Spring arrives with....

I've always reckoned that my big Forsythia bush was the herald announcing spring in my garden and for several years, around this time, I've looked forwards to it's sudden outburst of deep yellow flowers. The Forsythia is one of a number of large shrubs that enclose my parking area.  I have an area to the east side of the house that is big enough to get about three cars off  the road and it is this area that is bounded by by some six or seven very well established shrubs.

As it's where I park my car, I get to enjoy it's blossom whenever I go out.      As you can see from the photo, taken today, it won't be long now before those flowers are once again adorning the area

However....

This year a little upstart of a thing has decided to vie for the position.   Indeed, not only has this delicate little plant decided to go for it, it has won....  Today there is a small cluster of these beautiful primroses already in flower in the garden.  

I'm sad for my good old trusty Forsythia bush, getting knocked off it's "first to bloom" pedestal, but I'm just absolutely delighted that the signs of spring are now all around in the garden and things are once again waking up.

You may recall that last year, I suffered a twelve week drought, going well into October.  By the time some rain returned it was too late for a few of my shrubs and things to really recover.  Couple that with a pretty harsh winter and I'm looking at quite a few things that have simply not made it through.     I'm particularly sad about a very pretty rose, given to me many years ago by an artist friend who, subsequently, died of cancer.   The rose sat by the door and I was reminded of her throughout the summer by the delicate pink and yellow blooms.

Now the weather is turning warmer I have realised how much preparation work I have let slide.   I need to spend a lot of time in the garden getting the beds ready.  Those seedlings, and more still to come, will very soon be looking for a place of their own.

Last week, I started to sow new seeds in earnest and now have several trays of tiny seedlings clamouring for attention as they cling on to life trying to do no more than grow strong and healthy.

Over the past ten days or so, I have sown various tomatoes, basil, cauliflower, marigolds, malva, coriander and lettuce amongst others

In the Garden, at last

I spent today in the garden.

For a whole host of reasons, this was the first day I've been able to spend gardening for several months.  The main reasons were weather and health.  My health took a bit of a dive back in September and by the time I came out from underneath it, winter had very firmly set in.

This winter here in south west France has been both cold and wet.   My own measure of how wet it has been is by looking at how dry the roads remain....  Normally, here, the roads dry out every day, but this winter, they have remained wet for days and indeed, weeks on end.

But back to my day in the garden......

One of the last things I did before collapsing in a heap last autumn was to take some cuttings.

The Forsythia cuttings are looking healthy enough and I'm hoping to get enough shrubs to make a short hedge to give some wind break to parts of the vegetable garden.

Some of the seedlings that have been overwintering are happily existing in the  unheated cold frame.

One of the jobs I did today was to chit some potatoes.

I start my potatoes about 8 weeks before I'm intending to plant them in early April.   An elderly gardener I knew many years ago always told me to plant potatoes on Good Friday.  Of course, Good Friday is always at the same point of the moon cycle so I guess this was his version of moon planting.   At the time I lived in Wales, in the UK, and now that I have moved to the warmer climate of south west France, I still follow the advice but have moved the planting date 28 days ahead.....so I intend to plant my potatoes on 25th March.   I should be setting out the potatoes next Friday, but today is ok!!!!

Chitting potatoes is a method of promoting strong growth of shoots before planting.    I set the potatoes in egg boxes with the eyes uppermost and place them on a shelf by a window in my unheated workshop.  The window actually faces south, which is not ideal, but it is what I have.  North facing(away from the sun) would be ideal. Remember I'm in the northern hemisphere so if you live down under, your ideal window will be south facing.

I will leave these potatoes in the window for a week or two and then inspect them, removing some sprouts to leave just the 4 or 5 strongest ones.   You need to cut out the shoot and dig a bit of a hole to get the eye out so that it doesn't simply shoot again later.

Some people argue that this is a waste of effort but I believe that by choosing the strongest shoots and also, considering the position of them, you can give the plant the best chance to produce a nice healthy crop of potatoes.

As for the rest of my day.... well, pruning a large old linden tree took me a lot of time.  I only got as far as cutting out all the shoots coming up from around the base of the tree.... but there's always tomorrow.   I'm thinking of pollarding it.  It looks like it was done a few years ago, but that must have been before I came here six years ago.

Market Day

You may know that, for me, Saturday is market day.   Almost every Saturday, I go to my favourite village market in Villereal, in the Lot et Garonne departement of France.  It's a truly gorgeous market, which I love.

Well,, today is Tuesday, which is why I went to market this morning.   Things have conspired against my weekly visit to Villereal for the past couple of weeks and although I managed missing the first trip, when I then missed the second, I decided that I really needed to supplement the fruits of the garden with some local purchased produce.

I'm lucky, where I live here, right on the border of the Dordogne and Lot et Garonne departements, there is a different market on every single day of the week.  And they are all within a few minutes drive, the furthest away being only a 25 minute drive.  Tuesday, it's the role of Castillonnes, to host it's local market, and, as Castillonnes is just 5 kms away, it was to there I rushed this morning.

I wouldn't say I was a regular visitor to Castillonnes market but I do go fairly often as it is also where the nearest branch of my bank is found, and that branch is only open on market day!!!! And so I found myself wandering through the market, nodding to the various traders I know.    Rene and Sandrine were there from the permaculture farm at Lasspisottes.   The "leek" lady from Villereal, who I have often written about, was also there, with her bicycle propped against the wall behind her st.... well, it can hardly be called a stall, just a basket of delicious fresh produce picked that very morning.  Lauren, my long suffering green grocer at the market at Villereal, also has his stall in the main square at Castillonnes, and, indeed, it was to his stall that I first headed.

But as I arrived in the main square a rather nice seedling stall caught my eye.  I have seen this man here from time to time and his seedlings always look so good.  He sells a large variety of herbs, all potted up and costing just a few cents each.  There was mint, and basil, and coriander, and tarragon, and a host of other truly aromatic herbs lining a stall about 20ft (6metres) long.   All his herbs are sold in pots and he uses a thin plastic former to hold 12 pots.  I like the formers as they are great disposable seed trays, and I often use them if I have any.   Each "pot" is about the same size as an individual yogurt pot, which I also use extensively.

But then, right at the far end of the stall, something caught my eye.   There was a pile of those plastic formers but I noticed that in the top one each cell had a live snail in it.  I thought it was surprising to have that many snails on the plants he had brought to market, but wandered on my way.   I suddenly stopped and turned back as the realisation hit me...

He had snails in every one of that pile of formers.... He had them, quite simply, because they were just another produce of his garden that could be sold as food.

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!!!!

Who'd be a tomato?

I can tell spring has arrived! My workshop, normally the bastion of wood and metal bashing operations has suddenly taken on a fine green shimmer as boxes of seedlings sit in the window gaining the sunlight but avoiding the late frosts that still catch me out every year. This year, tomatoes and some geraniums fell victim to a late unexpected and unannounced frost. My normally reliable weather forecast showed an overnight temperature of 4C(about 40F) but in the morning the thermometer showed -2C (28F)!

The thin spindly stalks with two tiny leaves on top waving so precariously in the breeze cannot possibly be enough to carry all the information the plant will need to know that it's supposed to be cabbage, or Brussels sprouts, or tomatoes, or even a Broom bush
Now that the seeds are through my only responsibility seems to be to ensure that they have enough water to drink. The workshop provides shelter from the excesses of the climate and the south facing window they sit in provides ample daylight.

But just simply watering is problems enough. - Too much water and everything becomes waterlogged and rots away. A situation I have endured already this year. But there again, too little water and the little seedlings shrivel and wilt. So I plod on, trying to create the experience which will guide me in future years.

Soon now, those seedlings will be big enough to brave the big wide world outside the confines of my workshop and will get to sit in a place of honour in one of the beds of my "Potager". Here, life will really get exciting for them. For the first time they will be blown in the wind, feel the wonderful sensation of fresh rain dropping on their leaves and enjoy basking in the Mediterranean sun. A privilege which many Europeans and those from further afield pay to enjoy!

But here, also in the big wide world, are the threats to survival. Heavy rainfall beating the poor defenceless seedling into the ground, predators, who see such delightful tiny plants as a very welcome addition to their next meal and don't seem to realise that those tiny little plants are only there so that they can become my next meal!

But most will survive. A few will be lost along the way. Others, where the seeds have been sown directly into the ground, will be torn away from the very land that gave them life before they have a chance to become the mature adult they all hope for, by the worst of all the predators - me! I shall arbitrarily decide on life or death for those tiny seedlings based on what? - for sure health will have something to do with it, but most likely it will be the proximity of their neighbours that decides which plants get to live and which to die a premature death.. Imagine, if a world authority could apply the same rules to us humans. "OK. We know we put you in here but now we have decided that there are simply too many people for this patch of land so we are going to thin you all out!"

But the majority will survive all this and will start to climb up and grow. Now that same predator, who only weeks ago was making arbitrary decisions about life and death, suddenly becomes the kind friend and appears everyday with helping hands. "Would you like a little drink?" "Let me tie that loose limb up for you." And then with a perverse twist and a glint,in his eye, the same helpful friend tears another limb from the body saying "Oh you didn't want to start a little spur there!"

By now, that tiny spindly stalk has turned into a vine several feet tall bearing beautiful flowers. The plant knows what it is doing. The survival of the species depends on this plant producing enough fruit to regenerate itself next year. For now, the beautiful flowers are designed to attract a little help from some friends. If they can just attract a bee to transfer the pollen - ahhhh - that's better.

The flower petals fall away and the tiny fruits start to flourish, growing daily.
The tiny spindly seedling has done well It has grown and produced enough fruit to ensure not only the survival of the species but it's prolific expansion. It's had a bit of help along the way and it's survived some overwhelming odds as well. But it has survived and maybe it deserves a pat on the back.

But even now, that biggest of all predators has one final, cruel twist up his sleeve. He carefully pulls and twists the seed bearing fruits from the plant . The helping hand is no longer a friend. He is not pulling the fruit to ensure a good healthy start for the next generation of little plants. No he is going to eat the beautiful, succulent fruit while extolling it's virtues to anyone who will listen!

Who'd be a tomato hey?