THE "POTAGER D'UN CURIEUX"

On the path to discovering the garden...

Conservatory of forgotten vegetables and rare plants, the "Potager d'un curieux" created by Jean-Luc Daneyrolles is a farm and a paradise for gardeners. In the vegetable garden, he collects and produces seeds respectul for the seasons and the environment. Located in the village of Saignon in the Luberon, since 1984, Jean-Luc Daneyrolles has become a reference in his field. He first transformed a hill into an exuberant garden that looks like him and mixes old flowers and strange vegetables, pickaxe handles and shards of bottles, colored cans, old watering cans or buckets having suffered the ravages of time. Paths separate the garden into vegetable parts where flowers, fruits, leaves and roots are listed according to their uses. The ground of the paths is sometimes covered with fragments of ancient tiles, found on the oppidum which occupies part of the farm, pieces of Apt's earthenware, pebbles and stones. A modest garden shed houses the usual garden tools.

Passionate about ancient vegetables, every year Jean Luc-Daneyrolles grows among others, more than 50 varieties of tomatoes. The "apple of love" suspected of evil powers in the 16th century, is now the essential vegetable of Provencal cuisine. Common varieties are known, from tiny cherry tomatoes to perfect round tomatoes. In the vegetable garden, you will find the real Marmande, the Roma, the Banana, the White Cherry, the Green Grape...: an extraordinary diversity of forms, colors and flavors to make yours again.

And no one knows salads like this partisan gardener... The chefs call Jean-Luc Daneyrolles for the design of their vegetable garden. He also creates gardens and vegetable gardens in schools and trains future gardeners. Author of several books on the art of creating gardens and forgotten vegetables, his goal is to save this living heritage and to pass on the diversity of seeds, outside museums or laboratories.

In your turn, you can today enter this extraordinary garden.