Articles

Have you heard of the nashi ? Halfway between a European pear and an apple, hence its common name of apple-pear, this fruit is given as a gift in Japan in pretty packaging, either as a New Year present or as a consolation prize to rejected lovers.

So it is with this fruit that I will end the vegetable chronicles of my blog, before starting my real gardening stories in 2026. As I got a commission from the magazine “Les Quatre Saisons” for its special issue “Les jardins familiaux” ( Allotments and Community gardens.) to be published in March 2026.

 Before appearing on my blog, my reviews were published every month since 2017 in the magazine Versailles +, a stone’s throw from the Potager du Roi in Versailles city. The magazine contacted me when my first book was published :  “Le Potager du Roi, dessins de saison à Versailles” (The king’s vegetablegarden, seasonal drawings in Versailles). They asked me to contribute to the magazine afterwards. It was a wonderful opportunity to discover forgotten or -rediscovered- vegetables, which I had begun to explore in my sketchbooks. With either my sun hat or my winter gloves, I spent seven years walking the paths of one of the France’s oldest vegetable garden. My mission ended with the lockdown in 2020, and my blog has taken over until today. And from 2026 on, stories about gardeners will take the place of those about fruits and vegetables. Continue reading “The nashi, a true apple-pear”

Christopher Columbus, in search of a new route for the Spice Route, brought back chillies from the New World. The Aztecs used them in their cooking to spice up their dishes, but also to heal bodies and souls, believing that their strength drove away evil spirits. Continue reading “Chillies from the New World”

Hurrah, my cucurbit seedling survived ! A good memory in 2024 was to discover my mysterious seedling which withstand the vagaries of the weather and the procession of gastropods that make mincemeat of them. I was finally going to be able to enjoy cucumbers from my garden! And like “Perrette and her pot au lait”, the famous Lafontaine story, I was already dreaming of squash, cucumbers, gherkins and – why not – making jars of them. But – to my dismay – in July, its incredibly voluble vines, still bore no fruit. Finally, in August, I saw small greenish flowers appear in its magnificent foliage, clustered in the leaf axils and quickly transformed into fruit. Horn-shaped, with a few soft needles on the skin, they didn’t look at all like pickles. “This is a cyclenthere, aka achocha or pedata,” I was told. Continue reading “The Andean cucumber”

No, this question does not  question the spelling of children’s favorite fruit, but sometimes reality is more than fiction. Indeed, Captain François Amédée Frezier – an authentic name that can’t be invented – was the inventor of the modern strawberry. Here’s the story.

 In 1712, he was commissioned by the King to study (i.e., spy on) the coastal and port fortifications along the coasts of Peru and Chile, then Spanish possessions. Whether he developed a taste for botanical exploration out of boredom or fear of being discovered by the enemy is unclear. In any case, it was in Conception, in the viceroyalty of Peru, now Chile, that he discovered Continue reading “The story of the Tregastel strawberries”