Diary for March 2021
1/3/21
Seedlings are overflowing in the greenhouse and I’m juggling to make room for plants that have been pricked out. The citruses have had to make way for tender neonates and are now outside the greenhouse with heads bent against the wind and rain. Please God, ditch the frost this spring if it’s not too much trouble.
Micaela & Sue picked the last of the lemons this morning. They tell me there were 90. NINETY. I thought there were just a few as we’d been picking and freezing them all winter. Anyway, they set to and sliced them all, put them on baking parchment lined trays and stacked them in the freezer. I’ll transfer them into ziplock bags so we don’t have the faff of making ice all summer, but can stick a slice of frozen lemon into drinks. M&S couldn’t bear wasting all the tops and tails they’d cut off so they infused a couple of bottles of olive oil which will be too, too delicious drizzled on tomatoes or fresh pain de campagne in the summer. Oh joy!
7/3/21
For the past 24 hours we have had constant rain. This has to be one of the wettest winters we’ve had since we arrived in France 19 years ago. More than 70mm has fallen overnight and today so we are pumping water out of our storage tanks and trying to divert as much as possible off the already saturated garden.
8/3/21
I have to report some tragedies. While Micaela and Sue were staying we moved the hens from the top to the bottom of the orchard. This involved a complicated task of lifting the hen-house down the hill, then moving the hens into it. Ali & I took 30 minutes trying to corral headstrong hens into a position where we could catch them. There are only three.
After the hens were safely relocated we had to move the electric fence. It’s made of netting with electric wires running through it. We have it to stop dogs, foxes and cats from paying too much attention to our girls. It’s a floppy, tangly, painstaking procedure to move it and get it all set right. But we did it and our chests swelled with pride.
The next day Sue found a dead toad which had been electrocuted by the fence overnight. A couple of days later I found another. It was beginning to look as though we’d sited the fence directly across a toad M4 running from the pond to their overnight hotel.
A couple of days ago, after our friends had left for home, some other friends came to lunch. We took a stroll round the garden, their tiny dachshund puppy, Ringo, received a severe zap from the fence and ran off squealing to Ali who calmed him with her magic healing hands. Good choice. We continued on our walk, and past the pond. The water was roiling with at least five toads in orgasmic amplexus. We left them to it.
This morning I was horrified to find a fat female toad dead on the fence, clearly on her way to spawn in the pond. SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE. Now it’s only a couple of days since we witnessed the orgy so I figure there’s at least another female who will return to the pond in about a week. Today Ali and I will woman-handle the hens, hen-house and fence away from the toad highway. I’ll let you know how we get on.
Electrocuted male toad.
Squelched through the garden later this morning only to find another pregnant female zapped by the fence. I’ve turned it off until we can move the fence this afternoon. Whilst mourning the loss of another toad I got into conversation with the woman who owns a small parcel of land between us and the hamlet. She was up a cherry tree, wearing a beige coat, and dousing the branches with bouillie bordelaise. I told her about the toads and she gasped in amazement.
French neighbour: “When did you add the toads to your pond?’”
Me: “I didn’t, they just turned up once we had constructed the pond and stream.”
FN: “But there have never been toads in La Caumette”
Me: “Well there are now. Here, have a look at this video I just shot on my phone”
FN: “Mon dieu, c’est magnifique. J’adore les crapauds. Je suis tellement contente que vous êtes mes voisines”
Still 8/3/21
The summer vegetable plants are coming on a treat, although I have some unwelcome slugs who like to slither into the pots overnight and decapitate freshly emerged seedlings. It calls for unrelenting vigilance.
Well, we’re back in from wrangling the electric fence into place. I really hope we’ve left Toad Road wide enough for them to avoid deadly zapping.
Meanwhile the goldfish gather round to watch the goings on. It’s a pescatorial sex show.
9/3/21
A glorious, sunny day. Perfect for having a sort out in the greenhouse and potager. I spent the morning weeding and hoeing the vegetable beds. It was a pretty easy task after the recent rains and as it’s a no-dig area there are precious few weeds in any case. Having a bit of spare cardboard, I extended the path towards the shed and covered it in a deep layer of sawdust. Probably 10cms. Hosed it to keep the wind from blowing it about.
Then I started dismantling the hotbed from the greenhouse. I don’t need it now as the later sowing will germinate without needing extra heat. The potager has just a few gaps, but I can spread the compost around deeply. The trailer hitched on the back of the lawn tractor and it takes six buckets of compost at a time. It’s an easy job then to carry each one into the potager to distribute it. I’d loaded up about a eighteen buckets when a tiny blind mouse stumbled out of the pile. How can such a tiny creature make me feel such an utter heel? I placed it carefully back roughly where it came from and stopped digging. The rest of the compost can wait a couple of weeks to let the rest of the family remain homed and well fed on all the seedlings. I’d thought the disappearing seedlings were the result of slug suppers, but now I think I’ve opened a branch of Mouse McDo. Well I guess we’ll have to share.
I’ve put some makeshift shelves above the rest of the hotbed and put all the seedlings there. Each morning I’ll check them and chuck out all the pots nibbled by the mice. I hope they leave a few but they’re showing a preference for Jalapeño peppers at the moment.
No update on the toads. I saw a couple in the pond this morning and none on the electric fence, but I failed miserably in the NatureWatch department since I forgot to put an SD card in the trail camera that was supposed to record their commute home overnight.
My favourite shed chair was in direct sunlight this afternoon. I was tempted to sit and read for a while. Here’s a section of the potager shed library.
10/3/21
Another still, sunny day. No need for a jumper. Did a ton of jobs starting in the greenhouse this morning.
Put spuds out for chitting. Angélique, Ratte & Désirée. 80, 150 & 150 days to harvest so we should have some ready for Ali’s birthday at the beginning of June.
Potted on 4 Amish Paste tomatoes which have towered above all the others. Sowed 21 Pinto Shell beans, 15 Lima beans, 40 Kelvedon Wonder peas. All in the greenhouse. The peas could be sown direct but the mice would just have them all for supper. Pricked out 17 Mesclun & Planted out 15 PSB in the potager.
This afternoon, after the usual salad lunch almost entirely from the garden, I
Planted out 15 purple sprouting broccoli
Sowed Red Detroit, Touchstone Gold and Red Striped beetroot
Sowed 2 rows of Nantaise carrots
Sprayed all the brassicas with BT
Began an experimental Hugelkultur bed. I don’t have much faith in it since I reckon all that decaying wood will be a slug magnet but maybe that will save everything else.
Cleared up a bit, lugging rotten wood out of the potager
Made the first outdoor cup of tea of the season on the trusty 1970s camp stove
Sat in the shed and listened to an audiobook.
11/3/21
Mended outside staging using old wood from some raised beds
Fed citruses near greenhouse
Put larger PSB & Chinese cabbage out on staging to harden off
Watered everything in g/h
Sowed 24 climbing borlotti, 24 purple haricot, 24 Jessy sugar snaps & 24 Vigneronne runner beans
Potted on 4 Roma toms.
13/3/21
Potted on Dikaya Roza toms x 4, Amethyst Jewel toms x 4, Guker’s Special toms x 5, Beefsteak toms x 4 & Alice’s Dream toms x 8.
It’s a bit cooler for a while & the forecast is for negative temperatures for the last ten days of March so I’ll hold off sowing anything else for a while. Broad beans sowed last autumn are well in flower now.
I’ve finally spotted some long strings of toad spawn in the pond. The filaments are covered in fine silt so I rather suspect they were produced before the last heavy rainstorm when the pond water was cloudy with Sahara sand.
Micaela & Sue brought us a couple of offspring from their Ginkgo Biloba. They are tiny single stems and I’ve planted them on the hill above the greenhouse. The signs that they have taken are good as you can see from this minuscule bud at the top.
In the rest of the garden I have planted many flowers raised over the winter plus some magnificent cardoons from M&S. The wildflower sowings that I did in the area vacated by the hens may well have washed down the orchard in the last storm. On verra. Meanwhile the buddleia that was a present from Rosemary & Christopher is looking very handsome alongside the Melia azedarach. The buddleia is an unusual variety but I have failed to remember what type. I remember that they were appalled when I said that’s what I’d like for my birthday. They had visions of the ubiquitous weed beside urban UK railway lines.
16/3/21
I’ve been groggy with a bug for the past few days, so haven’t had the will or energy to do much in the garden other than to check for damage. Why damage? Well we’ve had the most ferocious winds up here in the hills. It’s been way too dangerous to work in the greenhouse. It creaks and groans, threatening to shower broken glass on me with each battering gust. These blasts also blew over all of the A-frames in the kitchen garden so I’ve bashed some long rods into the ground and secured the frames to them. They all need tightening after having come a bit loose.
The hens are fine and don’t seem too affected by having their frilly knickers blown up round their ears. They were particularly sprightly coming down their ramp this morning when they saw that I had some mushroom spaghetti for them. A clear culinary favourite.
This morning I swept the strimmer round the kitchen garden ready to lay more cardboard and either compost or sawdust depending on whether I’m turning the space into paths or growing beds. Space is always in short supply because I simply grow too many plants from seed. It’s the gardener’s dilemma. Although the whole garden is an acre, the potager is bound by a chainlink fence, so that is my limit. I know it wouldn’t go down well with A if I said I wanted to extend it. “If only there wasn’t always something that needed eating up” was last year’s wail during the mid-summer glut. I do understand. Growing the food is just one aspect, after that it has to be either eaten, preserved, processed, dried or given away. Much as I love being able to give our neighbours some unexpected harvests, it’s a lot of work for that to be a major part of the goal. My main aim is for us to be as self-sufficient year-round so we have to save some stuff for winter. The easiest thing to do is to give away young plants once I’ve planted enough for us. I wish I’d remembered that before I planted 50 cauliflowers.
19/3/21
More howling gales and some horizontal hail today. Ho hum. I have had quite enough of the wind.
20/3/21
Still vile weather so braved the creaking greenhouse. Topped up spuds planted in bags which are going great guns. Don’t seem to have any successfully germinated aubergines. Looking back I see that I hardly sowed any so I might have to buy some grafted ones as it’s pretty late now.
21/3/21
The Equinox. Sowed some San Marzano tomatoes in the greenhouse. Don’t know why I forgot.
22/3/21
Still horrendously windy. The door’s been blown right off the shed in the potager. Cleared out lots of gone to seed brassicas. Had a large lorry load of well composted horse manure delivered from Lamalou stables. 50 euros worth. Bloody bargain. Too windy to shift it today though. It’s as heavy as lead too.
Bodged a fix for the shed door
Sowed: Tomatillos, Yolo Wonder peppers, cornichon - Piccolo di Parigi, aubergine Black Beauty, Dedo di Mocha Sweet Aji peppers, Italian green oak leaf lettuce, melon Aguria Sugar Baby, honeydew and 5 desserts melons, Czar runner beans and lemon basil. Let’s hope the mice swerve that lot.
Ridiculously excited to have new dedicated gardening trousers. 12.99 euros from Lidl so who cares if they fall apart in the wash. They’re a bit big but I need to be able to move in them. Too long too, so Ali will take them up. I bought four pairs. Overkill.
Toad spawn is now tadpoles. The pond is all a-wriggle.
23/3/21
Finally. We’re now in the period of Germinal according to the French revolutionary calendar. This really is the beginning of spring and today was glorious. I worked all day, shifting compost, taking out spent broccoli, planting Angelique & Ratte potatoes, more purple sprouting broccoli, a ton of Asian salad and lots of Chinese cabbage. I mended the shed door - sort of & extended the path in the potager. I’m creaking like the Mary Rose now, but 15 minutes in the spa and an ibuprofen should sort that out. The day was so utterly glorious that I kept breaking into dance. Like no-one was watching.
24/3/21
Another scorcher - well 20 degrees. Soil temp up to 10 degrees despite a frost this morning. Two sunny days and I look like a Land Girl already.
Productive day. Pruned, fed, watered and weeded all the citrus. There are at least a dozen. Planted a new Whitebeam (Alisier blanc - Sorbus aria Lutescens) which arrived from Promesse de Fleurs today in excellent condition. Planted it at the top of the path near the greenhouse. Also moved 14 more buckets of composted pony poo from the huge pile. It’s now on the left hand side of the potager. Watered the long border. Why did I ever think planting 50 peonies was a good idea?
Alisier blanc - Sorbus aria Lutescens - Whitebeam
The greenhouse is invaded by bloody wasps as usual. Time to get the epipen ready. Thousands of gendarmes (Pyrrhocoris apterus) have hatched in the potager shed. The insects are back. No peace now. Great to see lots of bees though. They’re thirsty and were drinking from beads of water on the plants as I went by with the hose.
28/3/21
Last night the clocks went forward. Suddenly it feels like spring despite a frost in the vegetable garden. The soil is at a steady 10 degrees in that area, so not so worrying. It’s always the coolest part of the entire acre, shaded by large sweet chestnut trees to the east. The rising sun does not reach the soil until about 10am at this time of year. Although it’s cold there now, the trees protect the crops from the early heat in midsummer. Despite the broad beans bending their heads in the frost they always pop up again by mid-morning. Nothing seems to have suffered. I planted the rest of the seed potatoes - Amandine - yesterday in tubs and tyres as I need to save space for tomatoes and beans as soon as the frost is over.
Another tonne of pony poo compost arrived from the Lamalou riding stables on Monday. I thought I didn’t really need it but I’ve used a lot around the fruit trees and along the two long borders beside the sunken path/berm. This afternoon I sowed lots of Higgledy Garden seeds in the long borders, along with some cardoons I grew from seed. It’s all looking grand and hundreds of bulbs are about to burst into flower to join the daffodils and tulips that are already in full bloom.
Sowed: Giant poppy (saved from own poppies), Nigella Miss Jekyll, Cornflower Blue Ball, Nicotiana White Trumpets, Rudbeckia Marmalade, Ammi Visnaga, Phacelia (you’re breaking my heart), Helichrysum Copperhead, Zinnia Mammoth, Scabious Ping Pong, Nigella Persian Jewels, Mina Lobata, Larkspur Imperials, Calendula Art Shades, Eschscholzia Orange King, Statice Supreme & Pale yellow Potentialla (Blue Barn).
There’s no let up in the produce from the potager. Today I had several cabbages which I obviously sowed too late as they are now desperate to burst into flower. They are now in this soup with vegetable stock instead of chicken - I have to face my girls each morning. Salad for lunch as usual including coriander, mint and chives plus whichever salad leaves look most enticing. We’re properly into rhubarb season now so I can pull several stalks every few days. The rhubarb has grown from three crowns to about ten over the past few years, so my pal Coll is coming over to dig a couple up this week. It should do well in her courtyard garden in a deep trough.
This evening I’m looking forward to cooking The Ultimate Halloumi, Butternut Squash & Tahini Salad with the last butternut. I’m firing up the barbecue for some very garlicky gambas to accompany the warm salad. A fine way to spend the first light evening.
31 March 2021
Well, it’s the last day of March. The garden’s looking great after lots of planting, sowing, compost-spreading, weeding and a little strimming. A month ago I felt as though I had a mountain to climb but it’s all getting under control and my fitness has improved too. I’m clocking up around 13,000 steps a day and my back and arms feel stronger after a winter of non-use helped by shifting two tonnes of compost.
Today I filled a half-frame from a 1000 litre water tank with compost, after lining with cardboard. It’s 50cms deep so I’m intending using it for growing several squash but I won’t plant them out yet since we’ve had four frosty mornings on the trot, despite it being 20+ degrees during the day.
Some things are being a little slow to germinate in the unheated greenhouse - probably because of the frosty nights. However, I re-sowed dwarf Borlotti, more Jessy Sugar Snaps & dwarf Kelvedon Wonder peas. Re-sowed because a batch of terreau contains the weedkiller amino-pyralid and it has ruined the development of the legumes I had sowed. The terreau is from Fertiligène, so I won’t be buying any more of that.
The toads are still mating and the pond has at least 100,000 tadpoles already and there are more strings of eggs waiting to hatch. We’ll be inundated with toads with any luck. Two more have been zapped by the hens’ electric fence this week so I’ve ordered a new 25m length fence - half as long as the current one. We’re going to re-site the hens near to the greenhouse, well away from the toads’ motorway, and their eventual path to the potager where they will take up employment as chief snail & slug catchers. The hens will be fine in a smaller space. There are only three for heaven’s sake. They don’t need 50m2. Spoilt brats.
Today I sowed some Pineapple tomatoes - fat yellow ones that come later in the season. So that’s it for March. It’s been a good month. The greenhouse is full of young plants waiting for higher overnight temperatures to go into the potager. Everything in the potager is doing very well. We’re harvesting salads, cabbages, coriander and rhubarb. Broad beans and peas will be the next crop to develop and they are looking in excellent shape. The strawberries are flowering, so all’s well with our world.
