The Kitchen Garden at Château Destinée

A tower past saving

The structure attached to the tower must once have been magical. With its timber staircase winding around the outside up to a bedroom, it had a real Hansel and Gretel quality to it. But by the time we arrived, that magic had long gone. It was beyond recovery, falling down, and part of a very neglected corner of the garden.

Our little piece of Australia

We decided to rename the space the Kitchen Garden, because it sat just off the kitchen and we imagined growing herbs and edible flowers there to use in our cooking. The first area we tackled was the place where we decided the clotheslines needed to go. With so much washing to do, a proper clothesline suddenly became one of life’s great priorities - something we never imagined we would say. We installed Hills wall-mounted clotheslines, and for any Australian, that instantly brings a feeling of home. What is now known as the Australian corner of the garden was completed with corrugated iron raised herb beds. Suddenly, we had our own little piece of Australia in rural France.

Goodbye, bamboo

Then we had to face the bamboo. It is incredibly difficult to remove, and despite our best efforts, we were making very little progress. At the same time, we had decided we wanted an outdoor kitchen where guests could come for breakfast and lunch, and the old tower structure offered the perfect opportunity. We also needed to replace our septic tanks, which were not compliant and were too small for the number of guests we planned to host. That meant we had a digger on site - and with that, the fate of the bamboo was sealed. Both the bamboo and the soil it had grown in were removed in a special skip.

Once the space was cleared, we could finally begin to shape the garden we had imagined. There were also many rocks and stones from the old chimneys, so we used them to create a pond and a raised bed for more herbs, with enough left over to edge the newly visible garden beds. We added a firepit, which has become especially popular with groups in the colder months. We love sitting by the back door now, looking out over this garden with its bird feeders, the sound of water trickling into the pond, and the river beyond. It feels magical.

Breakfast at the tuckshop

The breakfast terrace then became our main focus. The old bathroom and kitchen within the tower were transformed into a sleek bathroom, while the former bedroom, with a new lounge area and balcony, became a wonderful employee bedroom. Below that, we created a kitchen with a buffet bench and roller shutters that lift up to reveal the serving area. We affectionately call it the tuckshop - another little Australian touch in our beautiful French kitchen garden.

We completed the main works in June 2022. That year brought drought and several heatwaves, so sadly the lawn did not establish well at first. But by the end of spring 2023, the grass had finally filled in, completing the look alongside the edible herbs, flowers, and olive tree.

Two more very expensive holes in the ground

And yes, there was also the small matter of the new septic tanks. We may be the only people excited by that, but they were a major part of the project. In fact, we spent as much on our two new septic tanks as we did on the pool - two more very expensive holes in the ground.