In his 1690 publication, Instruction pour les jardins fruitiers et potagers, Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie proposes an engraving to introduce the epistle to the King. In the foreground of this engraving, there is a group of people. In its center, one of them presents a fruit basket to the only figure wearing a hat: it is La Quintinie who offers figs to Louis XIV. Here, the sovereign is not a person but the incarnation of France and the book thereby testifies to the desire to extend Potager du Roi beyond the court, to the whole of France. At the foot of the palace, the Potager is a microcosm and represents the entire nation. From hotbeds to the development of early or out of season produce, from attempts to naturalise exotic species to experiments with chemical sprays, from permaculture practices to landscape studies, the history of Potager du Roi is full of examples testifying to the evolution of food production methods and consumption habits over the past 350 years. Potager du Roi is a key witness and player as to the continuing evolution of our relationship to eating!

Potager du Roi has always been an intensive production garden. In terms of agronomy, Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie did not practice crop rotations. The depletion of the soil was compensated by massive additions of manure as well as topsoil. Today, for the team of 9 gardeners, with the cultivation of vegetables, perennial aromatic plants, a certain number of ornamentals plants and nearly 4,000 fruit trees (including 140 varieties of pears, 160 varieties of apples, as well as varieties of peach, fig, apricot, plum, etc.), the mission entrusted to La Quintinie, "nourish and innovate", is more relevant than ever. The evolution of cultivation procedures towards agroecological practices (agriculture on living soil, agroforestry) and the reactivation of market gardening practices dating from the beginning of the 19th century, aims to give Potager du Roi a head start in the direction of sustainable management and heritage conservation.