Spring update

I spent the day grafting fruit trees 07/04/19 thanks to Patrick (my grafting guru), so the orchard is coming along nicely. Will show you the photos of these grafts once they have leaves, it is so exciting!

This autumn and winter there has been some progress, with new raised beds (thanks Nigel) filling in what was a gaping gap in the vegetable garden, plus thanks to a priceless present of horse manure, the trees are blossoming and seem to be growing as expected, and the pool is being transformed with some beautiful plants and lots of preparation for the filtration system.

 

The worms are doing fine and their produce is feeding the garden which in turn is feeding us. Just look at this rose bush which I have been feeding with the worm tea!

The cuttings taken a couple of years ago have been planted out so we have a bed with a row of gooseberries, the mother plants being from my mum's garden in the UK, a few rows of blackcurrants, raspberries and strawberries, rhubarb too. We just ate stewed rhubarb and apples for pudding tonight. I had to buy the apples, but I sincerely hope that after planting lots of (I've not counted recently) apple trees one day I will be picking them from my trees or bringing them out from storage. I am particularly happy with this bed of 'petits fruits' as they call them in French, as most of them are babies from my plants, thus it was almost completely free to fill it!

We have been eating greens and spinach from the garden and the greenhouse all

winter - it has admittedly been a mild one. Oh, and lambs lettuce. We have also been eating the chutney and tomato ketchup (Jamie Oliver's recipe highly recommended), tomato and vegetable sauces and jams from the most busy harvesting period of the year. I have worked out that I need to double that production! I shall I shall I shall fill that store room!

The greenhouse is now harbouring a plethora of germinating seeds, from courgette to pumpkin passing through tomatoes and peppers amongst others and of course including some flowers.

The home improvements are coming on, the idea being to reduce our bills and become as environmentally friendly and autonomous as possible. The wood-burner is a success, it looks good too! It has not really been put to the test this winter as it was a mild one. So far so good, we have not had to use the radiators too much (would like to install alternative as they are fuelled by diesel). For only part of the winter we had to turn them on in the end rooms (Siberia) as there has been a leak in the roof (Oh NO!) and Ivor's bedroom wall is to be re-done.

There was much sadness the day that we were visited by a predator, which ate a good number of our chickens and two of our much appreciated grass-eating ducks. So with a vastly reduced and interestingly enough no male flock, we have strangely the same if not an increased number of eggs on average! I have drawn some conclusions from this and will house no more male fowl (probably).

Several of the grafted trees from my first ever lesson have taken, and one was dug up and brought down from the old garden to the new and duly planted with the help of our new friend Kami from New York. (Update - the tree is looking good after moving home)

This cherry tree is taking pride of place, I am dreaming of it as a large tree in front of the house, children climbing in the branches. My only trial and tribulation now is that I must wait for all these amazing trees to bear fruit! As a youngster, computers taught me patience, trees will carry on the work.

 In other news an old friend, Christophe Cardon59 from Lille, a wood sculptor of amazing talent, (check out his work here) has been visiting for over 15 years now and is working on a sculpture for the garden. Some of the trees from the farm needed cutting, so he has gained a mast for his boat, and we have gained a Maypole/Totem Pole for our garden. It is an original project, and I am enjoying watching the transformation of the oak tree into a feature for the center of the garden. None of us like cutting down trees, being mainly interested in the preservation and plantation of these, but sometimes it is necessary. Agro-forestry and managing woodlands, husbandry of this beautiful planet on which we have the good fortune to reside is imperative.

More photos to follow, as the Totem pole deserves its own post!

There have been many more developments, I shall have to write more often...

So Fa so good

The project moves on, with help from so many different sources. We will need to choose a name soon.

The trees are growing and some are being allowed to produce a few fruit - just the older trees.

We went to buy a trailer load of lombricompost - here's a link, as I recommend this compost, high in nitrogen and potassium.



I couldn't resist buying a loads of worms (who could?), and, when we got back, putting some into the worm farms Ivor and I had dotted around the garden, plus into the compost. Can you see the wriggly writhing worms?

Since then, we have acquired a 'proper' worm farm - from here, and are hoping that they will proliferate. After all, the worms do all the dirty work for us in a no-dig garden.

The farmer we bought the worm compost from buys in organic manure, and the worms do their job, leaving behind what I call 'black gold'. Before we started the garden I did test the soil, and there was no nitrogen (see previous posts) which will be amply provided by the worm compost.
Here is  a link to the Royal Horticultural Society's pages about lombricompost click here
I have also prepared some nettle 'tea' for the garden - and will be adding comfrey to it too (see photo).

Any progress made on the project is thanks to our helpers. Rose and Jim deserve a special mention this post, not only are they our biggest sponsors so far, but they have visited and helped out at the farm too.





New beds have been created, this one is named 'Jim's bed' for the moment ;) Here are the men creating the walls. (photo left)



and here is the still to be filled in carrot bed (Hi Rose 😊)









The asparagus have been planted too. They are funny looking things, like the octopus man out of The Pirates of the Caribbean - photo left.



 and here is proof that the 17 year old Fabien is able to help -with a smile- ;) photo right. I know you can't see his smile, but I think it was there.




The chickens must love their new, automatically opening and closing door, (see photo, right) they are out early into their amazing, orchard-encompassing 'coop' (don't worry, they are certainly not cooped up!), and we only have to visit them once or twice a day, instead of three or four times. Ivor and I and Alex watched said door close at 9.30pm, Ivor being allowed to stay up especially - it was 'epic, but scary' he must've used the word weird too, as that is his favourite, overused word at the moment. The water recuperation system is being installed, we should find out if the underground reservoir we found is water-tight or not. Oh, and the fencing! The deputy mayor popped round to see if the greenhouse is legal (he reckons it is and that is good enough for me) and was properly impressed by the fencing! A very professional job apparently.

It was great to welcome an old friend, a Wwoofer from the Funny Farm, Lucy and her two children to the new project. Look at the bed we filled while you were here, those onions look fine don't they? The sweetcorn are also on their way, following a lovely spring of rain alternating with some sun.





Jim, Rose and family, the leeks look lovely in Jim's bed :D
There is also green and red basil, courgettes, thyme and two varieties of parsley in the bed now, which has been given a layer of lombricompost after being filled with soil from the garden. The mulch on top is the remains of a rotten hay bale (hopefully not too many seeds will germinate) donated by Lolo.






and here is the verveine, do you remember Jim? I wanted to show you how to take a soft-wood cutting and I used the tip of the verveine (Verbena) plant... as a wise man once said (your dad apparently) cut it off, stick it in and give it three taps and you're done. Well, he was right and the verbena plant has taken - so then there were three in the garden! The small plant next to it is a basil just germinated.





The black currant plants that we potted-up are looking great too. (photo right)

Here is a photo of some of the sponsored trees - thanks to Gabi too, yours is the second one along - Reinette de Brive. (photo left)




The greenhouse has provided a haven for the seedlings, which as the frost is over will be soon finding a home in the garden - some having already been evicted. Being able to plant out early is a great advantage, the tomatoes and aubergines in the greenhouse are already flowering, and have probably set by now - Gardener's Delight, Andine Cornu, and Pinapple tomatoes in there (gotta try everything at least once eh?).



 Here are the tomatoes, looking strong! (right)


                                               
and the newly planted capsicum and cucumber (left)

The potatoes look amazing, even if I say so myself! So far no sign of the potato beetle, but we are

keeping an eye out. This year we have planted Mona Lisa, Bintje, and Ratte potatoes, oh, and some violet blue variety that I found in an organic shop in Carcassonne. Mona Lisa is supposed to be a hardy, resistant to all diseases variety, whereas the Bintje is a sensitive plant, but Salix the chef-son said they are one of his favourite. The Ratte potato is quite hard to come by and is particulary nice.

The leeks are in, about 100 of them, and today I planted out the Queensland Blue (seeds all the way from Australia), and some other pumpkin varieties, plus a couple of courgettes and cucumbers. I also split the yarrow plant that I planted last year, as it is a good companion plant. Lots of seeds are coming up, I guess it must be spring time!

A special shout out to mum, who came and supported us for a week or so, and is official egg taster for life, here she is trying Xandrija's recipe, although I believe she was supposed to have avocado with it - next time eh!

 and here are two intrepid explorers having successfully caught a couple of mating frogs

And here is Ivor bucket head :D

and here he is again, proudly carrying the flowers for the 8th of May ceremony in our village

And finally, who can name this alien-looking creature hiding amongst the chives - if you can spot it :D

Grafting fruit trees

Today, Sunday 11th March 2018  I grafted about 15 fruit trees. Talk about feeding future generations! I have waited so long to try this out, and it has fulfilled all my expectations. Of course, it will take a couple of weeks to see if they have worked or not, but I have everything crossed and well, why shouldn't they!
So Patrick the local lad mentioned in other posts accompanied Ivor and me to the old farm, where there are plenty of wild cherry trees and almonds that have grown from seed.

One day when we had a load of wwoofers and helpxers I sent them off almond picking and they came home happily showing off a trunk full of almonds (literally). However, I had omitted to remind them of the bitter almond. So we were faced with trying each almond, or throwing the lot out. After poisoning myself with cyanide a few too many times, I threw them onto the garden in several spots thinking to myself that maybe some would grow. And they did. And now I am grafting onto them. So perfect. Lesson to be learned, when picking almonds always try one from each tree as bitter almonds are rightly named.

The cherries have grown from seed too, either from cherries we ate or perhaps wild animals. The two older boys argue over who spat out the seed that grew into the cherry tree next to our old kitchen hut - it bears tasty cherries - and today I grafted from that tree onto one of the wild cherries. It may be our very own variety - we will have to name it! sabien?  fabix? random spit cherry? ha ha.

Patrick has suggested that we leave the rootstock that we have planted this year to establish themselves and then we can graft them next year. I still plan on visiting the apple trees in my mum's back garden to take grafts!

Today we also grafted pear and apple onto hawthorn! Excellent stuff. Oh, and apricot onto almond too.

Most of the photos show the crown graft, but we did try one chip bud graft (at least I think that is what it is called in English, will check):

Doesn't look like much, but apparently they are the most successful grafts!


Wednesday  14th March, son number two's 17th birthday, I grafted all on my own. Well, Alex and Ivor came with me, Alex attacked the clematis and brambles, freed a couple of trees and cleared where the old sheep tunnel was, and Ivor filled the water butts from the source, and 'helped' generally.

I only cut myself twice! I grafted cherry onto wild cherry, and then just for fun, onto one wild cherry with three trunks just behind where the old kitchen used to be, I grafted cherry, almond and apricot (from left to right in the photo)! Makes me shiver.

A new project

We started our new life in a new home, a dream come true, moving in on the ninth of September this year, 2016. I still, two months and ten days later find it hard to believe that we are actually here. I really am sitting in this house, next to the fire, typing this story. I visited these gardens in the year 2000, when they were for sale, it was a farm back then, a market garden, with greenhouses, watering system and chemicals splashed and sprayed copiously. I couldn't afford to buy the place. I got to know the lucky buyers, we planted some lavender that I grew from seed in this garden! Time moved on, and so this year did Sue and Jon, who kindly accepted my offer and have allowed me the opportunity to dig in and start a new life project. And so I have become the owner (or shall be in 25 years) of an amazing piece of land, flat, walled, sandy loamy soil and untouched for 15 years so organic. A blank slate (Sue and Jon will be the first to admit that they are not gardeners), one hectare (2.2acres) on which to unleash my energy and dreams. Orchard, worm farm, herb garden, chickens, butterflies, ladybirds, hedgehogs and bees here we come, not necessarily in that order.

Why multifunctional life? I believe that is what us women are supposed to be capable of, and I guess as a single mum of 3 boys, a full time teacher (that's 20 hours a week in front of students this year) and a member of the local council with a passion for planting and global politics, any peruser of this blog may expect to read about anything and everything. #eclectic :)

Thank goodness I have help and support in the form of my ageing spinster friend Alex, (her words, not mine) my ex-neighbour Ann, and more recently Hills and Hannah, who brought their beautiful energy to park in the driveway in their spot on, kitted out van (to be proud of Hills). These four wonderful individuals remind me how empowering it can be to have people around that are easy-going, relaxed, and efficient.
So, welcome to my life, hope you enjoy the trip and let's get cracking!

Hills and Hannah with Fabien and Ivor