Happy New Year, everyone

I've decided to take a leaf out of my French neighbours book.  It seems that you can wish "Happy New Year" throughout the month of January, so, I know I'm late, but it's still January!

The onset of 2012 has started me looking at plans for 2012 and the garden.   2011 was a terrible year for me and I am determined to do better in 2012.  So, with that in mind I started today by doing a couple of things.

Firstly, I looked at my planting schedule and decided where everything would be grown.  I'm operating a four year rotation and this is the fourth year, so the basics were already worked out.    When I built the garden a few years ago I made beds of 1.2m (4ft) by 7.5m (23ft).  The 1.2 m width has proved excellent as it gives ample room to reach right into the middle of the bed if needed.  In between the beds I  left paths, but they are just mowed continually, and the size of my mower, determined the 6--mm (2ft) width of the paths.  I also left a double width path right through the middle so that, if needed, I can get my little tractor and trailer through.  This years schedule originally called for 19 beds to be used, but I'm going to cut back.  I'm intending to grow in 15 of the beds.  This is actually the number of beds that are prepared at the moment, so that was also a consideration.

Three of the beds are permanently planted, one with asparagus, one with hazelnut bushes and the third with artichokes in one half and rhubarb in the other.  This leaves just 12 beds to prepare, plant and grow.  However, I'm also thinking of collecting all my strawberries into one permanent bed, so that will cut it down to 11.

Secondly, I started to prepare the beds.  I ran the mower over everything cutting all the weeds down to size and then I started to spread a mulch over each bed.   I started today and covered 1 bed.  The mulch will suppress weeds and encourage worm activity to improve the soil.  This is the same method I used to create the beds, simply covering the area with mulch and leaving it there for a month or two over winter.   Today's mulch is leaves and grass, collected as I cut the garden.

I'm hoping to get access to some goat manure, but since changing my car, I don't have a hitch right now, for my trailer, so the manure will have to wait.

The third and last thing I did today was to start to look at my seeds collection.  As I said previously, last year was a bit of a disaster for me.   I did manage to save some seeds but not many.  I lost all my tomato seeds, which makes me very sad.   It wasn't so much a disaster as a series of unfortunate events.  The drought severely reducing the amount of stock I had to save seeds from and then various losses over winter as the usual culprits, mice, freeloaded whilst I was gadding about in the UK and the USA.   I have to dig a bit to see what I have from 2009 but at the moment, in Tomatoes, I think Ionly have Moneymaker and Marmande

So, if anyone is reading this and has any tomato seeds to spare, please email.   I normally grow about 6 varieties but this year, I'll grow what ever I can get.

Happier news is that I did save quite a few beans, garlic and onions, so not everything is lost.

Tomatoes

Today, I planted out the last of my tomato plants.  I've cut back quite a lot this year and am growing just 31 plants. The ongoing drought is making me a bit nervous of having too much stuff in the ground that needs lots of water and also, the ground has had so little moisture that it is baked pretty hard making planting anything quite a challenge.

This year I have planted 2 Ananas, 4 Marmande, 6 Veeroma, 8 Moneymaker and 9 Ian's Red Cherry.  These have all been raised from seed saved last year.   I had some excitement with my seeds over the winter and lost most of the Ananas seeds  and all my Golden Sunrise seeds to a passing mouse.

This year I'm also growing 2 Cobra for the first time.   This variety was recommended to me by the seedling man at Villereal market.  His produce is raised very close to here and his seedlings have always done well for me.  I chatted to him about different varieties of tomato some weeks ago and he persuaded me to buy two of his Cobra.  He claims they are quite an early tomato.   Looking at the photo taken today, the fruit is certainly far in advance of any other tomato plant in my garden.   As I said, I've never grown Cobra before so I'm waiting to see how it turns out.  I like the seedling man. He sets up his small stall well off the main market where he can park his van and simply gets out whatever you want.  He has a small table which looks very unprepossessing but I know his van to be a veritable Tardis, with far more coming out than it could possibly hold. Tjhe other thing is that he shares this bit of road with just one other trader.  This trader doesn't even have a table, preferring to simply open the back doors of his van and allow you to peer in.  If you want to buy then he will happily pull out the crates for you to select whichever live animal you have chosen.  Yes, that's all he sells, live animals, chickens and pigs mainly, but often a goose or some ducks.

The drought continues unabated with no rainfall at all recorded by me for the past 12 days but the garden is fairing with mixed success.   I had two olive trees that had been in the ground about 2 years.  They are planted adjacent to one another...  one is fairly happy with the drought and occasional drop of water I throw at it but the other seems to have dies, although I'm still watering it from time to time as it seems to be holding onto it's greenness.   I had a great crop of cherries but they came and went much faster than usual this year.  I guess that also is an effect of the drought.   My walnut tress are laden with fruit.  I've nowhere near finished eating the walnuts I collected last year yet and looking at the trees this should be another good year for walnuts   Elsewhere, I have some of the best roses I have seen since I moved here about 7 years ago and a pot of Iris has flowered for the first time since we arrived.  To be honest, I inherited the pot when we moved here and always meant to dig out the bulbs and do something with it.... but the best of intentions and all that,... but this year I needed to move the pot so I put it out in the sunlight a bit more, mainly to remind me that I needed to deal with it and, hey presto, beautiful Yellow Japanese Irises arrived.

Tomatoes

I've started to plant out my tomato seedlings.

This year I have grown five varieties from seed, my Ian's Red Cherry, Veeroma and Golden Sunrise, all from seeds I saved last year, and Marmande and Moneymaker from seeds I bought.

I'm also hoping to get a couple of varieties from a neighbour who has promised to bail me out with a couple of the varieties that got eaten in my mouse invasion.

Last year, I was very pleased with my new spiral tomato stakes and have put them in the ground again this year

I've also laid in a sprinkler hose under the straw so that when I turn on the tap the ground gets soaked, but not much else.

Now, the beds are prepared and the little seedlings are big enough to plant out, so I put the first four varieties in the ground and was rewarded with two days of light rain.....

Back in the Garden

Regular readers will know that the Kitchen Garden in France is situated at my home near Issigeac in the Perigord Region of South West France.   The property also has a self contained  holiday apartment.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been very busy constructing a swimming pool for use by our holiday guests.  It is a part of a grand scheme..... which will probably take longer to complete than the 300 years the main house has already been standing for....

Anyway, I mention this simply because, for the past two or three weeks, day after day I have been building this kit and not attending to my garden.... and therefore not having very much to write about in my blog....  You may have noticed a move away from kitchen garden towards la vie Français...  the parties I have written about were wonderful events and deserved their place in the blog.  The article on Summer and sunflowers similarly. 

However, tonight I want to return to the dirt....

 

So... I have some red cabbage which have been in for a long time now and are looking superb.  Onions and Garlic are ready to pull and will be out of the ground tomorrow I would guess..  The strawberry patch has been ok... It was planted late and although we have had a few berries we are expecting the main crop next year.  The plants have really established though, and I have just about twice as many as I planted back in April/May

The one rhubarb crown has been prolific this year and I have been cutting and freezing for a month or so now.  I'm thinking of moving the crown around November time but am unsure as I hear bad storied of people moving them....  My intention was to lift and divide it and move it at the same time.

A few days ago, I sowed some broccoli which are now up and with tiny little leaves.   I'm not ever so successful with seeds so anything like this is a challenge.   They have survived so far.....  Today I sowed some batavia lettuce (a French version of Webbs, I think)and on Tuesday some Fennel.

Tomatoes have been my biggest success this year.  Tomato plants ended up dotted about and that hasn't proved too good for watering etc.  Next year I really must put aside some space and grow all my tomatoes in one place.....

But we haven't bought tomatoes for several weeks now and are enjoying the different varieties.... Marmande, cherry red, golden sunrise... and a "unknown"variety which Michael and Mary gave me.

On the beans front, I have been very unsuccessful.   Patrick, over at Bifurcated Carrots gave me some Dog Bean seeds earlier in the year.   I have grown them but not at all well.   I think the spot I chose was too shaded and I did get them in the ground quite late as well.   The few beans I have had have tasted wonderful though... but not enough for a good meal.  I'm not giving up with these and am hoping to sow some again next year... a bit earlier and maybe in a better spot and hopefully have a bumper crop..... 

I mentioned that Michael and Mary had given me some tomato plants.  I didn't realise until recently that Mary is quite a kitchen gardener herself.  I stole this photo whilst she wasn't looking  during a recent visit to see them.

I've been eating salad leaves for some time now and haven't bought any recently.  I have 3 varieties of lettuce, as well as some wild chicory.   I recently entertained a professional chef for dinner.... which was quite daunting... but he commented very favourably on the fact I had included mint leaves in with the mixed salad leaves.....

Lettuce is bolting now as the hot weather hits but I'm looking a shady bed where maybe I can persuade some to grow for a little longer yet....

Finally, in the herb garden, I'm doing ok with the basics, basil, flat leaf parsley, mint and dill, all growing in containers on the terrace.

The Predator becomes friendly helping hand.

True life has an uncanny way of following fiction or I suppose the fact is that fiction is really a reflection on true life.

Some months ago I wrote about the life of a tomato Who’d be a tomato. In that story I talked about the predator becoming the helping hand.

As I knew it would, true life has emulated what I wrote and now, I find myself lavishing loving attention on the seven tomato plants that have been allowed to survive thus far.

The three on the left are Marmande, a local variety of big tasty beef tomatoes, then there are 2 golden sunrise and two cerise rouge – simply red cherry!

The Marmande are a big brute of a tomato and as you can see, they are set to become the playground bully on this bit of my domain.

I decided to grow the tomatoes in pots this year as I had filled up the beds I prepared and previously, in the UK, my father in law always grew tomatoes in pots in the greenhouse.

The lack of room in my beds also prompted me to grow my carrots in a container. On a couple of the gardening social networks to which I belong, there has been a great deal of discussion about container growing, and my friend ilex over at:

Homesteading in a Condo

has been an inspiration to me. The other fact I learnt, only recently, is that the carrot root fly can only fly below 20 inches (500mm) above the ground, so, by putting my carrots in this container and raising it up on a shelf the pot is higher than root fly can get!!!!

I’ll tell you in a few weeks whether it worked or not!

Elsewhere things are growing well and I’m feeding most of the French population of snails, slugs and rabbits. Just occasionally, I even manage to pick something for myself.

Rabbits ate the basil and I’m not sure it is going to recover. I thought it might but it has been transferred to the ICU and the prognosis is not good.

In the orchard there is a sad face on the fruitless cherry trees and the plums are also looking short of fruit. I have plenty of apples though and some walnuts are beginning to form. It does look however, that this year will bear a poor orchard crop for us, with no cherries, no pears and no plums. It’s too early to say about the figs, but the tree has been disturbed as this was the first year of pruning after many years of neglect.

Reflections on my garden

This is my first year growing vegetables and I’m discovering I’m not very good at it. I’m especially, not very good at raising seedlings. I sow tiny little seeds that I can hardly see and usually, for me, not a lot happens! The surface of whatever container I have used seems to get a bit disturbed but that’s all. After several months of this I have only just realised that the problem is mice eating the seeds and the new growth!

I’m not very good with trees either. I planted some cypress to form a windbreak/hedge but they have stayed stubbornly at about 1ft tall. Again, only this week, I realised that deer are eating the new leaves!!

I do have three lettuces growing that I could start to pull some leaves from in a few days! The others are coming up behind. As for my first tomato, I repotted a Marmande plant (a local variety which is big, juicy and just delicious tasting) into it's final pot today and set it out, so now, it's up to the Mediterranean weather and some judicial application of water!

Onions and garlic are also looking quite good and I have some red cabbage gently growing. Peas are beginning to grow and will need some netting before long. I started some shelling beans and a couple of melon plants from seed today. I'm hoping to grow one or two Charentais melons. They do so well in this part of the world and we love them. Last year, a local farmer gave us a few and we ate them, still hot from the field. I also have a couple of butternut squash seedlings coming on in the workshop.

Potatoes are through and will need hoeing up within a week or so and the strawberries are beginning to flower. I saw some leaves where I have sown radish but the spring onions haven't appeared yet.

Four of my six herbs are doing ok - mint, chives, flat parsley and dill.
I have a couple of others sown but no signs yet, I’m beginning to think they have failed.. I also failed completely to get any basil growing!! And of course, in this part of the world, I have lavender – lots of lavender. I planted another 10 plants today to extend the lavender bed. Lavender seems to enjoy being in our harsh, clayey limestone soil. It’s funny isn’t it, both lavender and grape vines seem to need to struggle to produce their magnificent crops.

I realised today that one of the problems I am facing is mice eating the new shoots. I hadn't realised that was the problem. I'm now sowing a few seeds in pots and putting cloches made from cut down soda bottles over them. I'll see how that works?

And then there is the deer eating my new trees! I have resorted to putting my new timber compost bin (before I filled it with compost), over the tree to keep the beast out.

I suppose, for my first year I'm not doing too badly, but I know I have a long way to go! The problem is that when you are new to something you want success, nothing but success. Acceptance of the occasional failure is only something that comes with experience and I suppose that is what I am really growing.

I know that I’m only trying to grow a small bit of what I eat. I know that a lot of what I eat and drink will continue to be produced a long way away, that a lot of what I want to eat has to be produced a long way away. Maybe the experience I am growing is not just experience of my garden but a wider understanding of the issues of world food production, maybe I’m really growing understanding.

Ian