Potager of the queens

Yesterday we visited the chateau at Chenonceau...a gorgeous fairytale castle set in the most fantastical of grounds right upon the river Cher.  Perhaps it is so beautiful because many women influenced its construction over the centuries.  It traces back to the 11th century, but the castle as it stands today really took off from King Charles XVIII of France and his wife Catherine Brinconnet who had great influence over its design.  1547, King Henry II of France presented the chateau to his mistress (best mistress gift ever!) Diane de Poitiers.   In the castle rooms there are initials C and H carved into the mantels although Kind Henry II also carved one of Ds as an act of love for his mistress Diane.  What a lady, she was 20 years his senior.  Catherine de Medici later forced Diane out after King Henry II's death.  This became Catherine's favourite castle and it was at this castle that her son Francis II married Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1560.  Now I'm hazy on the dates and hope they are right from what I remember of the talking guide, but loving history it was quite amazing to stand quietly in the bedrooms of this chateau.  I could feel the ghosts pressing in around me, so many of them, the worn floors and slight grooves in the wall corners where ladies must have trailed their fingers time after time whilst coming around a corner.

Anyway, I digress!  This is a gardening blog after all, not one about history!

The potager or kitchen garden was fantastic, I'm so inspired!  Have a look:

 

 

Espaliered apple trees border all of the vegetable beds and they are laden with fruit...

  

Such neat rows of healthy unusual variety vegetables - not a bug in sight, makes me wonder if they must spray although there were plenty of ladybirds and dragonflies about.  Interspersed with the rows of vegetables were beautifully fragrant flowers and plenty of bees - lavender, jasmine, rose...

 

 The farmhouse

 

 

The jasmine arbours smell so heavenly!

 

The ornamental gardens were gorgeous too but I spent most of my time wandering around the potager

 

 The potting greenhouses (several) were chock full of yummy greens

 

I really loved our visit to Chenonceau.  But you know, where were the chickens??

On our way to our new lodgings (the farmhouse not having warm water nor even water that runs at all, bug infestation from the river, a state of unclean that had the children in allergies and a heater that would not turn off - in Summer it's way too hot for that! so we left) we passed through several gorgeous villages.  I'll show you pics of the new digs later.

 Gorgeous Montresor - one of my favourites

 

 

 

 

  

 We had a lovely late afternoon visit in Amboise

 

 

 

 Fields of poppies and sunflowers...

I could live in France - easily.