les jardins au bord de la Loire

It's not permitted to build in the area between the levee and the river Loire, so much of this space is devoted to gardens (I took this shot from the top of the levee).  This panorama shows a typical layout of garden plots where the owners grow vegetables and sometimes flowers and fruit trees.  It's a lot of work to keep these tended and watered as we learned while minding a neighbor's garden in July.  But the results are absolutely worth it.