400 years since the birth of Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie

Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie, to whom we owe several experiments on counter-season fruit and vegetable production, fruit tree pruning and sap circulation, was born in 1626. He became director of all the French Crown’s fruit and vegetable gardens, and was entrusted by Louis XIV to create the King’s Kitchen Garden, an equally aesthetic and horticultural masterpiece covering nine hectares around the Palace of Versailles estate. The King’s Kitchen Garden was developed from 1678 to 1683, on a site contiguous to the Swiss Water Parterre. This vast 9-hectare plot remains a unique example of a French kitchen garden from the Baroque period.

• 16 April: The King’s Kitchen Garden: a theatre of agriculture over the centuries