Assortment - The autonomous vegetable garden
Discover our assortment of 10 carefully selected varieties for strata cultivation. This method, inspired by forest gardens, offers different solutions for creating a self-sufficient space where each plant offers its skills to the others, with the aim of maintaining a stable, resilient ecosystem.
Seeds for the assortment - Le potager autonome are sown from February to September, depending on the variety.
Varieties for the Self-Sufficient Vegetable Garden assortment
This assortment includes :
This traditional variety can reach 1.5 m in height and produces magnificent bicolored dark pink and cream panicles, bursting with golden seeds.
This old-fashioned, very hardy variety produces a rosette of delicious, wavy green leaves with a delicately peppery taste. Eaten raw or cooked, they will enhance any dish. Arugula flowers attract pollinating insects, so don't hesitate to let a few plants go to seed!
This highly ornamental perennial fennel boasts sumptuous, bronze, almost purple foliage. It has a pleasant aniseed fragrance that is much appreciated in many dishes.
-Dracocephale de Moldavie - Garden Tea
This medicinal species features long, blue flower stalks on foliage with a powerful lemongrass fragrance. Its leaves and flowers, delicious in herbal tea, also flavour any dish.
This variety offers an abundance of magnificent flowers with delicate, wispy golden-yellow petals. Perennial in mild-climate regions, it can self-sow in others.
Native to sub-Saharan Africa, kiwano produces reddish-bronze fruits at maturity, bristling with prickly spikes. Its green pulp has a juicy texture and a flavor similar to that of kiwifruit and bananas. It can be eaten raw or grilled, and is very high in vitamin C. Recent medical research has highlighted the fact that it contains cucurbitacin B, a triterpene known for its cytological, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer qualities.
-Kiwano African horned cucumber
This ancient, very hardy variety offers a rosette of delicious, wavy green leaves with a delicately peppery taste. Eaten raw or cooked, they will enhance any dish. Arugula flowers attract pollinating insects, so don't hesitate to let a few plants go to seed!
This ancient variety produces green leaves with garnet veins and very smooth roots lying flat on the ground. The purple-red skin encloses delicious dark blood-red flesh.
This old, productive variety has conical roots, about 15 cm long, perfectly adapted to heavy, difficult soils. They don't form a core, and their flesh reveals a fine, sweet flavor.
This old variety produces very smooth, spherical roots around 10 cm in diameter, with yellow skin and flesh. They have a sweet, slightly bitter flavor. When young, the root can be eaten raw.
Protective varieties
Tall, fast-growing plants that can withstand heat and wind can act as real plant barriers. Planted in parallel rows facing north-south, or facing the prevailing wind, they provide natural shade during the hottest hours, or shelter for more sensitive crops below.
Sow the amaranth variety densely, and as early as possible, to create your protective screen.
Intermediate varieties
Sheltering taller plants during the hottest hours, this stratum can include all kinds of species from 30 cm to 1 m in height. Sow these varieties of tomato, fennel and Moldavian whipwort under cover, before planting them parallel to and to the west of the tall protectors.
Covering varieties
Low, spreading plant species - such as kiwano, tetragonia and California poppy - protect the soil from bad weather and limit water evaporation. Plant them below intermediate species.
Underground varieties
Sow these beet, carrot and turnip varieties directly in the ground, in the shade of covering plants.
