Crops

The kitchen garden and orchard

We designed our kitchen garden and orchard in 2008
with the intention of creating a harmonious, productive, autonomous,
naturally regenerating ecosystem that respects nature and all its inhabitants.
It is exactly what our ancestors did, before the advances of modern agriculture.

Why choose this method of cultivation?
The reason is simple: for good health!
We are convinced that health begins with our diet.
This is why we seek out food produced as naturally as possible.
Because we could not find vegetables, even organic ones, that met our standards, we developed our kitchen garden and orchard over the years.

You will find these vegetables every evening at the estate’s table.

We grow more than 150 varieties, selected over time for their flavor and disease resistance.
We favour heirloom varieties that are not genetically modified.
They do not produce perfect-looking vegetables, but vegetables with real taste and therefore the nutrients essential for our bodies.
It is not enough to simply want to plant Cœur de Bœuf to have juicy and flavorful tomatoes.
One must also find the right seed strain that provides that unique texture.

As for aromatic and medicinal herbs, they have a place of honour.
For not only do they enhance our cuisine, but they also possess remarkable health virtues.

Our kitchen garden takes no holidays in winter; it is active year-round!
Endives and cardoons appear, alongside various squashes and cabbages that enrich our comforting soups.

With the first frosts, we also "feed" the garden with compost made from clippings and ramial chipped wood (BRF).
With these plant-based "fertilisers," we naturally amend the garden with carbon and nitrogen, and the soil becomes richer year after year.

At the estate, everything is used, recycled, and recovered in a permanent virtuous circle.

A living kitchen garden for living cuisine!
Allowing nature to take its course, exploring its successive expressions, letting ourselves be surprised, and prioritising what is wholesome and flavorful.
Relentlessly!

The forest vineyard

Another adventure began in 2016: the birth of the Saint-Géry "vineyard."
15,000 vines were planted on the limestone plateaus between wheat and truffle oaks under the watchful and dedicated eye of our son, Louis-Dominique, who is pursuing his studies in oenology.

This new experience is based on two fundamental aspects of the estate's crops: agroforestry, which is so close to our hearts.
For the vine is a climber that seeks to live in symbiosis with a tree. Thus, we return it to its natural environment by using the tree as a support.

And interplanting: the principle of mixing crops. We have planted 13 red and 15 white grape varieties in association with other crops: truffle oaks, plum trees, cereals, and lavender.

Objectives

• Maintaining living soil through crop biodiversity
• No treatments, no chemical inputs in the soil
• No ploughing, no tilling; we improve the soil while preserving all layers of earthworms (increasing biomass) and all the airborne and underground fungi that contribute to soil balance.
• Mechanical weeding between the vines
• Development of wild flora (sainfoin, St John's Wort, bird's-foot trefoil, chamomile, wild orchids, daisies, poppies...) and, by extension,
• A proliferation of colourful butterflies and bees.

Furthermore, we have installed hives at the edge of the fields and continue to plant lavender every year.
The hares, deer, and birds are not mistaken! They prefer our biotope to the monoculture of our neighbours!

Our process of grafting in place is longer and more costly than if we were to buy grafted vines from a nursery.
It involves grafting the grape variety onto rootstocks that have already been established in the soil for several years,
unlike the standard method where the rootstock and variety are joined at the nursery in the first year.
However, it helps to strengthen the vine's root system and thus mitigate water stress.  

Our method of gentle pruning in high bush form respects the flow of sap.
The vines are grown on stakes—tall wooden posts that serve as supports and guides before the vine reaches the tree.

This pruning method, while time-consuming, allows the vines to conserve energy and focus on their immune defences.
In short, by practicing gentle pruning in March, we do everything possible to support the natural defences of the vine, thereby significantly reducing the need for treatments.

Truffle wheat

Since 2007, we have been growing our wheat using direct seeding among the truffle oaks and indigenous vegetation, without ploughing, with permanent cover on soil protected from rain and wind, rich in biodiversity.
This native flora both "preserves" the wheat from disease and competes with it, forcing the wheat to seek nutrients deep underground. This explains the incredible flavor of our truffle wheat.

This wheat receives no external inputs or fertilisers; yields are around 5 quintals per hectare.
In the Beauce region, conventional yields are around 80 quintals—15 times higher.
The flavor of our flour is inimitable.

We began making our flour with an artisanal wooden mill equipped with a bolter (flour sieve) to sort the flour and separate the bran from the fine bran. It featured a natural granite millstone that allowed for very fine grinding without heating the flour.

And then in 2019, we fulfilled a dream of over 10 years: acquiring an Astréïa mill, the Rolls-Royce of stone mills.
The millstone is made of Sidobre granite from the Tarn, near our home.

This mill does not crush the grain but unrolls it to remove its outer layer, resulting in "perfect" flour: digestible and nutritious, our truffle wheat flour.

It is with this flour that we craft our breads using indigenous sourdough, which develop a variety of aromas including gingerbread and honey.

Wild foraging

Convinced of both the virtues of plants and the impact of diet on our health,
every walk across the estate brings its share of discoveries that treat our daily ailments, enhance our cuisine, and give it a true identity.
To be fit, more resilient, and face daily ailments thanks to all these plants with wonderful virtues, right outside our windows and in our fields!

St John's Wort illuminates the truffle orchard in June; picked at the summer solstice, it captures the sun's heat.
It can be applied directly to the skin, as either an oil or a lotion.
Its components promote the healing of wounds, burns, and skin abrasions.

So many other plants are beneficial to our health, from wild purslane and plantain to acacia and elderflowers...
While delicious in fritters or paired with rhubarb, elderberries produce a delicate jam.
But elderberry has also long been known for its healing properties.
It contains vitamins and antioxidants that are precious for our bodies.

Mallow, wild chicory, and daisies have extraordinary, often little-known virtues that help the body heal by eliminating certain toxins.

Do you know Meadowsweet?

It was considered the most precious of wild flowers because it cured many ailments and pains.
Later, it was discovered that this plant contained high levels of salicylic acid.
This is how true aspirin was born, before being replaced by synthetic molecules.

We harvest it in late spring when its flowers form a large, fragrant white plume.
We use it to make a delicious ice cream, our "aspirin ice cream".

At the end of July, the fields turn blue! This is the flowering season for wild chicory.
Then it is the mallow's turn to brighten the fields. We use the crushed leaves to treat insect bites.

Wild fruits are very flavourful.
In July, we harvest three varieties of plums that grow in the thickets and at the edges of the fields: red, purple, and yellow.
The harvest is very long because the fruits are small, but it is well worth the effort! Our jams are delicious.

In spring, respounchous—black bryony that clings to our wheat stalks and looks a bit like wild asparagus—are absolutely delicious in scrambled eggs.
And of course, mushrooms such as solitary amanita, golden coral fungi, and chanterelles, so flavourful when sautéed.

Foraging for wild plants is a constant source of wholesome benefits and flavours at Domaine de Saint-Géry.
It is time-consuming, but our greatest reward is your pleasure when you taste a dish, or seeing your eyes fill with wonder.
It is all worth the effort!

The olive trees

On the arid limestone soils of Quercy, alongside our truffle orchards, our 400 olive trees have naturally found their place.
Between the rows, we have planted fields of our truffle wheat, creating a beneficial intercropping system.
All around, hedges of Spanish broom, laurel, cistus, and black locust support a wide variety of insects and contribute to the biodiversity that is so vital to Domaine de Saint-Géry.

Two varieties are grown: Picholine and Aglandau.
Known for its resistance to cold, the Aglandau takes its name from its rounded, elongated shape, similar to an acorn (gland in French).
It is one of the few olive varieties that can withstand winter climates.
Prepared in brine, the Picholine is elongated with a long, thin stone, abundant flesh, a beautiful green colour, a crisp texture, and an incomparable flavour.

Prepared as table olives, we keep over 25 kilos in jars just for you, in the restaurant and on our online shop.
And when we have a little more?
We set some olives aside to press for our own oil.
Our record?
7 litres of olive oil, which we treasure!

Datil plum trees

In 2020, during the lockdown, we planted more than 400 Datil plum trees, purchased from the Conservatoire Végétal d’Aquitaine near Agen.
This fruit tree, native to the Lot and once nearly extinct, is very resilient and perfectly suited to our arid, poor, limestone soils.

It requires no fungicide treatment; as the rootstock is resistant, it does not develop disease.
It perfectly aligns with our vision of agroecology.

Its fruit—a small, tangy plum with a particularly high sugar content—has been renamed Violine.
This small, forgotten plum is very flavourful in the kitchen.

It produces remarkable, high-quality prunes that we enjoy as they are or as an accompaniment to our dishes.

When our production increases, we will distil these fruits into an extremely fragrant plum eau-de-vie.

Around the plum trees, which serve as supports, we have planted grapevines to produce "tree wine," as well as fields of wheat in between.
This mixed cropping, or intercropping, is mutually enriching, creating a plant cover.
This root system effectively captures nutrients and brings them to the surface.
The more nutrients present, the more nourishing and flavourful the produce.
This is also true, as with all our crops, for the Datil plum. We are very happy to have revived this forgotten fruit.