Transgardens presents the pedagogical garden set up on Le Grand Potager de Fontenille, in Lauris, Luberon, in the south of France. This project is initiated by The Ivory Foundation.
Le Grand Potager, France
A vegetable garden of 4500m2, set up on an organic vineyard, in the privileged setting of the Luberon in the south of France. The Grand Potager welcomes adults, and children from the schools located in Lauris and in the surrounding villages, to raise their awareness of biodiversity and sustainable agricultural techniques.
Herbs and edible flowers are an important part of the crops grown in the large kitchen garden at Lauris to enhance the dishes served by the Domaine de Fontenille restaurant.
Every year, two classes from Lauris spend a day in the large vegetable garden at the Domaine de Fontenille. The treasure hunt through the vegetable garden ends with a visit to the donkey patch, which is a big hit with … Read More
One of the outdoor activities devised by Transgarden for children is a balancing game. The children turn two wheels: one indicating natural elements (pebbles, bread apples, branches, etc.) and the other indicating an area of the body (neck, forearm, elbow, … Read More
The Grand Potager at Domaine de Fontenille, which is entirely organically farmed, is an ideal refuge for insects, which enjoy the flowers in the garden and help pollinate them.
During the visit of the Grand Potager of the Domaine de Fontenille, the Lauris preschool children were separated into four groups. Each tribe was associated with a guardian of the elements: Fuoc, guardian of fire; Aura, guardian of air; Terrà, … Read More
The children of Lauris nursery school discovered a revisited game of 7 families designed by Transjardins at the Grand Potager of the Domaine de Fontenille. The children were each given a game board corresponding to a fruit/vegetable family colour (orange, … Read More
The Lauris preschool children came to visit the Grand Potager of the Domaine de Fontenille. All day long, they were able to discover the different parts of the garden by participating in playful activities (sowing, composting, egg hunt, memory, colouring). … Read More
The Lauris preschool children enjoyed a calm time to realize colourings in the Grand Potager of the Domaine de Fontenille. Sitting around the mandala, they coloured their own version of the beds forming a flower. After the visit to the … Read More
In the bioclimatic greenhouse of the Grand Potager (Domaine de Fontenille), the Lauris preschool children realized seedlings. They filled their little cardboard pot with potting soil, then packed the soil. When the soil is almost at the top of the … Read More
On a table installed near the aromatics spiral of the Grand Potager (Domaine de Fontenille), the Lauris preschool children played aromatic memory. In each little pot is an aromatic herb (lemon balm, thyme, rosemary, chives, sage). The children win when … Read More
The Lauris preschool children discovered the principle of the compost in the Grand Potager of the Domaine de Fontenille. The children took turns cutting fruit and vegetable peelings into small pieces and throwing them into the compost. This activity allows … Read More
The bioclimatic greenhouse of the Grand Potager of the Domaine de Fontenille is an essential tool at the end of winter and the beginning of spring, to prepare the seedlings, protected from the last frosts. It saves several precious weeks … Read More
11 leaves and flowers, chosen to be easily identifiable and recognisable, were taken from the vegetable garden, around the aromatic garden. They were placed on a board and presented to the children of the Lauris kindergarten, who then set off … Read More
The plots of the bioclimatic greenhouse of the Grand Potager have been cleaned and prepared in order to accommodate the winter seedlings. The turmeric plantations have thus been moved to make room for the mesclun seedlings which will benefit from … Read More
To fulfill the important demand of the kitchens, some sprouts of Moroccan mint left the greenhouse for a large strawberry garden container. The strawberry plants were then transplanted to an earth bed near the spinach seedlings.
To prepare for spring, spinach seeds and young shoots from the bioclimatic greenhouse of the Grand Potager of @domainedefontenille were sown and transplanted onto a cultivation bed previously weeded and prepared using the campagnole. In order to stagger the harvests, seedlings … Read More
Autumn is the ideal time to prepare the vegetable garden before winter. Florian and Marie came to help Emile. The strawberry beds in the Grand Potager de Fontenille had grown so much during the season that we were able to … Read More
The Grand Potager’s herb spiral benefitted from the last months’ sunny weather. Thyme, sage, rosemary, oregano, savory, chervil or even basil have developed on the low wall’s rocks. The aromatic garden is surrounded by a willow hedge which was braided … Read More
At the Grand Potager on the Domain of Fontenille, we tried out a raised mound technique, connected by a teepee giving inclined support to climbing beans and marrows, thanks to a weaving which was handmade with ropes. This green cover … Read More
The bioclimatic greenhouse allowed us to be right on time to prepare all the seedlings that are now growing in the garden. There are still some zucchinis to prick out, and an incredible nasturtium which spent the winter in the … Read More
The exploration of the Grand Potager is not only one to see and to smell. The children were able to taste a couple of fruits and edible flowers, especially marigold and nasturtium. For those who feel unsure about the flowers, … Read More
The children from the Lauris school dedicated themselves to a land art activity. By giving free rein to their imagination and to their sense of artistic creation, the children proposed a beautiful catalog of natural compositions. Each one of them … Read More
During a day at the Grand Potager, nursery classes from the Lauris school had the opportunity to be involved in a flower hunt. Near the bioclimatic green house and the aromatics spiral, a lot of flowers are present. The exercise … Read More
In front of the Grand Potager’s compost, the students from Lauris’ nursery school learned how to sort their waste. Plastic ? In the recycling bin ! Leftover chicken ? In the garbage can ! Vegetable peel ? In the compost … Read More
During their visit to the Grand Potager, the students of the Lauris school paid a visit to the working hens. They are retired hens, which have been collected by the Grand Potager to spend a quiet retirement, after having spent … Read More
During their visit to the Grand Potager, the students of the Lauris school paid a visit to observe the pond which is located next to the henhouse, so as to learn many things about the biodiversity that can be found … Read More
The sun provides a lot to the Grand Potager, flowers are abundant and the garden buzzes with bees who come to delight in this diversity of scents and colors.
The nasturtiums spent the winter in the warmth of the bioclimatic greenhouse of the Grand Potager. Here they are in full bloom, declining several shades of yellow and orange… Pleasure for the eyes and for the palate, as these flowers … Read More
The bees living in the Grand Potager are enjoying the spring and taking great delight in the colourful flowers’ pollen. These essential insects greatly participate in the pollination of the garden’s flowers.
Track game at the Grand Potager series 5/5 Last step of the discovery day at the Grand Potager. This open-air theatre is a mere frame made of wooden tubes which is fastened between two small trees. Inspired by puppet theatre, … Read More
Track game at the Grand Potager series 4/5 Another step in the discovery day at the Grand Potager. Balance, patience and focus, all of these were required for the children to succeed in the balancing game’s journey. The game consists … Read More
Track game at the Grand Potager series 3/5 Third step of the discovery day at the Grand Potager: land art ! This artform consists in using materials from nature for esthetics purposes. The children had the opportunity to create their … Read More
Track game series at the Grand Potager 2 / 5 Back to the rest of the discovery day at the Grand Potager. The children focused on drawing reproductions of different elements of the garden, like the keyhole, the mandala, or … Read More
Track game series at the Grand Potager 1 / 5 At the Grand Potager of Fontenille, 20 children of the Lauris summer camp came to discover the garden’s track game. During an afternoon, the children had a walk through the … Read More
At the Fontenille domain, the garden is a shelter for many insects: on his own, the garden attracts a huge number of auxiliary insects. Today, as the fist flowers arrived, the children observed bees foraging the garden’s flowers.
Every wednesday at the Grand Potager in Fontenille children are offered a creative workshop. This week an insect house making workshop took place, which was an opportunity to children and their parents around a do-it-yourself activity under the sun ! … Read More
A pond has been built by the animation team of the Grand Potager. A new feature of the garden, it is a real refuge for biodiversity: dragonflies, toads, frogs, newts, birds, beetles, etc. These animals will be all the more … Read More
In this video, Emile shows us an example of a beneficial crop combination in the Grand Potager de Fontenille, in the Luberon. Here, the cultivation mound is composed of white onions associated with savoy cabbage. This combination of alliums and … Read More
Temperatures are slowly rising in the South and it’s time to plant! Indeed, as the heat will be higher in the greenhouse, it will be an ideal setting to germinate young shoots. So, seedling lines have been drawn in a … Read More
Feedback on the bioclimatic greenhouse of the Grand Potager de Fontenille, in Luberon, 3 years after its construction. Sebastien Dutherage, its designer, analyses its strong points, and also sheds light on possible improvements.
Emile shows us in video the steps to prepare the raised beds of cultivation. First step: loosening the soil with the Campagnole! The Campagnole is a particularly interesting tool when practicing permaculture in the garden.Invented by Vincent Legris, in collaboration … Read More
Little demonstration of sowing at the Grand Potager of Fontenille, in the Luberon. On prepared ridges of 80cm wide, Mael , the head of cultivation in the vegetable garden, uses the single-row precision seed drill for a new row of … Read More
The animation team of the Grand Potager organised this Wednesday afternoon a cutting workshop activity in the garden. The mild temperatures of the last few days and the coming arrival of spring mean that it is currently a good time … Read More
After having made the bird boxes that will soon be scattered around the Great Vegetable Garden, the children set about decorating them. To do this, they used materials found in nature such as dead leaves, small branches, moss and flowers. … Read More
It’s time to install bird boxes in your garden or on the wall of your house if you haven’t already done so! With urbanisation and intensive agriculture, natural nesting boxes (cracks in walls, dead trees, hedges…) are becoming less and … Read More
Snow covered the garden at the beginning of the year, temperatures dropped rapidly this week and the garden was dressed in white. Cold resistant vegetables were planted in the garden in the autumn such as spinach and salad, the snow … Read More
After having welcomed peppers and sweet potatoes for our greatest pleasure, the first frosts had made it look sad… After harvesting the peppers and sweet potatoes, we could proceed to the maintenance of the mandala, beginning with weeding the mounds … Read More
At the Grand Potager of Lauris, the Mediterranean climate is favourable to the cultivation of aromatic plants. This is why a spiral of aromatic herbs was developed in the spring of 2019. And it is developing wonderfully well! This structure, … Read More
In the garden, winter has arrived with its first frosts. Our mandala was not spared, the sweet potatoes died out on a weekend, and the chilies that kept them company did not survive either… What to do with all the … Read More
The last tomatoes have been harvested in the Grand Potager while the autumn vegetable plants make their appearance on the growing beds. Chard and young mustard shoots develop well. During this season, it is also the occasion to harvest the … Read More
The last tomatoes have been harvested in the Grand Potager while the autumn vegetable plants make their appearance on the growing beds. Chard and young mustard shoots develop well. During this season, it is also the occasion to harvest the … Read More
Last week we received twenty shrub seedlings at the Grand Potager for the creation of a gourmet hedge. It will have two functions: to produce small fruits and berries for the visitors of the vegetable garden but also to create … Read More
Between flowers and vegetables, the harvest was fruitful and colorful at the Grand Potager de Fontenille! We have squashes, eggplants, peppers of all sizes and shapes. Enough to prepare good meals for the coming weeks.
For the “treasure hunt” at the Grand Potager, the mandala has been transformed into a “giant compass”. Participants will have to place metal signs indicating the 4 cardinal points at each end of the mandala’s petals. They will also have … Read More
At the Grand Potager of Fontenille, the volunteers on civic service have laid out part of the covered pergola to create a welcoming space to house creative workshops during discovery visits in the garden. An experimental green wall has been … Read More
New descriptive panels have been installed in the Grand Potager de Fontenille to better accompany and inform visitors as they wander through the garden. In addition, signposts have also been placed in the alleys of the Fontenille estate to facilitate … Read More
The Grand Potager has become a refuge for birds… Following the establishment of its small bird shelters, it is now a refuge labeled LPO (Ligue de Protéction des oiseaux – Bird Protection League) Birdhouses
In order to promote biodiversity in the Grand Potager of the Fontenille area, the bed of a small stream has been cleared to encourage its flow to the vegetable patch. A small pool will thus constitute a new refuge for … Read More
The chef and cooks from gourmet restaurant “Le Champs des Lunes” where invited by the team of the Grand Potager in Fontenille to attend a training of recognition and tasting of wild salads. This workshop was organized by Sylvie and … Read More
During a school outing, children from Lauris’ school were invited to participate in a treasure hunt through the Grand Potager de Fontenille and its forest paths. Small signs were placed in trees amongst the Domain, presenting different kind of birds, … Read More
The pupils of the four classes of the nursery school made mandalas with vegetable elements. Those have been found during winter at the Grand Potager in Fontenille. Mandala is a word in Sanskrit language which means circle. In permaculture, the … Read More
It’s time to repot our small cuttings that have grown… For this, we were helped by little hands…Each child was able to make their own potting, so we marked their names on their respective potty. Thus, the children will be … Read More
The greenhouse of the Grand Potager du Domaine de Fontenille is a perfect shelter for plants sensitive to the cold, as winter approaches. Autumn seedlings are also growing, and will be transplanted soon in the garden for winter.
It is a spiral wall of stones lined with lean soil and pebbles. Its sunny location, its structure and its components reduce temperature variations, thanks to the accumulation of heat in the stones. The elevated shape also prevents stagnation of … Read More
Walking Spider, frog hidden in the foliage of the greenhouse, cicada molting … An organic vegetable garden is a paradise for the garden’s friends, and a shelter for biodiversity.
Mallow flowers, carnations, nasturtiums, pansies … All these flowers bring both colors to the garden, and originality and taste to the dishes prepared by the chef of the Domaine de Fontenille
Romain, the gardener in charge of the Grand Potager, is a lover of nature and its diversity. Each corner of the garden is a discovery of incredible foliage, an unknown flower …
The collection of edible flowers from the vegetable patch includes unexpected specimens … On the program today, an invitation to bite into a flower of chives, nasturtium or borage …
Several hives have been installed in collaboration with a local beekeeper on the Grand Potager de Fontenille. They have been placed on the edge of the wood. They are an asset for biodiversity and pollination in the garden.
A garden of fragrant, aromatic and medicinal plants was set up this spring at the Grand Potager. Drawn according to a geometric plan, it gathers plants generally used for their aromas, their perfume or their medicinal properties. Some plants are … Read More
Literally, messicole means, who lives in the fields. Thus, these plants are biologically adapted to agricultural land, especially cereal crops. They are also called wildflowers, or meadow plants. Considered by modern agriculture as weeds, the development of chemical treatments and … Read More
The plants of the perfume, aromatic and medicinal plant garden, are associated in groups of 2 to 4 varieties. In the garden we can find castor, borage and sweet peas grown side by side.
Used for their aroma, culinary taste or medicinal properties, these plants have been cultivated since the Middle Ages. Perfume plants are mainly grown for use in perfumery and cosmetics. Their essence does not always diffuse naturally, and may require some … Read More
Seeldings are placed all around, and mulch is placed to maintain the moisture. The kitchen peels are placed in the center and covered with dry mowing. The keyhole is watered to ease the decomposition process in the center.
A team of French television channel TF1 came to shoot at the Grand Potager of Fontenille in the presence of the children of the village of Lauris. Below Jerome Faure, the chef of the Domaine de Fontenille, in the presence … Read More
Making and filling a Keyhole. The Keyhole is a keyhole-shaped vegetable garden consisting of a central compost bin surrounded by raised beds. The Keyhole produces a large number of vegetables in a limited area, benefiting from the slow diffusion of … Read More
Sebastien Dutherage, head of the Association for the Promotion of Ecological Techniques (APTE) presents the concept of a bioclimatic greenhouse made with the support of The Ivory Foundation on le Grand Potager de Fontenille in Lauris, in the South of … Read More
A visit was organized for the children of the Lauris school on the Grand Potager de Fontenille. At this occasion, the chef of Domaine de Fontenille, Jérôme Faure, visited the grown plots with the children, to make them taste the … Read More
25 children from Lauris school visited le Grand Potager de Fontenille. Le Grand Potager, will start its pedagogical vocation, now that the garden is operational. the children visited the various centers of interest of the garden in groups of 5, … Read More
The bioclimatic greenhouse of the Grand Potager is ready for its first seedlings! Funded by The Ivory Foundation, this experimental greenhouse was designed with the expertise of the association APTE (promotion of eco-energies, ecoconstruction and ecological practices), and carried out … Read More
The donkeys of the Grand Potager du Domaine de Fontenille contribute to the fertility of the garden soil. They produce a local and natural manure transformed into the composting area of the garden. On other farms, in permaculture, such as … Read More
It is used to stop the growth of green manures sown on plots at rest. The action of this roller is to stop the sap flow of plants and leave a mulch on the ground. The cutting blades break the … Read More
Autumn is mild, the gardening boards are still green with salads, cabbage, spinach. Soon, the bioclimatic greenhouse will take over for the production of the plants, to gain a few weeks on the season.
La Campagnole is a tool created by La Fabriculture, a workshop of handcrafted tools based in the south of France. (http://www.lafabriculture.fr). It is inspired by “the grelinette”, a basic tool of permaculture, a spade with about ten teeth, up to … Read More
This Keyhole was made of douglas pine and metal. The metal structure maintain the vertical boards durably, like the strapping of a wine barrel. Once the structure is assembled, the interior is covered with geotextile, to retain the soil, and … Read More
As the autumn settles in the Grand Potager, the central part is being transformed … A mandala composed of 12 petal-shaped raised-beds around a tree of Judea appears on the ground. Traced using ropes and wooden sticks, the petals are … Read More
To facilitate the circulation and visits of the garden, a pergola was set up on the central alley. Beyond the aesthetic aspect, this pergola brings two advantages to the garden: – On both sides of this pergola, climbing fruit trees … Read More
After preparing the ground during winter, the first culture beds of the Grand Potager were set up in the spring of 2017. Below, tomatoes’ seedlings, planted in a square, with a system of tipi-shaped tutor, and several varieties of lettuce … Read More
Prior to cultivating a bed, we reduce the presence of weeds thanks to the method of occultation. This technique consists of watering the soil and then covering it with a dark plastic sheet. Thus unwanted seeds will tend to germinate … Read More
A composting area of 20 meters long has been set up on the Grand Potager, in order to upgrade green waste and create compartments for the storage of elements in different stages of maturation, as well as to allow them … Read More
The greenhouse will be a major element of the “Grand Potager” of Fontenille. A greenhouse that combines a modern and luminous aesthetic with the innovative concepts of the bioclimatic greenhouse, using natural and local materials. The operating principles of this … Read More
