In October 2022, the Volontaires de Charette set out to restore the great historic kitchen garden of Briord, from a plan dated 1907 found in the château's archives.
It all began in October 2022. We set ourselves the challenge of restoring the great historic kitchen garden of Briord.
To restore a historic kitchen garden and orchard, what better than to find in the drawer of an old piece of furniture... its plan drawn 115 years ago by the landscape gardener of the château of Briord! During the following autumn and winter, the Volontaires de Charette laid nearly 1 km of solid oak sleepers intended to form the kitchen-garden "squares", 20 metres long by 5 metres wide.
How many of these garden squares? 16! That is, 1,600 square metres arranged within the walls surrounding the historic orchard, following the layout drawn on the 1907 plan, itself inspired by the kitchen gardens of the 18th and 19th centuries.
The volunteers dug, carried, planted, and planted again — more than 60 new standard fruit trees: cherry, quince, apple, plum, pear and apricot trees, all from original, organic and old varieties of the 15th to 19th centuries.
This great kitchen garden, within the espalier orchard, is the first major stage of the Land of Briord restoration project. And as if that were not enough, the Volontaires de Charette also harvested and shared more than 400 kilos of heirloom squashes from the Land of Briord.