Monet’s Vegetable Garden

by Derek Fell

Since it opened to the public in the spring of 1980, millions of visitors have viewed the 5-acre flower gardens of the Impressionist painter, Claude Monet at Giverny, unaware that Monet also cultivated a two and a half acre vegetable garden at the other end of the village. It had its own head gardener, a young man named Florimond whose job was to grow a vast number of crops and deliver them at their peak of freshness to Monet’s kitchen. Monet lived with his family in a remodeled farmhouse with pink stucco walls, called The Pink House while Florimond occupied a smaller residence painted blue and called The Blue House. The property was enclosed by a high stone wall to keep out intruders.

The beds were laid out in large squares and rectangles, all hedged with fragrant herbaceous peonies, for Monet liked to fill every room of his house with them when they bloomed. Against the walls Monet had lines of cold frames to over-winter hardy crops like lettuce and cabbage and to gain extra early crops of warm season crops like zucchini squash and melons. The walls also provided support for a large number of espaliered fruit trees, notably apples, pears, peaches, apricots, plums and figs. These not only saved space by growing flat against the wall, they benefited from reflected light and frost protection from heat from the wall.

We know what the vegetable garden looked like because of a painting titled Monet’s Formal Garden, painted by American Impressionist painter, Willard Metcalf. As a student studying in Paris he cycled into Giverny and knocked on Monet’s door to request permission to paint his flower garden. Although Monet refused the request, saying that he was the only person allowed to paint his flowers, he gave permission for Metcalf to paint his vegetable garden and invited him in for lunch. That painting came on the market about fifteen years ago, and I was able to purchase it, a work in oils on a wooden board. It is to be featured in a new book I have co-authored, titled Monet’s Palate Cookbook – Recipes from His Kitchen Garden  (Gibbs-Smith) in which the painting is featured along with an entire chapter devoted to the vegetables he grew and why he grew them.

To finish reading this story about Monet’s Vegetable Garden, turn to page 76 in the Spring 2015 issue of Bucks County Magazine.