Our technique is that of intensive organic micro horticulture, created without the use of motorised means and with a high plant density.
For our family vegetable garden we prepared the soil, which is granite based, experimenting with various techniques: raised beds with a core of organic material, swales (hollows) and flat beds, to see which technique was the best, both in terms of productivity and work required, in relation to the environmental conditions. We used compost from our food waste for good initial fertilisation.
Commercial Vegetable Gardens
We then turned our attention to a commercial vegetable garden, with the aim of expanding our production, fulfilling the needs of our guests and selling our vegetables.
We built a small greenhouse where we planted tomato, sweet pepper, courgette, aubergine, cucumber and water melon seedlings, whereas we planted lettuce, roquette, peas, chickpeas, potatoes, onions, fennel, carrots, radishes and other seeds directly into the earth.
We refer to the first kitchen garden as the “vegetable garden in the bush” because it is an area surrounded by Mediterranean scrub. It is on a slight downhill slope and is well protected from the mistral wind. We traced level lines and used a “Campagnole” to till the earth and create 80cm wide cultivation “strips” alternating with walkways. In each strip we planted a wide variety of crops on two planting lines, appropriately associated with alternating sequences and close planting spans.
We then prepared our “vegetable garden fruit orchard” by creating 24 80 cm wide x 5m long cultivation lines on the east perimeter where there were already some fruit trees. We plan to expand and develop this next winter.