Planting Garlic

A couple of weeks ago I visited a neighbour who is a prolific vegetable gardener with many years experience here in the Perigord.  During our chat he advised me to plant my garlic on October 15th and as Wednesday was October 15th I decided to follow his advice.

I have spent a few days enlarging my small vegetable bed as I'm intending to grow more things next year and also looking to get some winter crops in.

Although, now, it is all one bed, I have created planting areas which are 1.2M (4ft) wide.  This means that all the plants can be easily reached from paths.  Kate from Hills and Plains Seedsavers visited me here a couple of weeks ago and advised me that my paths, made of broken roof tiles, were a harbour for snails and slugs.  So up they came to be replaced with dead leaves which will simply compost down.

In the expanded bed, I set aside a piece about 1.2M (4ft)square  for the garlic in the same area as the leeks and onions I planted earlier.

I was given several varieties of garlic by Patrick (Bifurcated Carrots), so I prepared the bed, split up the heads of garlic into individual cloves and dropped them into 2" (50mm) deep holes, 150mm (6") apart and then filled the holes back up with some compost.  Once that was all done I put about 200mm (4") of mulch over the top to shield them from the winter frosts.  For the mulch I used dry leaves, brushed up from around he garden.  In the photo you can see the leeks and onions and the area in front of them, covered in leaves is where the garlic is now.

I planted about 50 cloves in this patch.  I was surprised at the number.

Over on the far right of the picture, you can see the area where I am going to sow some broad beans, hopefully today... The only problem is that I have promised to join some friends for lunch and, well, this is the Perigord, food and eating is a serious business...

Saving for the future

It's over a week since I left Kate at C.L.'s house in the Languedoc but the repercussions of her visit are just beginning to show.   On her return yesterday, there wasn't really time to do much in the garden although we did finish a couple of small jobs.   As I said previously, we increased the size of the vegetable plot by about one third whilst she was here...  However since she moved on I have taken a look at all the things I'm hoping to grow both over the winter and next year and have realised that even 1 1/2 times is not nearly big enough..  So using the technique Kate taught me last weekend, I have now further increased the bed, but do remember I started off with a very small plot - 2.4m x 2.4m (8ft x 8ft) but now it is 7m x 3.6m (23ft x 12ft)

The new bed is being prepared, initially, for garlic, peas, and broad beans.  The peas are some seed I bought last year and am hoping to grow again this year, saving some seed.  The garlic is some that Patrick, over on Bifurcated Carrots, gave me.   I've not met Patrick but I understand he grows about 100 different varieties of Garlic and I'm very pleased to have some from him to grow on and hopefully get some planting stock from it in the future.  Once I have saved the stock, I shall be happy to join Patrick in making it available to anyone who asks. Patrick gave me three varieties of Garlic,  Cuban Purple creole, Burgundy creole and Tuscan.  I was recently instructed "to plant my garlic on the 15th October" and as the guy who instructed me is both a neighbour and a very successful gardener himself, I shall be following his advice.

Due to an oversight, the broad bean seeds I was expecting didn't materialise so I have now bought a commercial variety which I will grow this year, save some seeds and then grow again next year...  As long as that is successful, I'll have some of those to give away as well...

Patrick also has given me some Dog Beans, a dwarf French bean which I'm hoping to grow next summer.  I grew these this year but had very little success with them...  In conversation with Patrick he suggested that maybe the problem was the seed, however, I have come to believe that the problem lies much more in my own garden with the amount of water, or to be precise, with the lack of water, I have been providing... 

Kate also brought me some seeds from Australia.  Cos Lettuce saved by Joy,  Chrysanthemum Greens saved by Kate and Capsicum Yellow Cornos saved by Kate and Cath, all of which I hope to grow, enjoy and get some seed from.  Joy, Kate and Cath are all members of the Hills and Plains Seedsavers group.

And then when I was down in the Languedoc, C.L. of Olives and Artichokes gave me some seeds for a Tomato  -  Ananas (Pineapple) which she had saved....

I'm saving my first seeds this year... At the moment, I have butternut squash, sweet pepper and Charentais melon.  I'm also planning to save seed from some of my own tomatoes this year.

So here I am, having been growing vegetables for under a year and I find my self entrusted with growing about a dozen varieties of saved seeds.....  I have no problems with growing the seeds I save myself.. If they grow that's good but if they don't I have only wasted my own time....  but now.... I feel a huge responsibility...to friends I've met and to friends I have never met... So Patrick, Chaiselongue, Kate, Joy and Cathy... I'll do my very best to deserve the trust you have put in me...  A big thank you.

A quiet Villereal

Villereal market was extraordinarily quiet today with very few people around.  There were vacant tables in all the cafes and everywhere we went we were able to buy with the minimum of queuing.  I don't know why, maybe the storms that have come through in the past couple of days or maybe the sudden cold that descended yesterday (2C overnight(28F))which felt very cold indeed...

I must admit that we hurried around and finished our shopping as quickly as we could, although we did linger for a while over coffee and croissants.  Laurent, the vegetable man, did ask me why I had abandoned my new young  wife and gone back to my previous model....but I explained that the new one was only on loan for a few days.....(Kate from Hills and Plains Seedsavers accompanied me to the market last week and spoke impeccable French to Laurent, who immediately fell in love with her in the way only true French men can.)

Herbs??

Maggie from Hills and Plains Seedsavers left a comment on here the other day saying that I should have more herbs, and her comments came back into my mind as I went to buy some Broad Bean seeds so I also picked up some chervil.

I grow all my herbs in pots and don't have a huge amount of success with them but I manage to keep a few growing.   The pots are situated just off the terrace which is a few steps from the kitchen.  I'm thinking of creating a new herb bed right next to where the pots are at the moment and maybe I'll get that established over the next week or two....

At the moment I have garden mint, peppermint, savory, dill,  chives, basil and now chervil growing.  In the garden, there is also some purslane growing as a weed, which I need to start to learn to identify....  Kate showed me a patch of it the other day, whilst she was here....

All over my garden I have lavender plants.... Mainly French Lavender...  I have some growing alongside the terrace and a large bed of it a bit further away, down the bottom by the woodpile and compost heap.