Spear and Jackson You are great

My favourite gardening thing is my Spear and Jackson border fork. It was my treat, a really good fork stainless steel with a wooden handle all traditional looking. It made me feel like a proper gardener. At least it did till TS managed to break the handle.

I have looked in vain for a replacement handle and of course every English person I mention it to says "Ah fork handles! The Two Ronnies!". So this morning I decided to look at their web site. I e-mailed them to ask if they had a stockist near Limoges or someone who could supply one mail order to France, mentioning to TS that they were in Sheffield so were bound to be nice folks.

Well they were. I had an e mail back today to say if I supplied them with my address and an image of the fork they would send me a replacement fork under guarantee. I am amazed and delighted

For those of you who don't immediately think of the Two Ronnies whenever fork handles are mentioned

One volunteer is worth ten pressed men

Here's our volunteer pumpkin. It could only be from the compost I dug into the garden last winter. Huge in comparrison to the ones I have coddled and nutured it's elbowing the cauliflowers out of it's way ready to go rampaging across the garden with a volunteer potato hot on it's heels.

If pumpkin pictures are just too exciting for you I do have a picture of a tomato. Sad I know but after last year's complete wash out I am thrilled to have nine (yes nine I counted them) little tomatoes appearing on one of the tomato plants. The others have some too but I haven't counted how many I have a short attention span.

We very nearly have peas too! We have leeks that are developing a distinct leekness, onions that might actually come out of the ground bigger than when we put them in, and climbing beans climbing. Also putting in an appearance are salsify, swiss chard, beetroot, carrots, cucumbers and broad beans.

In fact if it wasn't 30 degrees in the shade I would be out there weeding and coddling and praising all the little veggies and telling them just what a bang up job they are doing. But with my eyes screwed up against the sun I can choose not to see the weeds.

Raining

The train station at Limoges.

Rather nice eh? Debs at Us in France tells me it looks pretty good on the inside too. Maybe we'll go somewhere one day and find out.

I didn't even know it was the train station till we somehow got diverted round the one way system and came at it from a different angle.

This photo was taken the last time there was a hint of blue in the sky. Which feels like months ago but was probably last week.

The rain has meant constant slug patrols to guard the newly emerging carrots and newly planted out pumpkins and cucumbers. This entails me walking round the garden with my "slug tin" and a stick for maneuvering slugs into the tin. When the tin is full, or a slug looks like escaping I take it down to the woods and empty it. Well more accurately I fling the slugs as far into the woods as I can. TS takes a more direct approach and picks them up and flings them individually (urghhh).

Snails and little slugs get fed to the chickens (harsh but fair they eat our food so get eaten by the chooks who provide us with eggs so we still get our food, indirectly). I've mentioned before, I think, that our chickens won't eat the big really slimey slugs which is why the big slugs get flung instead. I don't know why I can't bring myself to directly kill them but it just doesn't seem right somehow.

No feeding to the chickens or flinging it's so much more humane.

Will it won't it Shall I shan't I

Don't know how long I can hang around tonight the thunder is thundering in the distance which means the internet thingy will soon have to be unplugged or risk being fried.

It's been lovely and sunny today and once more the rain on the weather forecast seems to have moved back a day. May is a time of bank holidays and thunder storms and of me dithering about if I should water the garden or not. The sky looks awfully promising there could be lots of rain or it could just pass us by.

My seeds could be sad little dried up things or they could be floating away down the road. Decisions decisions.

I have also learned why lots of people round here have what look like little bus shelters over their tomatoes. For thunder storms can bring hail stones as well as rain. After running round the other day trying to cover mine up with bits of plastic while getting pelted with hail I shall have a bus shelter for mine next year. You live and learn.

Oh I almost forgot, we got stopped by the police yesterday whilst tootling about in Frogmella. It was most embarrassing as TS suddenly couldn't find first gear, or any other for that matter, to move to the designated being pulled up by the police spot. When we eventually got there and they asked for our documents we just shoved everything barring Sissy's pet passport at them.

The policeman tried and failed to speak English to us and we tried and failed to speak French to them so I guess we were quits. At least TS didn't break into Greek which he has been known to do under pressure a new twist on "it's all Greek to me". Incidently the equivalent Greek saying is it's Chinese. You really needed to know that didn't you.

Bring me my gin

A hot sunny day yippee!

The Dinnerladies needed the use of the parasol for a bit of shade. I think they were waiting for drinks to be served too but they had to make do with nibbles.

The dry weather gave us the chance to plant out some peas, beans and chard and more flower seeds and generally do what we like best and spend the whole day in our garden.

TS took over the job of weeding the Bermuda Triangle which is the flower bed at the side of the house (well a triangular shaped bit of land) into which hours and hours of weeding and planting go without it actually looking any less like a bomb site. I think after about ten wheelbarrows full of weeds, broken bricks, bits of plastic and broken glass it now almosts looks like part of a garden if a bit bald. I softened it up for him last week though!

I was busy doing stuff

Hi remember me?

We've been home for two weeks now and I just don't know where they have gone. Obviously I have been doing stuff but what was it?

Well out of the last six days five have been spent gardening. Unfortunately only two of those on our garden. We got three days work gardening for someone else on the cheque d'emploi system. This is a way of legally doing casual work in France. The people employing you get a special cheque book to pay you with and the powers that be automatically add social security payments into the amount they pay. If you are interested there is more about the system here.

Well, when I say gardening job it was more akin to slash and burn as it involved clearing copious amounts of brambles, broom (which really is a weed here) and hawthorn from a plot that is going to be a brilliant orchard. It has a long south facing wall and it's own spring fed irrigation system. I was a trifle envious (read dark dark green) both of the plot and the fruit trees waiting in the wings. In fact I think I may be turning into a true gardener as I coveted that plot far more than the rather posh house it belonged to. The trouble was as the weather got hotter the slight slope somehow turned into a cliff face without it actually drying out all the brambles and broom and hawthornes enough to make a really good bonfire and complete the burn side of the whole operation leaving the garden clearance slightly less clear than one would hope. Just where is that Ray Mears when you need him?

Anyway back to our rather more humble Chateau La Pants where we have spent the last two days hauling horse poo, weeding and planting stuff. Oh but not enough stuff by a long chalk. We have leeks, cauliflowers, onions, tomatoes and salad leaves in the ground, peas, beans, pumpkins and squashes in our mini greenhouse thing hopefully sprouting and raspberries and currants newly planted in the orchard. On the decorative front (for we are determined to have a beautiful AND productive garden this year) we have a summer flowering jasmin, geraniums, gladioli, dahlias and crocosmia planted out with sweet peas and nastursiums in the greenhousy thing. That only leaves umpteen other things to sow in the ground or in pots and about half the garden still to clear of weeds. But we look like we have had our bit of sunshine for the week and the ground is still waterlogged.

So all in all this accounting of my time is a bit like trying to balance my cheque book. I can justify less than half of my expenditure. It's not surprising I never have any money or get through half the stuff I want to do. All I can say on both counts is, if I didn't spend it well at least I was mostly having fun probably.

Like so many of my school reports it's "must ty harder" and "could achieve so much more if only she would apply herself" and look now it's half one in the morning and I only just got round to the post I was going to do a week ago and I still have to get a good night's sleep then plant more stuff and go to the bank and do the laundry and get more potting compost and clean out the chickens and pay the house insurance, buy chicken food . . .

Oh and I'm still rubbish at French and then there's the paperwork to sort and I need to check out what all of you are up to.

Frazzled moi?

Everything in the garden is luverley

Except for the plank with the nail in it that I trod on this morning.

But I hobbled on heroic and undaunted and have got the leeks and cauliflowers in and made a promising start on the weeding.

We picked up three sacks and a dustbin full of really well rotted fumier cheval (horse poo) from our friend up the road this morning and we will be going back for more of this black gold throughout the next week or so until we run out of space to dig it into the soil or she gets sick of seeing us. I'm hoping this is going to ensure a bumper harvest.

The Dinnerladies came home yesterday from their holidays and escaped from their run the minute we left the garden. "Oh they don't bother trying to get out under the gaps" Debra had said. Well obviously not at Chez Us in France where there were constant deliveries of treats and tit bits. I just knew they'd be legging it off down the road for the finer things in life the moment they got the chance. Ah but they blessed us with four eggs this morning so I forgive them their fickle little ways.

Oh and the sun has been shining all day. Fab

On a High

I feel good

Dooby doobidy doo

I knew that I would now

I feel good

Dooby doobidy doo

(yes I know you thought James Brown was in the room with you for a moment there)

Anyway I do feel . . .

Good so good

Yesterday was another story altogether I was happy to be home but the journey left me the most travel sick I have been since I don't know when. We had to make a sharp exit from Debra's place as it hit me hard as soon as we sat round her kitchen table. Then when I went to bed the room was spinning. Oh but today I'm completely and utterly with it and enjoying being back to the full.

Already there have been purchases of leeks for the garden and potting compost.

You would of had a picture of the violets we spotted in the woods this morning but we forgot to put the card in the camera so in lieu this is Mortemart. There's a plant fair there this weekend and I shall be rushing around it clutching my hard earned euros tightly in my fist. Who knows I might even prise it open and buy something.

Tomorrow we'll be going to buy the basic groceries like butter and bread that completely slipped our minds today in all the giddy excitement of leeks and compost (oh we know how to live we do). That's after we reclaim the Dinnerladies from Deb's place where they have been right royally looked after.

Then I need to dig over the garden and plant the leeks, peas, broad beans, carrots, onions, cauliflowers and all the flower seeds oh and the dahlias and gladioli.

Don't know what we'll be doing after lunch.

Well what did you think?

Of course we went to the garden centre!

Added to my collection now is

salsify - because I have never tasted it but the name reminds me of the Beverley Hill Billies so of course we had to have it even if it does look suspiciously like parsnips

coriander - well with all these curries

hooligan pumpkins - these are mini pumpkins which grow to about 3 inches in diameter - perfect for stuffing and baking or microwaving apparently - they look so cute on the packet and even if they are yuk they will make great Halloween decorations (does that smack of over justification?)

lemongrass - curries

lots of salad leaves - because obviously this year we are going to have a long hot Summer and they will be absolutely essential

borage - essential for long cool drinks throughout the above mentioned long hot summer

Oh and cornflowers and helichrysums.

I think we may have enough stuff to be going on with now but with the tunnel is booked for the 14th so all too many shopping days to fill before then I'm afraid. Maybe we'll get snowed in and I'll be saved from myself

Gardening by shopping

The collection of plants that we were not going to buy and take back with us is steadily growing. That is the size of the collection not the plants. Although I'm having to hang on tightly to my common sense here and not buy pots and compost to start some off.

We now have
Chilli pepper seeds which I absolutely positively was not going to bother with

Onion sets at least I didn't fall for the seeds again

A mixture of aubergine seeds which is a bit strange as neither of us like them over much but they are special ones and look pretty (they are so)

Some multi coloured chard which is actually a really sensible buy (honest) as I wanted some last year and couldn't find the seeds in France

Carrots and dwarf peas - they were a bargain couldn't pass them up

Mushroom seeds (or whatever it is that mushrooms have) well TS has always wanted some

Dahlias which I would normally say I don't like but I saw lots last year in big informal blousy patches as opposed to rows for competitions and cut flowers. So I'm changing my mind.

Gladioli - move over Dame Edna.

So far the investment has been modest and easy to rationalise. We could stop buying seeds just like that. It's not like we're addicted or anything.

Four weeks and counting

Happy Blogaversary To Me

Yes I have been blogging for a whole year today.

Strangely enough a year later and I'm in almost the same place but different.

I am staying at my brother's again (same brother, well only brother, different house) waiting to go off to France to fill our garden with food, do the house up etc. etc.

But another year older is another year wiser so I have been looking on e-bay at bits and bobs to take back with us like kitchen units that are strangely expensive in our bit of France where people don't chuck everything out and go for a new look kitchen, living room etc every few years.

I won't be taking umpteen packets of veg seeds, except I have already bought six on a whim yesterday but they were only 29p each so maybe I will. But I won't make the mistake of putting them in too early or trying to give plants a good start in crap compost. And I will plant some stuff that will produce food into the winter like chard. I'll also be planting squashes because I've discovered that I do like them to eat as well as to look at. I will not however, be trying to grow onions or leeks from seed. I'll buy a punnet of 50 little leeks for 5 euros and a bag or two of onion sets instead. I'll also buy pepper plants and chilli plants and probably tomato plants because we have nowhere warm and light enough to start them off.

I'll also be working on making the garden pretty as well as productive so that we can enjoy sitting out there even more. Whilst still feeling guilty that we're not doing up the house or something else useful.

All in all I'm just as excited as I was this time last year but I know a little bit more. Maybe I'll direct my energies better and finish some jobs. More likely I'll just find a whole new lot not to finish. At least we'll be starting off with heating, washing and cooking facilities even if we are still on the blow up bed. That has to count for something. Right?

That's What I Call Cool

A surprising star has arisen from the ranks of our permanently rained upon veg. It’s the Wautoma cucumber.

While the other veg has been swooning and demonstrating that it can’t possibly perform under these conditions especially with amateurs like us in charge. The cucumbers have been quietly getting on with it. Hiding their harvest under their sprawling leaves. Providing us with tasty little cucumbers in the face of adversity.

Even among this doughty crowd there is one little chap/ess who stands out. Barely half a dozen leaves have escaped the slugs but undaunted it has made it’s contribution.

Ladies and gentlemen I give you . . The Little Cucumber That Could

Random 7 Garden Facts

Memes flying in from all directions now it's Adekun and seven random garden facts.

Since the brain is not really functioning any better than Monday I'll give it a whirl.

1) I want Sweet Williams, mint and rhubarb in my garden because that's what I remember about my Grandad Bill's garden. The sweet williams he had me convinced were named after him, there was always mint sauce he used to have this with his Monday breakfast which was fried belly pork and leftover yorkshire puddings and bubble and squeak from Sunday dinner. We used to sit in the garden with a bowl of sugar and dip freshly pulled rhubarb in. Yes we knew all about healthy eating and balanced diets in them days.

2) The first flower I grew was Candytuft

3) My favourite herb is rosemary but I never use it in cooking just for the scent. TS hates it. There is a saying that in a house where rosemary grows well the woman wears the trousers. I did have a theory on the go that it was because men don't like the smell which is based on a totally scientific and representative sample of three men.

4) I like Alan Titchmarsh

5) If I wasn't worried about them raiding next door's garden I would let the chickens roam round ours at will and accept a bit of damage because they make me laugh.

6) I hate chopping things back and thinning things out because it feels ungrateful when stuff has made the effort to grow. Then I go over the top.

7) I chopped down the onions with the strimmer by mistake (see 6 above) and blamed the chickens.

That's me then I will tag

Hedgewizard (revenge moi?)
Us In France
Tea and Cakes (she's been far too quiet of late)
Kitt
Jen (because she never mentions a garden)
and Mousie because I want to know more about her

Still didn't get up to seven then ah well here are the rules

Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to then report this on their own blog with their 7 random facts as well as these rules. They then need to tag 7 other garden blogs and list their names on their blog. They are also asked to leave a comment for each of the tagged, letting them know they have been tagged and to read the blog.

You Say Potato I Say What Now?

Only one bed of blighted potatoes left in the ground now.

We dug up one bed of maincrop Desirees this morning. It's not a happy story, about the best we can say is we got more spuds out than we put in. Could of been worse we could of got less or none I suppose. The Charlottes have been great we'll definately do them again next year seems like they nicely beat the blight and the colorado beetles. Perhaps we'll also try another early variety.

My consolation is that everyone else feels sorry for us and donates food courgettes, cucumbers, redcurrant jelly and lettuce this week. Thank you Miranda.

So what now? I have no idea. Time to hit the books again. Clearly the time I thought I was spending aquiring knowledge I was really just feeding my day dreams and when I look in my head for facts on what I could be growing there I just find a film clip entitled "Heroine Swanning Round Potager Gathering Produce".

It's going to be a long hungry winter at this rate.

We will have an ample sufficiency of apricot conserve though (touch wood). Tired of waiting for our cherries to ripen and despondant over the spuds in a fit of retail therapy I've ordered 10kg of apricots from the grocery van man this morning. Now I'm sat here thinking that's an awful lot of apricots.

More research required "Heroine With Shining Shelves of Bottled Produce" film clip is no use.

And still it rains

Except it's not raining today at least not yet but it does look like rain.

Our friend Miranda was talking to a French farmer who says this weather is down to the moon and that it won't improve dramatically till after the 14th. So roll on the 14th - Bastille Day, fireworks and good weather.

It's all a bit disappointing in the garden at the moment but some stuff seems to be coping with the wet weather. The brussels sprouts, the red cabbage (we bought seedlings in of that just to add a bit of colour really), the french beans are still going strong as are the peas and the sweetcorn is still looking good.

I wish I'd planted more peas now as I didn't expect them to be quite so nice and we haven't really got enough plants in to get two portions of peas for a meal. We are having a tiny portion of peas and a huge portion of French beans. The long term stuff that takes up a lot of space like potatoes are definitely going in the Orchard next year to give us chance to try lots of variety and so get some insurance against the weather.


We have been consoling ourselves by retreating into science fiction watching Stargate DVDs every night. We had an all too brief interlude of Firefly (why did they axe that series?) and a couple of Dr Who's as well.

In between that we are rescuing Sissy from the kitten. That dog is such a wimp. Tasha has put paid to kitten pestering by a very serious snarl in the kitten's face. Sissy always moves away which gives the kitten a hugely inflated idea of just how tough she is leading to a swaggering kitten walk (think Ryker on Star Trek while we are on Sci Fi).

The Old Bamboo

The sun is shining and everything seems possible today. Optimism replacing the creeping mardyness brought on by the cold miserable weather.

We're rediscovering the back door of the barn.

It faces onto the little track that runs down the side of the property. The huge bushy stuff is bamboo. It likes it there but it is taller than the barn and it's knocking the tiles off the roof. Plus it's a nice bit of wall to grow something more useful on. After all how many pea sticks do you need?

Friends want bits for their gardens or for pots on the patio but it's not that genteel designery type of plant. It sends up spears, not shoots, which rapidly grow to 15 or 20 feet tall. I can see us engaging in jungle warfare for some time to come.

I think the tomatoes have had it but it's too nice a day to care.

We have peas, carrots, french beans and spuds, next cold day I'll try making soup. Tomorrow judging by the forecast.

Hands On Experience

Today I felt something that I've only read about in books or heard about on tv.

When I went to get some spuds for dinner the soil was really warm compared to the air temperature. Yes I have read about the soil warming up as in "waiting for the soil to warm up to plant things" but this is the first time I have actually felt it. Suddenly with my hands in the mud I thought "Ah this is what they mean" and I felt a bit like a gardener.

Only a bit though because my tomatoes are a disgrace. Its the weather I think. We've had one hot sunny day in the last week , less than a handful all month. They keep flowering but nothing ever comes of it and now they're looking decidedly ill. Maybe I'm just not cut out for tomatoes but I have some replacements waiting in the wings should the summer decide to frame itself. Otherwise there's always next year.

Yesterday (our hot sunny day) we went to the vide grenier at St Sornin Leulac. It looks deserted because it's lunch time. We bought chips, a sausage sandwich and a beer. We already have enough rubbish.

Finding Mimo

Busy doing nothing. One of my favourite songs and our theme tune for this week

Except TS has made these rather good shelves from some planks he found in the barn we are debating whether to paint them to match the rest of the kitchen or leave them woody. Inertia will probably win out.

But in general we haven't got much done. Today for example we spent two hours looking for the kitten. Downstairs calling Mimo Mimo, upstairs Mimo Mimo, in the attic, in the cellar, in the garden, in the barn (no she doesn't go out but we were getting desperate). No she wasn't in the basket all the time we looked in the baskets ten times at least. But she appeared from that general vicinity.

When we weren't looking for Mimo we were putting the chickens back in their run. Four times if it was once (eventually we just took them down to the woods and left them to it) or scraping the cremated remains of meringue off the bottom of the cooker.

The meringue seemed to be the ideal way to use up the five egg whites left from the creme patisserie that took five egg yolks and use up the left over creme patisserie. In fact to generally concoct something sweet and yummy. Instead I concocted a previously unknown substance that resists all attempts to remove it. The settings on the cooker are only notional it seems and the choice is actually gas mark blast furnace or gas mark inferno. Yes it is definitely the cookers fault the cook is blameless.

The oven has only just been put into commission, it needed the burner changing for LPG but we couldn't find the burner until we took the back off the cooker. It's taken two months for our desire for pizza to overwhelm our desire not to bugger about pulling the cooker out and taking it to bits. Then we couldn't find the replacement burner which we'd put somewhere safe. In a box. But where was the box? That was three hours searching then.

The box had been turned into kitten proofing blocking up a hole in the bathroom. So although we looked and looked it was no longer the box with the cooker bits in it was kitten proofing and we just didn't see it.

Oh and we're blighted our beautiful spuds blighted. This is what happens I guess when it's either raining buckets or 28 degrees and the veg growing advice is based on the UK weather and the gardener doesn't use her brains. So since they've all flowered I'll follow "The Vegetable Expert" advice and cut off the haulms, leave the spuds in the ground for 10 days and then dig them up. Unless anyone has a better idea.

Stuff I have to buy so I don't have to buy stuff

Now that we are getting potatoes from the garden my thoughts naturally turn to storing and processing the bounty of produce to come. So of course I will make jams and chutneys and bottled fruits and tomatoes and store dried beans. I will freeze peas and green beans and fruits. I will dry walnuts and hazelnuts and chestnuts and make things with them that I have drooled over on the internet. There will be cider and homemade beer and wine.

All this marvellous food and drink for free!

No it bloody well isn’t.

For I shall have to buy big pans for making jams and chutneys even if I do without thermometers and funnels and tongs for lifting jars out of water and cherry stoners and apple corers and sieves, I shall have to buy jars. I shall have to buy storage tins for storing dried food. I shall have to buy a freezer to freeze food. I shall have to buy baking accoutrements like tins and rolling pins and pastry brushes and weighing scales. Brewing supplies like buckets and demi-johns and bottles and caps.

All this is before I start buying food to add to the food, things like sugar and vinegar, spices, flour, baking powder, yeast.

Admittedly much of the stuff is “an investment” and will be used many times. But it could all go horribly wrong and I will have all the possessions but no food. I could buy a lot of jars of jam, frozen peas, tins of tomatoes and sticky buns for that money all made by experts in their field, and have change for a recliner, parasol and a good book.

So at the end of the day I can’t produce food cheaper than I can buy it. All things considered. Unless I consider food miles, freshness, quality of life, job satisfaction and all the worthy green stuff, but I just wanted to moan about all the stuff that has to be bought so I won’t go into all that. I'd only be leaning on an open door or boring or both.

Self Sufficient Egg and Chips

Yay!

We've graduated from sandwiches to hot meals. From dinner to tea (or lunch to dinner if you're posh) in the self sufficiency stakes.

We now have the makings of a meal. We dug up our first few Charlotte potatoes today. (Not counting the one we dug up a couple of weeks ago to see what was happening down there)

No I didn't make chips (just how common do you think I am?) We have had them boiled in their skins with lots of butter and they were yummy and potatoey. I even went so far as to cook duck to go with them in a hastily concocted marmalade sauce (which is far indeed for someone as domestically challenged as I am). But the potatoes were the stars.

And yes we have had them at tea time

Potatoes! The official food of the Breezy Break!

ps Do we leave them and dig them up as we want them or dig them all up now?