And here it is: didn’t take as long as I feared. And it was so much fun. I suspect I have gone a bit wonky down by the olive trees below the house. But I suspect I won’t be so fussy as to go back and obsessively remeasure. The east garden didn’t fit onto the page, so it has to be relegated to the next sheet. It looks rather long and thin. But at least it all shows potential.

I was going to go out to the photocopy shop to get it reduced and remove that dodgy line down the right hand side of the house. But it is teeming down and I am reluctant to get wet.

Yesterday’s long trip up and down to Newcastle produced more results. Here is my first draft of the shade garden planting scheme.

Sticking on the little pink circles was marvellous fun. I tried drawing the plants and ended up squishing all the plants into the corners and leaving a gaping hole in the middle of the bed. It’s eight metres long and about three and a half metres wide at the central point, so there will be a lot of swapping and sorting when I actually have the plants on the blank canvas. Wish it was going to just as easy to buy the plants, grow some from seed, create enough weed suppressing bark chip mulch and actually get the flowers into the ground.

Off to visit a garden tomorrow: Waterperry Gardens in Oxfordshire, so that may inspire. And I am hoping they have some bare root fruit trees that are not so large I will have to send them unaccompanied luggage on the train.

And a belated thank you to Sarah for telling me the closest colour of the olives from our trees. Cadmium green light. And that reminds me, have to give them the daily change of salty water. Tedious task, but not as bad as other jobs in the fruit garden.

Sunshine at last. Waking up this morning I vowed to spend the day mostly outdoors as Thursday felt like house arrest: painted all day. Did not step one foot outdoors for the entire day. And here is the result.

First task of the lovely sunny Friday was to plant up the four little olive trees I bought from the large St Péray garden centre Jaquet on Wednesday. They were in the sale section of the huge nursery; a snap at three euros each (Olea europa Cipressino). And I found some more small pots of the sedum Autumn Joy and a few plants of the Anemone Honorine Jobert variety, which I am sure will go well in the shade garden. No design yet or planting plan, but I’m reading and pondering and making tentative lists.

I thought the little olives (variety, promises to be able to withstand the cold) would do well next to the large established olive tree down below the plum trees in front of the house. There is a bank just made for it; here is the before shot. And in went the trees. Rich and lovely soil. All soft from the endless days of rain. Naturally this is going to be a devil to keep weed free in the spring. I hope I come up with the solution before the strimmer has to penetrate the usual thicket. I did put down a mulch of river stones directly around the trees. but will need to either mulch with more stones later, or put down some weed proof fabric. Wheeling up to the small stone store at the end of the property brought back memories of hauling stones in September, but luckily it didn’t take long.

I used the excavated soil from the olives as fill in behind the wall at the pool. There is a rather vast amount of soil that needs to be added to this wall area before we get the grasses planted up. I had hoped that falling chestnut burrs and leaves would build up the levels but there is about a foot of soil to go.

Lots of trudging of the heavy wheel barrow up across the lawn. Nicolas was busy building the little retaining wall in the sunshine. Note the t-shirt in this early November day.

And I found myself peeling layers of fleeces and hats as the day went on. Especially as there was wood to bring down from the top of the property and into the Calabert. Most impressive amount of wood now that the stack has been built.

As I was trudging I noticed that the olive tree below the house is still full of fruit; out came the ladder and up I went a-harvesting. There is now a whopping two kilograms of the fruit ready for me to soak in brine for weeks and weeks. One day we will hopefully have a bumper harvest large enough to press. Home grown olive oil. Who would ever imagine it high up on a mountain in the Ardèche.

Up in the potting shed (which is getting crowded already) the garlic is coming along nicely. I really need to think about getting them into the ground at the end of the month. But that will involve digging over a quadrant of the lower vegetable garden and it is still sloshily wet.

I have done a little plan of the future rotation of vegetables for 2009. It’s fun to see how simple it is compared to this year’s ambitious artistic attempt. (The drawing is tiny, but I’m obsessed with small note paper at the moment.) Bernard finished four more cloches today (only with three curved struts which may be a bit risky in high winds) so there will be six cloches for all the vegetables to hide under. Imagine; no more cabbages peppered by cabbage moth butterfly larvae, salads unmunched by Daisy, and Swiss chard extant all through the season. Speaking of which, the slugs in this incredibly wet weather have appeared. I found a few living under the weed proof fabric below the winter cloche. That will be next year’s drama; if the pests don’t’ come from above ground, they will come from below.

Leaving for a few weeks is hard: the stipa grasses are safe so far in the shed, but will they suffer from a cold snap? And with all this blazing sunshine it’s hell to go away. I wish I could get up into the potting shed flower garden and dig over the soil; move the sedums grown from seed, and weed, weed, weed. Wouldn’t it be lovely to have that side of the shed as clear and lovely as the other?

I did have fun measuring the east garden and the bits that I have missed from the original scale drawing of the property. Ate three figs I found still on the tree as I was whizzing past with measuring line (marked off at every five metres), tape measure, paper and pencil with odd figures and diagrams. I have promised myself to make an updated garden plan by the end of the month. Watch this space.

Well goodbye snowy scene and hello storms. We have had days of tree bending gusts of wind that have driven us indoors and pelting rain. The beams are coming along nicely - but naturally it’s the garden that draws my interest. I don’t have any action photographs of the trees dancing in the storm. But the apple tree found itself at a rather rakish angle after all the wind died down.

At least the leaves have been ‘cleared’ from the courtyard. In fact I keep finding mulberry leaves all over the property in the most unlikely places. The rosemary bush is most decorated. And I even found them all over the shade garden. As if I didn’t have enough leaves to clear up underneath the chestnut monster. Here is the final process. Two days work but so attractive now. And full of promise. These really are blank canvasses crying out for some design and some plants.

I will take more photos when it stops raining. One things we did manage to do before the storms struck was to collect olives from the tree just in front of the house. Amazingly green. One always imagines olives to be, well olive. But these little luminous orbs are definitely off the spectrum. I will have to ask Sarah what colour they actually are. I need to soak them in brine for a few weeks, so will take them back to London with me on Saturday.

There were a few of my specialty grasses lurking under the weeds around the trial beds of the potting shed. Growing well as they have had so much water. But they are in the wrong spot. So up they came and I have dotted them around the next unstable bank that is crying out for some knitting and binding of roots. There are a few verbena bonariensis plants here on this terrace as well. Not sure how they will survive the winter, or even self sow. But it’s still an experimental part of the garden.

But the big creative part of the garden yesterday was the start of the potting shed terracing. Poor Nicolas couldn’t work on his wall as the weather was so inclement and the cement wasn’t happy. And he couldn’t make a start on the important stone steps down to the pool shed either. The ground is so sodden and shifting right now. We need a week of nice dry and lovely cool weather for more of that heavy lifting to get done. In the meantime he has made a start on the terrace. I was nearby hauling wood from the forest so had time to actually take some action photographs of the work in progress.

It’s a simple design, head up to the woods and find a good straight chestnut trunk. Drag it back. Thwack in some stakes; and then fill in the bank with some well dug soil (that was my contribution). This is a work in progress, and I will take more photographs so you can see the detail. They are actually quite large beds. So more work there then. And then the heavens opened and creative play was suspended for the day. Still managed another hour and a half of wood hauling. But that doesn’t take more than a strong back, a wheelbarrow, a raincoat and a determination to get all the wood in before dark.

I managed to get the time zone wrong last night and set the alarm to wake me up at 6am rather than 7am. Irksome, but actually it did mean that I could start my day that little bit earlier. Wood to collect, fire to light, emails to read, dawn to wait for. I was itching to see if the little grass seeds have germinated.

As soon as it was light I went out to check the lawn. No lawn. But I have put up the barriers just in case the seeds germinate and this should stop people walking across it.

It has been cold of the unseasonable variety today. Lynn was reminding me this morning that this time last year the children were swimming and the weather was gorgeous. Still, hauling soil keeps you warm; especially the heat around the nerves in the sciatica and spine. I have added more soil to the lilac bed to bulk it out. I will wait for it to settle and then add a bit more. I removed the last of the mulch from the top compost area, and then covered it with a layer of the proper soil.

The soil has been looted from just in front of the potting shed door. Juicy stuff, and plenty of worms. I can’t wait to landscape this area – it’s a bit of a dead zone right now. And I must track down Michel the tree surgeon (he is phone-less at the moment) and get him to raise the canopy of the chestnut trees around this area for future flower happiness.

The chestnuts drop an awful lot of leaves, fruit and burrs. Yes, burrs. I couldn’t for the life of me remember what they were called. So I called home and spoke to my ever knowledgeable father. Another reason for calling was to ask how Ruth and Bill get rid of their chestnut burrs after they fall. Having close family friends with a chestnut farm is a very useful mine of information and I intend to quiz them and inspect carefully when I am next at Mt Irvine.

Here is a lovely picture of them serenely posing under their chestnut trees for a magazine article. It sits on my desk beside me as inspiration. Having our chestnut trees on steep slopes means that to have such a picnic here would involve climbing harnesses and sturdy shoes.

How does Bill get rid of the burrs? He mows them. A sit on mower and under the trees and off he goes. Gad I’m jealous.

No time for pouting, it was time to go back out into the increasingly cold weather to work on the weeds around the potting shed flower garden. Must come up with a better name for these areas. They are all so much potential now and not much more and their rather bland names reflects their status. Maybe one day they will be the sedum garden, or the Pheasant’s tail grass garden. We shall see.  There were plenty of weeds to remove and soil to pile up in this area. So on with the fork and spade and the heavy lifting. This soil is destined for the future little terraces we are going to have on the slope. So I need to keep it out of the way of the landscaping of the flat terrace. It’s going to be an autumn project.

But as I was digging I kept looking up at the sky and marvelling at nature’s other plans. This isn’t autumn. It’s winter. And it’s snowing. Rather heavily in fact. So I did about an hour of damp work and then scuttled inside for plan B.

Painting. This living room ceiling is about to get a makeover. Wish I could wave my wand and have it transformed. Instead there’s about ten days of work up there, all aching neck and straining and drips of paint on the glasses. Bliss.

If you ask a French person what the Ardeche means to them, they will probably answer ‘Gorges’ and then tell you that the chestnuts from the Ardeche are the best in France. Other regions have apples, wine or specialty cheeses. We have the chestnut, and it has an appellation controllee. Which means that the farmers get a protected and premium price for their harvest; and punters come in their droves and nick the nuts that fall by the road.

Not a good harvest this year apparently, but the crop that has been falling on the roof of the potting shed (quite a thump and noise when you least expect it) and onto the ground around the shed has been cumbersome indeed. These future flower gardens and dramatic sweeps of grasses and plants are going to be swamped each year in knee deep chestnut leaves, nuts and prickly shells.I guess I will just have to incorporate it into the annual chores. And eat as many as we can to get some value from them.

I made a small compost bin (out of two more wooden pallets) up here to try and corral the leaves. And in about a year’s time they will be a lovely soil conditioner. But, oh the effort. Mind you the discovery of this chestnut crop has been a salutory lesson. Know your garden site before planting anything. You can stand looking down all your like trying to work out what plant goes where; but look up and this is what you see. Shade, shade, shade indeed.

Chastened, it was back to the drawing board to try and come up with shade tolerant plants, rather than those magnificent perennials that grow to two metres tall and thrive in full sun.

And then I realised that I had yet more bulbs to plant. Down to the wisteria bed to put in yet more white tulips and scented narcissus (it was crying out for a prune and a weed). And then heave my sack of Allium Purple Sensation bulbs down to the herb bed. How many more can I cram in here? Spring will show if I have been too extravagant.

And look who was waiting for a daily apple dose? They breed like rabbits up here.

Well that’s a relief. The rain gave up, everything is sodden, but at least the sun is shining. I have a task list that goes over two pages, but can’t do it all. So I shall start with the courtyard projects and then range up into the woods.

First job was to give in and plant ivy. Which is about as mad as wanting to put back verbascums or plant elderflowers on this property. We have more than enough ivy climbing where it isn’t intended. But the trough just cries out for a makeover. After a year and a half it isn’t getting any prettier. So out of the London bag comes five little variegated ivy plants. With luck they will cover this over-restored classic of the Ardeche courtyard, and I will be able to keep it in check when it eventually reaches the top.

Just beside the trough is a very fetching rock (about the size of a small bus) and then the dreaded rose. An eyesore. It is about to be disguised by a giant stipa grass that I want to plant in front. This gravel courtyard will eventually be a gravel garden and this is the first grass planted in a determined effort to improve.

It looks a bit stark right now. But give it time, and a few stipas around it and we shall see.

Another courtyard job was to remove the mint from the large planter (we call it the mint prison as it actually keeps this rampant creeper from escaping all over the path). The mint is now in pots in the shed for the winter. And in its place goes about fifty tulips. All white, and all fun to plant. Can’t wait to see if they come up and thrive. We don’t have squirrel problems here, but who knows may feast on these underground carbohydrate bombs?

No rest for the decorative, it was time to go up to the forest and bring down some wood for the fire. It isn’t really hard work, but repetitive and rather painful on the sciatica, but so satisfying first when you get them wood down to the launch pad just above the potager.  And then when you can whip out your camera and take a picture of the mighty pile sitting waiting for a lift in a wheelbarrow down to the shed.

With the windows in the office wide open I can hear the persistent sounds of our newly sown lawn floating away. Yep, it’s raining again. And it may be flooding. As soon as it gets light I shall go and see if the drainage channel up above the guest house is holding up. Naturally I have left all my raincoats in the car, so it will be sporting getting up there.

I gave up at 630am this morning – there was definitely no more sleep. All night we have had thunder storms and rain so heavy that I actually could hear it indoors. And when you see how thick our walls are and how quiet it usually is indoors at night you would be amazed too. Are we in for another big flood? It’s possible. Such a shame for that beautifully sown ‘piano’ of a lawn.

Yesterday was just heaven: spent hours and hours in the potting shed. If I can read my handwriting I planted on 26 land cress seedlings, 82 mache plants, 15 early purple garlic bulbs, 22 Albigensian varieties, 6 Purple Moldovan bulbs, 9 Chesnok reds and then for an encore sowed loads and loads of sweet pea seeds. And potted on more of the nepeta six hills giants which seem to have rooted well.

I did half the Matucanas straight away in long root trainers, and soaked the other half overnight. We shall see what germinates. I seem to recall that my germinations in the spring were very erratic. Fresh seeds may be the answer. And I brought from London Kings High Scent, Fragrant Skies as well as the trusty two coloured and aromatic Matucana. I’m not sure if this picture will show up the garlic bulbs. But I bought them at the Wisley Plant Centre earlier in the week.

They proved to be very pungent varieties of autumn sowing bulbs (stinky train journey for the other passengers). If all goes well I will also buy the spring varieties from Vernoux in March and plant row upon row of garlic in both the upper and the lower vegetable beds. We eat so much garlic and I found that I had to supplement the crops from ones bought up at the Thursday market stalls. Why? Because the grand total of successful bulbs that came out of the Marsanoux potager this year was… wait for it…. three.

Now it’s after lunch and I have warmed up enough to venture out again. Once I have tried to contact the miscreant chimney sweep for the third time. He was supposed to turn up at eight this morning, but the rain has put him off. I made fig jam while I waited, so it wasn’t an entirely wasted morning indoors.

Also morning I managed to vacuum the pool, reduce the water level (which was at flood height) marvelled in that aghast way at the amount of water gushing out of the springs all over the bank. One is up just above the future little wall. That drain can’t come in soon enough. And I think we might have to consider planting rice instead of grass seeds on the margins of the piano. It’s floating.

I want to take more verbena cuttings while I can (can’t get enough of em). And do some measuring up of the garden that I have ignored all summer. My last scale plan of the garden was completed in the spring. And did I do any more? Nup. Always found chores to put it off. I don’t know why as it’s rather fun striding off with a tape measure and the long line of string. It’s marked off every five metres so I can easily stride out and count off.

From the vantage point of the new orchard (27 metres long in case you were wondering) I heard the distant clatter of hooves. And it didn’t take long for the local transport to clop into chatting range. Twas our neighbour Jean Daniel who was riding off to work on his horse. It lends a lovely bucolic air to the place. Three of his horses escaped yesterday (hard to tell which as they are all greys) and were romping about the orchard at the top of the hill. They did look like it was an awfully grand adventure. Apparently JD doesn’t have enough electric fencing to keep them in check and relies on brambles and weeds to deter them from escaping. But these are Ardèche horses, brambles don’t deter them. I didn’t get a shot of him looking up as he was too busy showing all the reigns he had collected for the escapees. And I was juggling tape measure, notepad and pencil at the same time.

Forced in at four. Soaked yet again and not ready to come indoors. But it really was raining too hard up at the top potager to continue. I cut down the asparagus, pulled up the green manure. I think I was supposed to dig it in; but I couldn’t help yanking up the monster plants. So satisfying to fill two compost bins. Here is the before and the rather shorn after.

A few too many slugs were lurking nearby which isn’t good news. They were dispatched with secateurs in a manner that had me muttering ‘all god’s creatures’ and feeling some guilt.

I forgot to bring down the radishes I have pulled up. And I ate the raspberries rather than bring them back to freeze. There are still crops on the raspberry canes. But surely the cold will stop them producing.

Right, kettle has boiled. Time to remove a third set of clothes and cram them onto the clothes rack by the fire. I shall be forced to do painting and ironing at this early close of a gardening day.

Dangling around Vernoux waiting for our dear bank to sort out its glitches (computers down, cash machine down, no 50 euro notes) so naturally I mooched into the garden centre and bought a rake. I have to think about the top path – lots of chestnut leaves fall onto it, not to mention the mirabelles. Will the grass die there? Nicolas hasn’t sown any grass seeds yet as he is going to be traipsing across it getting stones for the path.

Back at last (I’m just not a townie) I managed to get into the shed and do some good. Verbena Bonariensis have definitely been the stellar plant of the summer. But that’s probably because it has proven so robust. Here they are in situ. And I can’t believe they survived their treatment. Sown in the spring, planted in the trial beds, yanked up and planted into the rock garden. Settled for a few weeks. And then I had a change of heart. Up they came again, and were planted on the edge of the bed. In all that time they flowered merrily, never drooped and didn’t die. Miracles. And now they have been trimmed, pruned and divested of side shoots. I have propagated like mad.

But what sturdy plants. They have rooted in no time and will hopefully produce hundreds more plants by the time my work is over. Verbenas do look lovely in block planting schemes. So I need scads.

I wish I could say the same for the few salvia caradonas that I possess. They were expensive but exquisite. If only I had more cuttings to take. I don’t think I have more than six to strike. But will just have to buy more of the parents in the spring and choose ones that have plenty of shoots.

The sage rooted well. It looks like it is going to be an annual task to replace plants that expire in the herb garden. If I look closely I can see about a dozen that don’t look like they are going to make it through the winter. It’s a learning curve, believe me.

Back after a week away and the apples have been busy. Busy falling more than anything else. The tree that sits high on the bank above the lawn doesn’t produce very tasty fruit. But what it does produce is prodigious. I collected a hefty bucketful from the lawn. And then went up to the happy recipients of this autumn fruit.

Jean Daniel’s lawn mowers are a greedy bunch. But so delightful. I can’t distinguish between them; but I know one of these horses is called Attila, another Atticus and another Arthur. Or is that the name of the cat? Oh well. They are most entertaining company right now as they whinney and chortle and generally make a muscial accompaniment to my work in the potting shed. The shed lies right on the boundary between our properties. And now the horses see me as a walking produce section of their Ardeche supermarket, I am in demand.

There must have been a good bit of rain while I was away; the roses in the courtyard have kept up a great display. I even managed to glean enough to have a selection of three in the house. The Gertie Jeykylls are definitely the strongest scent. But the others do their bit. I was all for getting rid of the straggling rose that lurks in the corner of the courtyard and replacing it with a giant stipa (which I hauled over on the train.) It’s the rose on the right. But it is still performing, and now that it is knee height rather than triffiding all over the courtyard, it may get incorporated into the future grasses design, rather than end up on the compost heap.

The autumn flowering courtyard bulbs are doing better than anyone expected. Not bad for 99 pence in the rummaging garden bins at the local cheap store. They are of the gladiolus family. But have a more exotic name such as Abyssinian sword lily. Or did I make that up? Lovely scent too. Delicate, but definitely there. I was thinking of cutting them and bringing them indoors (Flowers For The House being a persistent mantra) but the roses are scent enough.

What has come into the house is a bumper harvest of figs. Goodness that tree is putting on a late burst. I don’t recall this many in the first flush in the summer. Looks like I am going to have to rustle up some jam. I couldn’t possibly eat my way through this crop without dire consequences in the time it would take themto go mouldy and off. Here is another shot of the lovely roses. Could’t resist.

Nicolas has been at work while we have been away from the house. He has sown the seeds on the lawn at the end of the pool. It’s an area we call the piano as it has the shape of a grand piano. We will have to keep off it while the little seeds germinate. Quite exciting to think that another part of this mighty garden has been tamed.

He has made a start on the little retaining wall that will follow the steps up from the pool. I had rather hoped the era of slow wall work was over. But the last floods have made us realise that we need to keep these banks well secured. Hopefully as it is a low wall it won’t take as long as our great wall of China below the pool. I’m so keen for Nicolas to help with the more creative landscaping of future flower beds that I get antsy waiting.

I have now moved into the more creative phase of this garden. (Well that’s quite a boast, but it feels real). I have started on lists of garden flowers and grasses and am going to spend the winter getting proper planting plans together. One brainwave (too much tea) was to try and do something with the bank up behind the potting shed. Very hard to get a perspective of the slope. I shall try again with a picture from another angle. This is actually taken from Jean Daniel’s road. But you can see that it is crying out for something. Too too dull just to strim it twice a year. I have fantasies of Calamagrostis grasses and lots of tall perennial plants.

But first I need Nicolas to help me build steps down from the road to the shed. And then some barriers along the horizontals of the bank to create barriers for the plants. He does the steps with chestnut logs from the forest and they look very natural and simple. But clever. If all goes well we can get a few long rows of rhse wooden supports. And then we can build up the topsoil behind them and then plant like mad.

Naturally there is a lot more rock than I had first thought. That’s the problem with long distance planning. You can have it all planted up in your head, but reality is a lot more problematic.

I went inside to put the fire on, but really it feels quite mild. Sometimes you can come to the house after a week away and it feels like Siberia. But the gentle autumn afternoon was too tempting to be indoors diligently unpacking and getting sorted.

Instead I went out and tackled the lilac bed. I have extended it a few feet (shocking dry stone wall work, I know) and then filled in the bed with wheelbarrow loads of compost from the summer prunings. I had traipsed up to the very top of the drive to dump about a tonne of weeds in June. And it has turned into a mighty mulch. Good exercise bringing it all back down again. (Will I never learn to plan? I do recall thinking that I could do with another compost bin near the lower vegetable bed, but Bernard was busy and it was summer and the weeds had to be dumped somewhere.)

I haven’t finished filling in the bed. And it will need some topsoil (filched from somewhere), but it’s a work in progress. And on that note. Time for tea.

Big harvest day today. Following a lap around the vegetable garden with Nicolas yesterday I now have a plan of action. I need to harvest all the tomatoes; bring in the ripe and semi ripe and hang up the green ones in the shed. It’s time to harvest the pumpkin, get the grass seeds (for the lawn) up to the shed so he can find it and use it. And generally put the vegetable garden to bed.

I realise that I have never taken a photo of Nicolas - he is always on the move. But here is a shot of him testing his walls.

Yesterday I pulled up one of the bean tripods. And managed to bring in another kilo of juicy greens. And last night we had the very last of the aubergines. Grilled in the oven with the pork chops. We still have peppers aplenty, endless cabbages and the season of Swiss chard is about to be launched.

And here is the fruit of all that work. Took ages pulling them up, prising off the green ones (now hiding in paper bags with obligatory banana in dark place) and taking the biggest plants up to the potting shed. Apparently they will ripen if left upside down. We shall see.

The day warmed up. But on went the compost and the bins are now full of the green stuff. I was thinking of covering the bins with a clear plastic cover. But when I plunged my hands into the already full bin it was toasty and steaming and doing quite nicely on its own thank you very much. I shall leave well alone and let nature and grubs do their work.

Didn’t want to come inside, but as there was a sunset lurking over my shoulder, well, time was up for another trip.