Day at the beach

Well it’s a bit of a stretch of the imagination: we are after all, 550 metres above the sea and in the middle of the mountains of the Ardeche.   But I felt as though I was making sand castles and generally having fun in the sun. All this in the lower potager – my vegetable playground.

Naturally there was no getting away from wall work first thing. I spent the first three hours outdoors collecting small stones to add to the piles beside Nicolas’s latest creation.   I used the car again to win some time and save the spine, and it worked a treat as I was raiding stones from the stack on the first terrace below the road. Nice and flat and easy to reach.

But after that I powered into the potager with my packets of seeds and seed potatoes.   Two trenches of charlotte potatoes in first next to the tomatoes. (I know, I know, but we don’t get blight here), 21 potatoes per trench.

Next up some chives for the edge of the onions and garlic bed, plus a short row of creme de lite carrots to make up the row.

Then it was risk the wrath of hungry beasts and plant out the rest of the carrots in unprotected rows in the space left from all the onions and garlic sets.  I planted out. Early nantes 2, and parmex in alternating rows. It should be easy to weed them as I can sit on the edge of the path at a perfect level and pull the weeds.

There were a few left over onion sets so they went in. And then I decided to use the last bit of spare space in this quadrant to sow some gladiator parsnips.   By the time I had finished playing with my bucket and spade it looked as though I had buried a boa constrictor.   A big fat raised bed to make up for the lack of space below the soil. We are on bedrock here.

A quick pause to do another load of stones and speak to the electrician. And then I made a few rows of radish and beetroot. They are a bit close together, but all being well the radish will grow quite quickly and when they come up I can make room for the bigger beet varieties. I sowed albina vereduna, beitola da orto paonazza d’egitto (rolls off the tongue) and the radish varieties were national 2,  and zlata.

Have I forgotten anything? Possibly. But barring the tomatoes, the cucumbers, the aubergines, the climbing beans and the lettuce… I’m done.   But I will check my seed boxes tonight to make sure I haven’t neglected any vital veg.   I’m eschewing corn this year – too thirsty.   And will think long and hard about the pumpkins. I lost the lot last year despite lavishing care and attention on them.