11/2/24 - Is it windy where you are?

This week’s main job has been clearing a bed of Jerusalem artichokes. I didn’t plant them there. However I did plant a few in a big bin outside the old greenhouse about eight years ago . One night in a raging storm the bin was blown over and the artichokes escaped in a torrent of water - through the fence and down into the vegetable garden.

16/1/24 - A bit more sowing

I woke to the thickest fog imaginable, and not much evidence of the moon so at 7am it was pitch black. Nevertheless, by 10:30 the sun came out an the day developed into a beauty.

It was 25℃ in the greenhouse, so just perfect for sowing some more aguadulce broad beans.

15/1/24 - Blue Monday? No, not at all.

The third Monday in January is supposed to be the most depressing day of the year, but actually it’s been a wonderful day. This is the first day I’ve spent properly in the garden for absolutely months. It really shows. The vegetable garden, usually organised and ready, looks weedy and dishevelled.

14/1/24 - Compost obsession

There’s never enough. Compost that is. If you buy it, and I’ve bought tons in the past, it comes in plastic bags, is rarely peat-free in France and costs a fortune.

My answer to this is to try to make as much as possible. I have a worm composter in the dog’s room in the house. Sounds grim but they make happy sleeping companions and I can use the worm tea (leachate) as a cost-free form of Baby Bio plant food. Then there are three compost bins in the vegetable garden.

13/1/24 - In the greenhouse

Honestly, if I couldn’t live in the house I’d happily move into the greenhouse. It has wifi, running water, a coffee maker and is toasty warm. Made out of Douglas fir and double thickness perspex it is looks like an upturned boat. It’s 6m x 4m.

12/1/24 - A blogging phoenix

I haven’t posted of a couple of years. I don’t know where the time went, but here we are. I thought I’d fire this record of my garden up again. It’s all looking rather a mess at the moment. Health problems (not me) have robbed us of quite a lot of time when I would have been quietening down the vegetable garden for the winter.

Il pleut, enfin.

We’re expecting around 300mm of rain in the next four days. Very little has fallen since November last year but all our water storage tanks are full, so I pumped them out this morning in anticipation of a deluge. About 8000 litres have gone and now we await the storm.

We have guests..

I’ve seen the tell-tale signs. There’s a small pile of compost that has leaked out of a gap in the hotbed and something is nibbling on my seedlings as soon as they emerge. In the absence of snail activity - I’ve checked - I’d say we have tiny rodent guests.

Everything's coming up....greenses.

Each morning’s visit to the greenhouse is an utter joy. I lift the lids from trays of sown seeds on the heat mats to see what has broken free from its shell. So far there have been cabbage, cauliflower, aubergine, chilli, sweet pepper, parsley and tomato seedlings smiling back at me.

Mid-January 2022

Crikey it was cold this morning. -3 degrees outside, 0 inside the henhouse and plus 3 degrees in the greenhouse thanks to a temperature sensitive socket and an electric heater.