Come through the door and into my garden
The gardens surrounding the museum highlight the natural environment and its rural atmosphere. All the gardens are accessible and offer multiple routes that respect the buildings and lanscapes.
This set of 4 spaces allows you to discover :
The vegetable garden, composé de plusieurs carrés, valorise les plantes aromatiques, médicinales, ornementales et légumes anciens cultivés au 16ème siècle.
The flower garden qui offre une variété de fleurs comestibles et d’ornement connues depuis le Moyen-Age.
The park and the orchard, real playground, it offers a vast space and invites leisure activities for young and old : fun course for children, wooden games available in summer
THE TRUFFLE PATCH
Planted on the plateau in 2021 extented the estate’s landholding to encompass the remarkable landscape
Truffles in Touraine
Like elsewhere in France, polyculture was widespread in our countryside. So, near Chinon and Richelieu, it was not unusual for farmers to have a truffle patch to round off their income, as well as growing saffron. Truffle farming flourished especially in the late 19th century. But with the rise of mechanical farming and specialisation, truffle farming declined. And it was only in the 1970s that truffles resurfaced in Touraine’s agricultural landscape, when mycorrhizal trees were planted. For the tuber melanosporum, pubescent oaks and evergreen oaks are mainly used, since truffles develop in a symbiotic relationship with the trees’ root network (they take sugars from trees and provide mineral salts). For other varieties of truffle, wholesale nurseries also provide truffle-friendly hazels, hornbeams, elm, cistus and black pine, among others.
