Between the Château and the village is the Renaissance kitchen garden. It has nine squares of equal size but with different geometrical patterns.
These squares are planted with vegetables of contrasting colours (the blue of the leek, the red of the cabbage and beetroot, the jade green of the carrot tops), which gives the impression of a multicoloured chequer-board.
The vegetable garden was created in the Middle Ages. The monks in their Abbeys took great pleasure in growing their vegetables in geometrical patterns.
The many crosses in the Villandry kitchen garden remind us of these monastic origins. The monks also planted standard roses to decorate their gardens. According to a long-standing tradition, the roses here are planted symmetrically, representing the monk working his vegetable patch.
The second influence came from Italy and inspired the ornamental features in this monastic garden: the fountains, bowers and flower beds.
French XVIth century gardeners combined both the French and the Italian monastic inspirations to create the garden which they needed for the roses and vegetables newly arrived from America. They called it the "ornamental kitchen garden". Their work was described by Androuet du Cerceau and
constituted the inspiration for Joachim Carvallo when he designed the kitchen garden.