A deer’s diet is never dull

Still warm. When will this weather turn? I did a quick watering of the garden and a minor weeding of the mini meadow before zipping up to Vernoux for market day. It’s always festive in summer, but there weren’t as many stalls as I had thought. But a friend later explained that this is prime time for the market people to take their hols before the slog of July and August. Luckily the one person I needed was there. The farmer who sells leek seedlings. I bought a bundle of 50. I have been in denial about the work involved in the leek planting. But there they were, 50 plants for three euros fifty. What could I do? Luckily I eschewed the bundle of 100 for 6 euros. That would be a killer. But hours later I am still in denial about planting them.  I have plonked them in a bucket of soil and water and left it in the potting shed.   It’s too hot to subject the seedlings to life in the ground.

I also bought twenty small lettuce plugs too. If you are a pessimist you could say it’s like buying another bit more variety for the deer’s diet. Luckily the investment is very small – mere coins. But I will need to secure the cloche properly. Do I have more enviromesh? Not sure. I could try and attach the netting that secured the broad beans. But if Daisy is going to head butt the net and get to her favourite veg- then I don’t want her caught up in ten metres of net.

Meanwhile back at the ranch I am merely trying to keep up with the cherry harvesting: Jan is going like a train. Kilos and kilos are now in sacks in the kitchen awaiting jam factory production. Too warm (27C) to sit in the sun, so the factory has moved under the shade of the grapes in the courtyard to get pitted.

And I went indoors to make the first kilo of jam. They look so much paler than the black cherries. A subtler look and I think they will have to sit a bit before tasting. It’s funny, I never taste these jams. They just go into jars, get labelled and stacked.

After enjoying the cool of the house for too long I shot out to do outdoor tasks (pool opening, vacuuming) and pulling up all the spent broad beans in the lower potager. It’cs a bit of a blank canvas now. Well, that’s showing off, it’s a rather hot dead black fly sticky blank canvas. More peas? Perhaps. More rows of carrots. I will weed and ponder.

I had to creep into the shade and pull weeds out of the gravel under the mulberry tree in the courtyard. But then couldn’t put it off any longer. The pool bank of pennisetums had a crop of weeds that needed yanking.  (I don’t have an ‘after’ shot as I haven’t quite finished the job.) And the growth on the steps leading to the pool wasn’t just grass that had germinated. Oh no, it’s more weed than seed. But if I can keep the thatch down, it may look good from a distance.

I kept going to the thermometer to see if the temp was dropping as I had to get the lettuce into the ground. But even though there were storms over near Aubenas none were coming our way. Eventually at six I just decided to go down and get the job done.

This is the after shot of the cropping of the lettuce from the local wildlife. So at least I have an almost blank canvas. Cleared it and planted up the twenty little plugs.  And then it was time to build the cloche. Double protection (hah!) with a net and then the last of the enviromesh which I have stapled to the frame. It is a sickly green colour (not sure that comes out well in the pic) but will provide a bit of shade for the growing plants. Lots of water and that was it. Down tools and watch the storms from the comfort of the terrace.