The 17th Century French Garden System

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The 17th Century French Garden System; French gardeners supplied Paris with food grown in winter
Tweet Topic Started: Jun 18 2010, 09:14 PM (1,985 Views)
yass	Jun 18 2010, 09:14 PM Post #1
'night owl' Posts: 4,783 Group: Admin Member #494 Joined: February 7, 2009	History of Winter Gardening: The 17th Century French Garden System For a slew of reasons, we've come to believe in this culture that growing vegetables through the snowy winter months is impossible. The common arguments are that the weather is too cold, or that the days are too dark. Eliot Coleman, author of The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year-Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses, has proven us all wrong. By learning from..and building upon..16th and 17th century techniques, Eliot is able to grow amazing amounts of organic vegetable all year-round at his farm in Harborside, Maine. In his book, Eliot discusses the history of winter gardening and the innovative techniques that, as Eliot points out, were nearly lost for all time. The following is an excerpt from The Winter Harvest Handbook, in which Eliot points out the benefits of a nearly-ancient method of urban food production. If year-round production of fresh local vegetables is your goal, and you like the idea of being small-scale and space efficient, then you will find no model more inspiring than that of the Parisian growers of 150 years ago. La culture maraichere (market gardening) in Paris during the second half of the nineteenth century was the impressive result of years of improvement in both protected and outdoor vegetable production. The earliest developments in season extension (using primitive predecessors of the cold frame) had begun in the royal potager (vegetable garden) at Versailles under the celebrated head gardener La Quintinie in the 1670s and '80s. Those early beginnings reached their impressive climax in the hands of the Parisian maraichers (market gardeners) between 1850 and 1900. [/big] The “French garden system” (as it was called in English) was impressive for reasons that sound very up-to-date today. It was as local as you can get, taking place in and around an urban area. The cultivated land of the Parisian growers covered up to one-sixteenth (six percent) of all the land within the city limits of Paris. The Parisian street addresses given for some of these nineteenth-century "gardens" are the twenty-first-century addresses of office and apartment buildings. The city of Paris, once self-sufficient in fresh vegetables, must now import produce from far away. The selection of produce was excellent. This system fed Paris all year round with the widest variety of both in-season and out-of-season fruits and vegetables. Hotbeds heated with decomposing horse manure and covered with glass frames allowed the growers to defy the cold and produce fresh salads in January and early cucumbers and melons in May and June. The system was sustainable. Both the heat for winter production of vegetables in hotbeds and the amendments to maintain the fertility of the soil were by-products of composting another by-product..the horse manure mixed with straw that came from the city stables. This recycling of the "transportation wastes" of the day was so successful and so extensive that the soil increased in fertility from year to year despite the high level of production. A final impressive factor was the amazing productivity of the system as evidenced by the quantity of vegetables grown. In addition to feeding the inhabitants of Paris, the growers also exported vegetables to England. Growers averaged at least four and usually up to eight harvests per year from the same piece of ground. It was a successful system both practically and economically. http://www.chelseagreen.com/content/history-of-winter-gardening-the-17th-century-french-garden-system/
	-Love will lead


robin	Jun 20 2010, 08:23 AM Post #2
Advanced Member Posts: 3,647 Group: Members Member #29 Joined: April 27, 2007	they are showing the CLOCHES! have U heard of those Yass? they are the glass covers (like big jars) with a small opening at the top to allow air circulation. they protect against insects and harsh weather. i had assumed they were used for growing in winter as well. cool deal! it is like why didnt i ever think of that????? ============================================================ i have a neighbor 3 houses down, who has been having the tree trimmers, who work for the electric company, bring truck after truck of the chipped pieces (they grind them up as they cut the tree branches) and spread out on his yard. hes up to like truck 30. there is at least 5 feet or more of mulch spread out on his whole entire yard. it is 5 feet HIGH.i wouldnt be surprised if it is higher, as i havent taken a yard stick to it. i have always wanted to do that. next year and the following years as this stuff breaks down further and settles, he will have the best growing area around! my husband says no it will turn to mush. i highly doubt it. anyway, the piles they have brought us smelll so good! they had cedar trees in there and wow it is wonderful! there is another tree called a cherry laurel that smells exactly like a jar of cherries. just walking around outside brings the most delicious scents. the only thing is, this new mulch hasnt deteriorated and will actually pull the nitrogen from the soil so it cannot be put on plants yet. it will burn them and U will wonder why the plant is dead.



epona	Aug 18 2010, 01:00 AM Post #3
Advanced Member Posts: 1,439 Group: Members Member #203 Joined: June 1, 2008	Wow 30 trucks of woodchips. Mulch city! Will depend on what kind of woodchips. Pine and oak are very acid, don't know about other trees. Want a wacko mulch, try cocoa bean hulls. The chocolate smell is intense until it gets rained on about 4 times or so. Will knock out your neighbors :) If you try the cloche thing, don't substitute plastic. Blocks different wavelengths of light the plants need. Read the original book about light and plants by John Ott, fascinating info in there. The guy who started the whole "daylight" bulb thing. There is also something about colored glass and plants. Maybe it's just for grapes, can't remember that one. Oh well. Window frames that can be propped open is another idea. So you are trying to build up your garden or create one? If you have access to ground that a chicken coup was on, that would be prime dirt, but extremely powerful and would have to be definitely blended in good w/regular dirt. Other is gumbo (black clay) dirt that can be added if your soil is sandy. Rice hulls (not sprayed) if you live near farmers, ditto for chopped cornstalks. Don't use hay or you will have grass and weeds popping up for the next million years. Some have used newspaper (but not the colored comics). Coffee grounds. And the old 'rotating can' thing for making your own compost from kitchen stuff. Leaves and pine straw is not a good idea unless you are going to grow acid loving plants. Pine needles make good mulch for that. Gotta get some zzz's. Good luck on your yard, it's always fun starting a new project. Planning it is the most fun. Getting done with it and looking back, the other :)



yass	Sep 1 2010, 04:26 AM Post #4
'night owl' Posts: 4,783 Group: Admin Member #494 Joined: February 7, 2009	robin Jun 20 2010, 08:23 AM they are showing the CLOCHES! have U heard of those Yass? they are the glass covers (like big jars) with a small opening at the top to allow air circulation. they protect against insects and harsh weather. i had assumed they were used for growing in winter as well. cool deal! it is like why didnt i ever think of that????? ============================================================ robin, I hadn't heard about them and thank you! I found that more than interesting and looked up information about them. Even the info about the small opening at the top, interesting! Sorry it took me so long to reply, it's like I get to traveling circuits and if I get out of the loop of one it's hard to remember and find my way back. I treasure such information! I think it would be so cool just to have 3 of those clotches, to experiment with in growing a few vegetable plants over winter. I could see digging a very deep hole and putting a good size layer of animal poop and straw, then covering it with some good growing soil, the plant, the clotch, then viola! In fact, I know where there is some chicken poop mixed with straw that's available right now. When studying the subject I read that plastic can be used but there's a but. Glass can absorb and retain heat which helps the plants. Think of how a car feels very warm inside due to the heat it absorbs through the glass windows. Plastic may need additional heat source to keep plants warm and thriving.
	-Love will lead


allegiance to truth	Apr 26 2011, 02:08 AM Post #5
Advanced Member Posts: 799 Group: Members Member #549 Joined: October 27, 2009	I'm definately getting the book, this is the idea I've been looking for as I haven't been able to get a proper green house yet, I have however been buying 11 ltrs of water containers each week & am amazed that I hadn't thought of useing them as hot houses, just glad I saved them, knew they'd be useful for something! it snows here in winter, so will let you know how my cabbages etc turns out at end of year! Thanks Yass!! :D

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