the day's soup, salad, stew, and/or vegetable side dish. Certain vegetables are planted with specific, and sometimes a number of, purposes in mind. For example, the potager gardener might sow chard, beets, and maybe lettuce and mâche thickly in a bed and then partially harvest most of them in a few weeks as thinnings. And some leeks and onions might be harvested young and eaten small and braised; then months later the larger vegetables would be picked and cooked in a different way. And there might be a gathering of a large number of certain vegetables—cabbages for sauerkraut, or tomatoes before a first frost for some sauce—but usually for specific purposes. Mostly the harvest is determined by the needs of the day. For instance, potatoes, after reaching new-potato size, are harvested only as needed, not all at once. A leaf or two of broccoli or a head of cabbage might be picked from the garden and added to a soup. Preserving for the next season is not a primary goal, as the garden produces for most of the year, yielding vegetables and herbs in their ideal state—garden fresh.
My front walk highlighted with red roses and lined with chamomile in the parterre style, also includes beds of rosemary, oregano, parsley, and thyme.
The garden to its left overflows with French varieties of lettuce, carrots, chard, fennel, and Belgian endives.
I was enchanted with the potager garden, not only because of its versatility but also because of its individuality. In just about any yard and climate, a variation of a potager garden can be created to reflect the gardener-cook's personal taste, and the rotation of just two or three little beds yields fresh salad greens -and herbs for most of the year. The potager garden is infinitely expandable, since it's really more a concept than a specific garden plan.
The Will Garden
Jeanne and Dan Will are avid gardeners, and their beautiful herb garden in Brookside, New Jersey, inspired many gardeners in the area. A number of years ago I called the Wills in midspring to ask if they'd grow a French garden for my French book project; they plunged right in with the intention of growing a kind of garden they hadn't tried before. Their usual vegetable garden was an area off the greenhouse surrounded by a wire fence. It was very utilitarian but had not been designed with aesthetics in mind. On the phone I had mentioned the beautiful kitchen and parterre (flower bed) gardens in France, and the Wills became inspired enough to look into the history of the French garden, and to plan their own variation of the classic French garden, distinctively geometric and decorative. With dedication above and beyond anything I expected, in one season they set about creating a miniature latticed garden filled with flowers and French vegetables and herbs.
To help them get started with the vegetables, I recommended a selection of
