Thanks for the help!

Recently, I was given my first heirloom bean seeds which I have sown in a new small bed immediately behind my "potager" beds. When I planned my veg garden I was unaware that these seeds would be given to me so I didn’t allow any room for them . However, I was very happy to pull out a small shrub and thereby release another small bed for vegetables. I had intended to show a photo of the seedlings today but alas, they are too small to photograph. They are being protected by cut down soda bottles which is a system I like to use.

Elsewhere in the garden, things are starting to happen. My potatoes are well established now and this week needed to be hoed up.

As I was growing them in a new bed, I decided to simply add a couple of bags of compost and raise the bed level a little further.



You may remember that due to a lack of familiarity with the French language I inadvertently bought red cabbage plants instead of white – (they actually call them apple cabbages here in France!). Well, as you can see the cabbages are doing well.





I have also bought tomato plants which are in position growing in pots against a south facing wall. I have three varieties, Marmande - a local beef tomato variety, cerise rouge, literally red cherry and golden sunrise, a yellow cherry tomato. The photo is of the Golden Sunrise Tomato which I have raised from seed!!!! They are still quite small but I remain hopeful


Back in March I bought a dozen strawberry plants, 6 of a variety called Marais du Bois and 6 of another French variety called Gariguette. They are now establishing themselves nicely. I bought some Gariguette strawberries on the market last Saturday and they were wonderfully tasty and oh, so juicy


During the past month or so I have received a lot of help getting my seed sowing attempts sorted out after several false starts.

I think this batch of salad leaves will actually be successful. (Sorry about the quality of the photo - I’m still doing battle with digital cameras, as well as seeds!)

The picture shows 16 of 24 cells. The 8 that are missing are Batavia lettuce which have already been potted on, the next 8 are wild chicory which I'm trying for the first time and the last 8 are lollo rosso lettuce.

I’d like to thank Patrick – over at Bifurcated Carrots for his invaluable help in diagnosing where I was going wrong and for continuing to offer encouragement when things looked very bleak.



Thank you Patrick

So, as you can see I have made a bit of progress since I started back in January. I feel a bit like the tomato I wrote about some months ago Who'd be a Tomato: I got on and did the job and now I deserve a pat on the back! Of course my tomato didn't get a pat on the back!! I'm hoping my pat on the back will come in the form of some superb mediteranean weather to help all these little upstarts grow into magnificent specimens. I'm not holding my breath though - we had almost 50mm (2 inches) of rainfall last week!!!!