Pumpkins and stuff

The first of the pumpkin harvest and a busy cooking day.

Cornish pasties (nothing to do with pumpkins but anyway a batch of 14 for the freezer)

Butternut squash soup was the next on the list to be followed by an attempt at pumpkin pie.

The large orange pumpkins were from a volunteer plant. I didn't have a big enough, sharp enough knife to slice through one but TS came to the rescue with his wood splitting axe and split one in four for me.

We were so busy chopping up this pumpkin and turning it into puree that I accidently invented a new recipe, butternut squash and ginger mash. This involves a couple of cloves of garlic, an onion, a carrot, a potato, a teaspoon of ginger, lovage and coriander leaves, two butternut squashes and a litre of vegetable stock. Combine as if for soup ie sweating veg first in butter then adding stock then forget about it while you wrestle with an oversized pumpkin so that the stock is absorbed by the veg and the excess boils away and the vegetables will mash with a fork. But catch it just before it starts catching on the pan. Delicious! I might try making it on purpose next time.

Just waiting for the pumpkin pie to cool now. If we like it I've got another 5lbs of pumpkin puree on standby.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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?

I think I'd better think it out again

Today I have been waging war on the perenial weeds and any others that got in my way. When we looked at the area that was going to be the veg plot we naively said "Oh look at all those buttercups doesn't it look nice". What fools we were. Everytime I turn my back the buggers advance across the veg beds. Opinion seems to be divided on whether hoeing is going to help or hinder but it's a nice easy job on a hot day and it makes me feel all gardenerly so I'll keep doing it. Plus that hoe cost me nine euros, I'll have to get my wear out of it.


Hedgewizard is making weed tea sounds like just the sort of treatment creeping buttercup things need to me I may add it to my list of things to try.

He's also having problems with moles.


This plant so people keep telling me repels moles. What no one seems to know is what it's called. Anyway we've not had any mole problems (yet) so maybe it does.






My Or du Rhinn climbing french beans are doing just that. They're my kind of plant stick em in the ground green side up and off they go. I may plant some more but I'm running out of dug over bits of garden, unless we move the chicken run to the orchard. I'm a bit reluctant to do that cos I like to talk to them while I'm in the garden. They'd probably enjoy it though. Another thing for the list.


I've sown seeds for groundcherries, amaranth, melons and a last go at tomatoes. No idea where I'll put them either if they decide to grow.

Mmmm we should of got someone with foresight and planning for this job.

God of Chickens

The Dinnerladies are enthusiastic gardeners. Usually they shout encouragement from their run but they are happy to get involved especially when the God of Chickens (Tech Support) is weeding.

I can be doing absolutley riveting things like digging up ants nests, shouting and tapping look at these lovely grubs but no when their hero is in the garden they only have eyes for him.

Their garden time only lasts about an hour though, eventually they get carried away and start trampling the onions and vandalising the peas. So one by one they are picked up and put back in the run and they have to be content with getting the weeds to scratch through till the God of Chickens smiles on them again.

Pees Please

At last we have walls around the bathroom so not only do I now have a pot to pee in but I can pee in it in peace. The luxury is overwhelming. Hot water at the weekend. Bloody hell life is good!

I have been on slug patrol this evening. All our slugs are reddy orange so at least they are easy to spot. I can't bear to touch them so I wonder round the garden with a plastic pot and an oversized dining fork collecting them up (no I don't spear them just sort of manouver them into the pot). Then, since I can't bear to kill them either I relocate them to the woods. Strangely I have no qualms about feeding them to the Dinnerladies but they won't eat them even though they promise to when they are lined up at the wire saying "What you doing? Give us some". They just stab at them a bit then spend ages going "Yuk slimey slugs" and wiping their beaks. (well they do in my world thank you very much ).

Some stuff in the garden is doing really well. You could string a hammock between the spuds , honest. Other suff, well it's crap and just not trying like the leeks or it didn't bother to grow at all. Yes kidney beans I mean you. So tomorrow I am going to start some more stuff off. In pots because I can not distinguish between weeds and veg yet and I'm sick of having myself on that there is a row of food there and not a general blotch of weed seedlings.

I love gardening.

Slugs Ate My Collective Farm Woman

Well you turn your back for a minute. Several days actually. Because it's raining and because there is stuff to be done inside and before you know it your crops are devoured. It's goodbye Collective Farm Woman Melon, goodbye Gigante Liscio Tomatoes and goodbye brave solitary little Heatwave Chilli.

There you are rain and neglect it leads to slugs you heard it here.

We're keeping an eye out for colorado beetles (they call them doryphores here) The only way to deal with them apparently is to pick them off the potatoes and squish them although we might see if the Dinnerladies fancy picking them off and eating them. (Big event this weekend we got a double yolk egg!)

Everytime someone mentions colorado beetle it takes me back to standing in the post office with my gran while she was waiting to collect her pension. There was always a poster of a colorado beetle and details of who to contact if this scourge of potatoes was spotted. This was in a part of Leeds where the houses all led straight onto the street or if they were posh, had a couple of feet of earth and a privet hedge. I always hoped to spot one so I could call out The Man From The Ministry but surprise surprise I never did.

There wasa cobblers shop next to the post office I can smell it now or it could be the dog.

Cool Cats Drugs and Chicks

We took Borg back to the vets today for his check up. This weekend we had been worried about him as he couldn't find a comfortable position to sleep and he looked really depressed.

However over the last couple of days he has managed to sleep and has perked up to the extent that he is giving the dogs black looks even if he can't be bothered to swot them and he is going upstairs to find a sunny spot on the bed to kip. At his age we can't expect a full recovery but as long as he is happy I'll keep drugging his food. I'm getting so good at it that Tech Support is starting to wonder just what goes into his meals as some days he finds he does exactly what he's told without realising.

The chickens have discovered that they can get out of their run. Well actually it's just Dolly and her mate Jean at the moment. Anita and Twink are not so adventurous. Luckily they are happy for us to go and pick them up so no comedy chicken capers yet. Tomorrow we will have to sort out a move for them. Their run is looking a bit bald and the grass is definately greener on the other side. They'll be on the lunch menu next door if they hop over that fence .

We noticed our first little peppers forming today so we are full of anticipation for the culinary delights to come. I've told the tomatoes they've got some catching up to do.

Mostly Crepi

We've been applying ourselves again which for me has meant filling in plaster and putting crepi on the walls. Well one wall so far, there is such a thing as too much application plus I thought I would see if it fell off that wall before applying myself to the others.

I have also earthed up the spuds and hoe-ed weeds with my new hoe which I bought at the same time as the crepi. It's really sharp, I have the cut finger to prove it.

Crepi is fabulous stuff, it has the texture of school semolina pudding (maybe with less lumps), it's equally sticky and covers up a multitude of cracks and other wall related blemishes. What's more it's only five euros for a 15kg tub. This means once you get past the one splat for the wall and one splat for the floor stage it's very economical compared to a plasterer. It is viewed by some as naff, akin to artex I think and you can do artexy things with it if you like but I'm just going for the rustic look. Which is just as well cos my best efforts are pretty much, well . . . rustic.

So we have one lovely white wall plus a rather nice shelfy/dresser thing that Tech Support has been making for the wall that is the kitchen. If we sit here with sort of squinty half closed eyes we can almost see a cosy little kitchen/dining/living room. It has inspired us to concentrate and finish this room so we can have one place where we are not reminded of the zillion and one things on the to do list. It would also be good to repay the hospitality of those who feed us and let us use their bathing facilities fom time to time.

But not today we're having day off.

Toilets, sheep it's all happening here

At last we have a flushing toilet and only two more plumbing bits to buy to get a fully functioning bathroom, well shower room actually we don't have room for a bath and anyway I'm not overconfident that the floor would hold a bath full of water. It's just a niggling doubt you understand something to do with the way it all slopes towards the centre. Anyway tomorrow it WILL be finished.

Well, when I say finished it hasn't actually got any walls around it yet so it's more kind of en suite you've heard of dining kitchens well we have an showering bedroom luckily the shower is strategically placed to allow a certain amount of modesty to be retained whilst using the loo.

It will be put right this week we are on a deadline now. Bob is coming round to put the upstairs sockets in next weekend so we really do need the walls by then. One good thing about France (and there are many but I wouldn't like to go on) is that they sell doors complete with frames so with the size of our house that's half the wall done already.

They've moved sheep into the field near our house. I never realised what noisy buggers they are. It's sounded like non stop Prime Minister's question time ever since they got here. The dogs are a bit put out as it's walks on leads now till we get past them. I don't know what breed of sheep (if any) but the lambs have a real piggy faced look to them. Not that they aren't sweet in their own way of course but it sheds a new light on the porc & mutton sausages we've been buying.

Did I happen to mention that we had chickens by the way? Yes? Well today we had a thunderstorm and rain. I thought they would all seek shelter either in or under the chicken house but no, one had to stand outside (let's call her Anita) she even looked like she was enjoying it. There's surprisingly little to a wet chicken.

We enjoyed the rain or rather the lack of watering duties. Its forecast sun and showers for the next week so that should see the veggies perking up a bit no doubt the weeds too so I'll be out there with me weeding fork till the cows come home. That's another good thing about France by the way, at least this bit, they have really pretty cows.

Well I've really wittered on tonight it's the giddy excitement of having that toilet.

Self Sufficient Sandwiches

Now that we have eggs (courtesy of our lovely girls) and salad leaves as displayed here we can have egg mayonaise and leaf sandwiches for lunch and congratulate ourselves that we have created a meal entirely from our own produce (except for the bread, butter and mayonaise of course). Oh what a wonderful feeling.

The leaves don't even have many bites out of them as luckily there is a toad living under a nearby plant pot.

Now I look at my garden with pride and joy being that it's only been six weeks in the making but travelling around and looking at other peoples' gardens a slight sense of unease is creeping in. You see my garden is rather like me, a bit scruffy and unkempt at the edges, as you can see by the odd tuft of grass and such on the path. The veg plots I see on my travels are pristine with not a speck of non veg greenary to be seen and rows that are straight I mean really really straight and plants that have been spaced to the millimeter using, well I don't know they must of used a micrometer and lasers or something from CERN or NASA. So I feel the same way as I feel when confronted by women who can wear white for more than ten minutes without looking grubby a little bit chastened but not sufficiently to change my ways.

You can see the peas and beans have a way to go and my supports won't be winning any design awards either but we found the ladders in the barn past supporting people but I don't expect the peas will mind.

Hellooo Again We Smells Like Lords and Ladies

We have been cut off from the outside world but today France Telecom man came out and fixed a fault at the exchange and in the box at the side of the house so we are fully functioning in the telecommunications department once more. The lovely Elizabeth (from Agence BMI who we bought the house from) persuaded them at last that yes there really was a problem.





So I bet you think we've got plumbing by now with no distractions? well after much effing and blinding we have the shower cubicle fully assembled and the toilet and a base unit for the kitchen sink so any time now we'll be there.





But we have had distractions too cos tomorrow is chicken market day so Tech Support was pulled off the plumbing to get on with Chateau La Chook an historical and quaintly rustic construction with parts dating back to 1937. Oh yes we found a bed base in the barn with a frame just the right sort of size to make a chicken house base. It was stuffed with straw and a 1937 newspaper unfortunately they hadn't stashed the family treasure there too but you can't have everything.

Monsieur next door says the chickens will eat up our veggies but no we say we will have a barrier which luckily is the word for fence if you say it in your best Pink Panther impression. In fact this applies to many words (especially the ones ending tion our neighbour Ian says) anyway it's always worth a try if you're stuck for a word and you're not proud. It's much better to say something I find even if it's nonsense or English than to say nothing.

We had a confusing time tonight. We had just got back from the local tabac which also sells bread, magazines, plants, groceries in fact its like Arkwright's Open All Hours but with beer and a restaurant too. Anyway Joel pulled up and asked if we had the plan (of our land) and indicated that we needed to go off in the car with him which we did. He drove us to a big house at the top of the village where he discussed the plan and our bits of land in great detail with a lady there who clearly knew who owned everything in the area (her mainly). Then he took us to our smallest (400 square metres) and last bit of unseen land which is a small patch of oak trees and a spring. Again it was a case of tromping through fields and under and over barbed wire with Tech Support in the front in his boots in case of serpents as Joel realised he only had his slippers on halfway across the field. Why it was necessary to suddenly do this we still don't know as there was much talk about the various plots and the spring seemed quite important. At one point it seemed like a swap was being talked about. Ah well I suppose it will all become clear in the fullness of time but I'd really rather hang on to oak trees and a spring.

The plant in the picture we think we've identified as Lords and Ladies it's on the path in the woods and it really stinks, apparently to attract flies to pollinate it. Nuff said

But We Didn't

Still there are 52 Saturdays in a year and who knows one of them might be the one.

In the meantime there are a great many "b**tards and f**kers coming from the bathroom to be as the shower cabinet goes together. Not the french I had in mind really. We were going to put the shower cabinet on a platform to improve the drainage but TOH changed his mind having spent all day yesterday building it.

To make sure it would still drain OK we set up tempory connections to the outlet and poured a kettle full of water in. What did we prove? That water goes everywhere mainly, especially through floorboards and onto the cat while he's lying in his favourite chair.

So I'm off to hide in the garden where life is simple and plant out my sweetcorn and peas cos the roots are all growing out of the bottoms of the pots. I'll also give the tomatoes and peppers a good talking to for not germinating and the oregano. The kidney beans can sown too I feel. If everything pulls it's weight we could be self sufficient in chilli and spag bol who needs more?

Saturday we May Come Clean

Yes we're still doing the plumbing. Who would of thought it could take this long? After all there are only two sinks a shower and a toilet, it's hardly the Hilton. The trouble is we just can't seem to get down to it there is so much else going on for instance walks in the woods to check out the flora and fauna and to be amazed that we're here and that it's so beautiful.

Not to mention checking out the progress of the veg at least twice a day. It needs twice a day as the beans popped up all at once this afternoon. The photo is of the peas and sweetcorn though and the resident photographer was too impatient for me to lift up the plastic on the cloche so you could see them in all their glory.

Today though we did do plumbing and now the pipes have progressed to the bathroom to be. It did need yet another trip to Mr Bricolage and Castorama but we are quite confident that we now have all the bits probably.

All that's left is to attach the pipes to aforementioned sinks shower and toilet and we will have plumbing. That's after we've built units for the sinks and a plinth for the shower. The work of a moment surely.

Who knows Saturday night could be bath night!

(Not a f*king hope the resident plumber says)

The Garden Wins Again

Another wonderful day in the garden yesterday although I was responsible enough to actually do some washing before playing out. The washing line was full of jeans and tops so Lawrence's undies had to go on the wire across the fireplace to be dried and gently smoked. No vermin in them there undies now!

I can't believe that my stuff is growing and I'm closely inspecting every pot every day for the smallest sign of progress. Now the basil is starting to come up and the garlic. I added oregano, coriander, popcorn, runner beans and french beans to my collection of seeds under the cloche. Unfortunately we lost the watering can down the well and the others in the barn are all too full of holes even if I felt like evicting the spiders so we will have to devise a cunning replacement today.

We have been to the supermarket this morning to get some odds and ends and I suppose I could of bought one there but it just wouldn't of been the same. Lawrence took this pic of Bellac on the way back it's our nearest town and I love this view of it up the hill.

We've found that we can buy a kilo of real coffee for the price of 100g of instant so top money saving tip there. Oh and it is drinkable coffee.

We saw the deer again this morning on the walk with the dogs you can just about see it in the distance in this photo or maybe not.

Anyway the bricks round the front of the house won't move themselves even though we've given them the last six months to do it. So I have an appointment with the wheelbarrow