I couldn’t wait any longer.  I dug my first parsnip today.  I had been waiting for the first frosts and this is supposed to make them taste much ’sweeter’.

With no sign of frosts on the way, I decided to dig one up to see if there was anything under the mass of leaf growth which had virtually now died back.

In with the fork – twice!  What a shock.  I pulled out the biggest parsnip I’ve ever seen.  Fully intact and smelling as fresh as I imagined it would.  All these weeks and months of waiting, battling with the black fly and continuous watering during the dry summer.

If the first is anything to go by, I’m in for a a few great roast dinners through this winter – can’t wait!

I have a new enemy in the vegetable patch. It makes lots of tunnels and eats my parsnips and carrots from below ground. Whilst weeding the other day, I noticed 3 parnsips had disappeared with only the leaves left in place. The parsnips had been pulled down from underground.

Next to these are my carrots. I found 4 carrots, all chewed to pieces and some with only the carrot tops left strewn on top. The following day, I checked again. Another parship and some carrots gone.

What is this mysterious creature? It’s not my other enemy the mole. Mr mole will only eat worms, not my prize vegetables.

Someone suggested it was probably a field mouse or vole. So straight down to the hardware shop and promptly purchased 2 mouse traps. The first night I laced with with a nice piece of banana and some nuts. The next morning, they had been eaten, the traps set off but nothing caught.

The next night I tried a different tactic. I place a pea on the spike as I thought the banana and nuts were too easy to reach without standing on the trap.

It worked. The next morning on checking the traps, there was an extremely large rodent. Not a field mouse or vole. After speaking to Lucien next door, he told me it was a rat. They are regular visitors to his garden, especially to eat the pigeon food which gets strewn everywhere.

Apparently they have very diverse diets and will eat vegetables from underground along their tunnel systems. I’ve never seen a rat before and always thought they were really big brown rodents. There is a wide variety of them and I’ve done the research on the net and found mine.

I believe it to be the Wild Norway Rat – it had the same grey colouring and was about the right size.

I don’t like killing wildlife and I try to avoid it as best I can, but I only had 14 parsnips in the first place and within 2 days they were down to 10.

So another lesson learned for next year. I’ve already started the research for ways of stopping them getting into my vegetables in the first place.

After battling for weeks with the bizarre weather, we are finally enjoying some of the first sweet pickings from the vegetable patch.

I picked a couple of dozen pea pods swollen with juicy fresh sweet peas. We’ve had them both raw in salads and cooked – they taste sensational.

The small strawberry plants I was given by our good friends George and Ali have settled in well and we have had a few bowls of lovely sweet fresh strawberrys. Luckily for us, wild strawberrys grow all around the garden and although small, a great addition to their larger conterparts or just sprinkled on top of icecream – delicious!

My final sweet picking of early season is some new potatoes, freshly dug. I only put a few in but each one has produced a good 6 to 8 succulent tubers which we’ve eaten with a variety of fresh fish and good local Limousin Steak.

The vegetable patch is looking really healthy and the space is now full. The dwarf beans which started off very slow, are now full of flowers and the first signs of small green beans are appearing. The tiny leeks I put in have survived the onslaught of rain during the storms and are now beginning to get bigger.

I have finally managed to get some lettuce going and have planted a variety called Battavia. I started them off in small pots and then put a bottle cloche over each one to give it a good start. Between all the longer growing salads I have continued planting rocket, raddish and cress.

There was a major attack of blackfly on the Parsnip and Beetroot. I mixed a solution of vegetable soap and water into a spray bottle and this seems to have done the trick. Everything looks like it has survived although some of the leaves have shrivelled and browned.

The leaves on the garlic are just starting to go over so it will nearly be time to dig these and dry them for storage. The cucumber plants I put in now have small yellow flowers so I hope to see the start of some cucumbers soon. I am also trying a couple of melons but I’m not convinced they will make much progress but we will see.

Squash corner at the back has taken off and is now looking more like a jungle. I hope I get a good crop of squashes this year. There are already signs of small pumpkins showing.

Finally, the tomatoe plants have surived so far with the help of a strip of plastic sheeting to protect them from the worst of the weather. I have a couple of cherry tom plants which are now looking quite strong and healthy with about 4 to 5 other varieties – although small – are still alive!

So far I’m pleased with progress and will report on the pickings over the coming months.

It’s official, the first day of summer (according to Google) and it’s come with a bang. Temperatures are up into the 30’s and we’ve had some spectacular thunder storms.

Everything in the garden is growing at a full rate of knots and some of the flowers are flourishing in the warm weather.

There have been a few surprises with a fantastic crop of deep red lillies growing at one corner of the pond (sure they weren’t there last year).

Also, I’ve had more time to plant some perenials this year which I’ve grown from seed.

These include geraniums, pyrethrum and geum. It’s been a bit hit and miss with things like rudebeckia and echinacea and the earlier cold weather killed off most of my attempt at growing lobelia from seed.

The sweet peas I planted by the patio doors are glorious and their scent is outstanding.

So far summer is off to a good start, long may it continue ….

Cosmos in full flower

Spectacular Red Dahlia

I’ve been busy planting out all of my veggies that I started in pots under cloched boxes. It’s been a strange month because it started very hot and dry and it’s been hard work keeping up with the watering. Then we had a dip in the weather and some things stopped growing all together and others rotted.

This is the run down of how everything is getting on:

French Beans – I haven’t been able to germinate any beans directly sown, only in pots. I’m not sure why this is but I made sure I planted enough to spare in case I lost any to slugs. They have been slow to start because of the funny weather but some now have their second and third leaves.

Tomatoes – These germinated quite successfully, then in April it was so cold they stopped grown completely and some rotted away. I had to start again in late April and early May. Planted out 6 cherry tomatoes and 8 standard tomatoe plants under bottle cloches. One of the cherry tom plants has out grown it’s cloche, and others are still only an inch high! The standard tomatoe plants are very slow going but I’ll leave them in and hope they catch up.

Squashes, pumpkins and Courgettes – I turned over the old compost corner at the back which was used for all my veggies last year. This has become my squash corner. After trying for weeks, I finally managed to germinate some squash seeds and they are all in along with a couple of courgettes and pumpkin. They are all still going and have escaped slug attack so I hope growth is good in the coming weeks.

Salads – Well for some reason, I’ve failed miserably on getting a good crop of healthy lettuce. There are a couple of red frilly and green rosso’s looking good but that’s nothing compared to the number of seeds I’ve planted. It’s been a bit of back luck in one way, as we have had extremely heavy rain fall which I think has washed a lot of the seeds away. Still determined to get something going, I’ve now put some seeds in pots and planted a few under cloches direct. We have been enjoying cress and rocket for weeks now which is very satisfying and tasty.

Potatoes – I’m hoping to dig some early potatoes soon. No flower heads just yet but they must be imminent. After I’ve cleared them, I’ll use the space for some winter veggies.

Cabbages et al – Put in 6 very healthy cabbages for autumn picking and they seem quite happy. A mole managed to dig up 2 of them but I put them back in, watered well and so far they are still looking lively. I’ve also started the Brocolli which will be ready of the winter months later this year and early next. Four have gone in and I’ve put a further 4 seeds in pots to stagger the growing.

Peas – Although you don’t get a lot of peas from each plant, they are delicious straight from the garden.

I’ve made the use of the short hedge along the edge of “squash” corner and have some healthy specimens full with pods waiting to ripen.

The other peas have been planted into the patch next to the beans and I’ve used some old tree branches as pea sticks.

These were later going in and much smaller but they have their first flowers just appearing.

Spring onions – These are a bit of a mystery. I’ve planted 4 or 5 times now and each time – NOTHING. I’m beginning to think it’s because they are a very old pack of seeds so I need to go and buy a fresh packet as I’m sure they are not that diffcult to grow.

Root vegetables – Parsnips are going strong and assuming the moles don’t get them, we’ll be enoying them this winter.

Carrots are another awkward customer but I’ve managed to get a few going and keep planting in succession. Beetroot has taken off all of a sudden and the purple and green leaves look a blaze in the patch.

All in all, it has been fairly successful so far – but hard work. I have planted some cucumbers, sweetcorn and small squashes down behind the hedge at the end of the garden as a bit of an experiment. It captures lots of heat there but it’s very rough ground and full of weeds. The constant cutting back of the grass and nettles might put an end to the idea next year, but we’ll see how it goes … Until then, here are just some of the lovely radishes we’ve been enjoying since mid April ..

There’s much to be said about making use of other peoples “unwanteds”. Apart from saving a bit of money, it gives you great satisfaction to have re-used something that would have otherwise gone onto the skip. During all those years of spending holidays in France, I often noticed just how many gardens had what I would have described as “piles of old junk” stashed in a corner somewhere.

Since living here, and being on a fairly tight budget, you get to understand why this old junk is there. It makes sense to re-use old pallets, wood, bricks and such like in the garden for which you would have otherwise paid a fair price for. I last reported on my use of some old bits of wood and pallets to make the surround for my veggy patch. Continuing on that theme, I needed to section off an area at the back of the house for a larger composting heap.

Pallets are useful but very hard work to split and bit on the bulky side for what I needed.

Then I was talking to our mate, Peter Beta Biker about his garden clearance activities and discovered that he had a couple of bundles of old chicken wire he was going to take down the tip.

They were in quite a mess, twisted and tangled and clogged up with old dead vines. On looking at them you wouldn’t have thought that there was much you could do with them, but I’ve learned quickly not to be daunted by such things and just get on and try it. If it works, great, if not then I’ve lost nothing except a little time.

After 45 minutes of clipping, pulling and unravelling I had a perfect roll of chicken wire ready for use.

I’ve already used a piece to support some peas and the rest is enough to make my compost surround – just need to sort out a couple of poles or stakes to make the supports.

After my success, I did the same with the second tangled heap and I now have another roll to use for whatever ……

Trying to decide what to plant is difficult because there are so many nice things to grow.

Although the patch is quite large and I am also using other parts of the garden to grow some vegetables, there is still a limited amount of space.

I’ve decided to grow alot of my favourite vegetables that are expensive to buy here. Parsnips are not something the french eat a lot of so the supermarkets rarely stock them. I have found them at the local market but they are over 3 euros a kilo!

I have been planting parsnips at about 2 week intervals since the middle of March. To help them get a good start, I’ve been using a plastic bottle cut in half as a cloche. So far they are germinating quite well so I’ll keep them covered which will also help keep the slugs out.

At the same time, I’ve been planting radish and have now got three rows appearing at various stages. Yesterday, I picked the first 4 of them and we had them with our dinner last night – delicious.

Carrot seeds went in a few weeks ago and have been slow to start because of the cold weather but you can now see the carroteristic (!) leaves showing through. The lettuces I started back in march now have about three leaves – still very small but getting there. Some of the fastest crops to appear have been the tall salad cress which doesn’t seem to mind the colder weather so that is doing the best so far. All the garlic is now up along the front line of the patch – although it’s not doing any good keeping the moles out!

Home grown potatoes are always very nice but they do take up a lot of room and they are relatively cheap to buy. We cleared a dead tree along the edge of the garden last year so I dug out the old tree stump and am growing some earlies on the patch of ground to see how they grow. If they do well, I’ll use this same patch later in the year to put some cabbages or leeks.

Along with planting out in the patch itself, I have been making an early start in pots with peas, beans, tomatoes, leeks, cabbages, sweetcorn and various herbs.

Most of these are ready to go out but it’s still a bit too early so I’m leaving them in boxes under protection at night until I’m sure the weather has changed for the better.
One of my favourite vegetables is the Butternut Squash. Again, they are expensive to buy – mainly due to the shear weight of one vegetable. Last year I bought one squash and scooped out all the seeds. I planted some in pots in March but they didn’t germinate and after doing a bit more research, I discovered that they are normally planted in May so need quite a warm temperature to germinate. Using an old ice cub tray, I put some compost into each compartment with one squash seed and covered it with a plastic tub and left them in the in the living room. Voila – they germinated great within 2 weeks, so I now have a good 12 plants well on their way to be planted out in May.

Amongst all the vegetable planting, I have also done the same with flowers and perennials to add more colour to the garden this year. Again, some plants have been very hit and miss to germinate with the weather being so cold but I have a reasonable selection of small plants developing. I have been using the boot of the car to germinate seeds as it’s just like a greenhouse during the day. One of the most difficult to germinate has been the nasturtiums. I’ve tried soaking them before hand and planting them as is, but they seem to take ages to germinate and some not at all.

There’s only a week and half to go to the end of April so it should get warmer now. Before long I’ll be writing about how hot it is and that everything is drying out …..

Last year, I used the old compost heap as a make shift veggy patch. It worked quite well but the main problems were that the shape wasn’t easy to use and also it was in shadow by 3pm in the afternoon.

A new location was required, and so the hedge down the south side of the garden, which had seen better days and was overgrown with brambles, was the chosen spot. After clearing the tree, I dug up the rest of the hedge with my trusty mattock – see my post here, and I spent some time digging it over to remove the remaining roots and brambles. After a lot of blood sweat and swearing – this left me with a nice 10m length of ground but … the ground slopes downwards towards the fence line

I want access to the patch along both sides so I needed to construct some sort of support to hold up the soil a bit like a raised bed. Although wood is in abundance here, it still costs money to buy it and the estimate for my construction was about 50-60 euros – which we didn’t have going spare.

So over the past few months, I have been collecting pallets and other bits and pieces which could be used instead. I started off one end by using the old panels from the wardrobe we took out last year (in nice fetching pink!) and holding them upright by hammering in some of the branches we pruned off the cherry tree. At the other end I wove together some flexible cherry tree branches and made a 90 degree corner.

Now I needed a further section of fencing so it was time to break out the pallets. They are a bugger to get apart as the nails have usually rusted solid and the wood just splits. I tried all sorts of methods but nothing really works well. After a lot of wresting (god is it worth the effort I ask myself), I did manage to get a few planks off intact. I used these to construct a piece of fencing with two planks as uprights and then nailed a few others across. Banged these into the ground and hey presto they work really well.

Finally I get all the edging complete and I can now dig more vigorously, without the worry of the soil disappearing down the slope into the field next door. Oh, I should mention that Steve did help out by taking a shovel along the fence line to clear a path for me With a final addition of some rotted compost from the heap and a raking, it’s ready to use.

The finished article isn’t perfectly symetrical and is a bit ramshackled but it works and when we are enjoying the fruits of my labour throughout this year – I’ll remember those bl@@dy pallets!