Random planting notes as I am sitting in the train three weeks later and trying to make sense of my typed scrawl. I seem to recall I had a rush of blood at a garden centre and bought some more objects for the orchard: I know I planted two fig trees (well tiny little sticks really) outside along the same area as the other thriving fig. I think they are called Madeleine des deux saisons so that seems to hint I will get two crops a year like the main one. And I also put in two more Blackcurrants – cassis andega and blackdown around the rest of the blackcurrants. Sorry, the soft fruit orchard. Which sounds mighty grand for an agglomeration of bushes near a septic tank. But hey, we are feeling grand today.

And then I moved an awful lot of soil create a bed for the rose and the artichokes that I need to get in. It was a project I was going to delegate to Nicolas. But he is so far behind on the wall work that I realised that I’m just going to have to do most of these things myself if I want them in time. And just like the big wall being built nearby (oh so slowly) I knew I had to create a little retaining wall as well. Otherwise the whole bed would slip inexorably into the compost boxes at the bottom. My walls are a pathetic attempt, but so satisfying. And when I watered like mad there wasn’t a landslide. Result.

And then I started musing on creating the potting shed as a proper place to raise plants. Too often it’s just a dumping ground for all the tools I keep unearthing around the property. Found a sturdy but rusty sickle of all things in a thicket of brambles down near the vineyard. Obviously the brambles won that little battle.

And all this tidying and actually spending time in the garden meant I had
thoughts on the path steps. I think it will be thyme as a border down the side. I’m too chicken to recreate a rather glam late summer border scheme that I read in an RHS book from the library. I think I’ll stick to monoculture for a bit. Just thyme bushes all the way down. It will take a lot of plants. But at least they will give good winter structure. I don’t think I spend enough time just looking and thinking.

Back from forking out for the wall work. And not physical fork work, but cash. Mighty expensive labour. But I guess I just have to hope they last a hundred years and earn their keep.

I need to come up with a solution to our little veggie garden visitor. We have a deer that likes my cabbage plants. I can see the tracks it leaves behind in the frosty soil. Dare we go back to tahsome fencing? I feel we spent all summer removing the darn stuff. Anyway these are my preoccupations this New Years Eve.

It was still sunny and almost mild so I decided (rashly perhaps) to plant broad beans and peas in the potager. I’m giving one whole quarter of the garden to these lovely plants.

And then just when I chilled off from creeping about the bed putting in the seeds, it was a brisk session up to the potting shed (a bit like an assault course through the rocks and up a barely there path) to get more soil to put down over the new tulip bed. They do say to put your tulips down a good depth if you want them to come up more than one year. So instead of digging deep I have to pile em high.

There isn’t much you can muse on while hefting a wheelbarrow of soil but I did think that all my reading of soil improvers might have yielded a good idea. Leaf mould. We have so much up in the forest. Perhaps I can create a sort of wire cage up near the top potager and leave it for a year to make good mulch.

So here are the new years resolutions
Walls walls walls, protect the potager
Grow lots
Buy a freezer and store the produce (thunder and lightning storms willing – hate to lose it all with an electrical power strike)
Plant more flowers.
Not fuss too much about how long this garden is going to take. Enjoy each process rather than creating long lists of things to do.

Had to race to the train back to London today - I lost time this morning discussing electrics and tiles, and speaking to the mayor’s assistant. All looks good for the renovation work as long as I make four copies of all documents and supply a few more. And I suspect that I lost about half an hour insisting on doing 120 more crocus snow bunting bulbs in the lawn. The soil was softer so it wasn’t the scrape and scratch fest as it was when Jan was visiting. But I am not sure of the design of the random placement. We shall see what comes up in spring.

I’ve come in at lunch to actually have lunch. Yesterday I seemed to have only hoovered chocolate and then wolfed a tin of mackerel around 5. Not sustaining. And today there is more heavy work to do.

I started off at the lower vegetable garden and weeded like a demon. Lots of weeds in between the onions and garlic; but they are growing well despite the competition. Then it was on to the top future broad bean bed. It needed a good weed and a rake. I should be planting the broad beans – but I don’t think I have time.

Then on to the blackcurrant and jostaberry bushes. They have so many brambles wrapped around the bases of each chaotic bush that it took a while to snip everything away. I cleared a few feet around each, shook a handful of fish blood and bone fertilizer and then shovelled on a heap of the gravel mulch. I wish it wasn’t so blindingly white. Last night I was thinking it would be a good investment to buy a decent branch-chipping machine. I need to cover a lot of things and it would solve the problem of the bark chips. But maybe we will build a pergola over the end of the vegetable bed and we won’t see the mess of the fruit bushes and the brambles and nettles over the sceptic tank.

I pulled out a huge bucket full of the nettles and settled them into their future soup of a fertilizer bucket. They just macerate for about a month and turn into wonderful food. Most people tend to think it needs warmth and good conditions to create the stuff, but having started late in the year doesn’t have much effect. It seems to be working well on the Swiss chard and the spinach.

A few of the soft fruit trees have chaotic branches, so I pruned a few and made a few dozen cuttings and placed them in pots. I have no idea if they will take, but it seems the easiest gardening I am doing today, so it may work.

Now I need to haul things up and get on with the asparagus bed. But lunch first. A fortifying glug of lots of our lovely spring water and it will be up and at’em.

6pm – had to use the torch to plant the little brodiea white bulbs as I couldn’t see which way was up in the gloom. Goodness only knows how many I planted the wrong way before I realised I had to resort to the torch. Anyway, sixty of the little things have gone in under the snowball tree and around the Mahonia at the front of the house. I was relieved to see that the soil was quite good and even had some depth. No wonder the weeds thrive under there.

Glorious afternoon, really sunny and warm. Maybe 12 degrees, but I couldn’t tell. I was digging hard and working up quite a sweat. Sorry glow. The asparagus is in. And looking mighty ugly under it’s black plastic. But I know I can’t weed it this spring. It will be work enough to care for the raspberries.

I dug a trench on the southern slope of the asparagus to build up a bank of soil. Hoping that the rain that falls on the plastic will puddle onto the trenched up asparagus corms. The strange little crowns were quite fun to plant. Sort of like planting strands of spaghetti. But I managed to get 22 in. (is that right? I keep forgetting to take pen and paper up with me and its way too far to walk to go and bring anything back).

Must buy six more crowns to complete the row.

I found an awful lot of euphorbia seedlings up on the top potager. And came up with a cunning plan. There were so many of the creatures that I have decided to have fun with them and plant them along the wall of the barn. It may not work and they may not reach statuesque proportions. But it felt like proper pretty plant work. So I hoed like mad along the border. And then stuck them in.

Then it was back down to the courtyard to try and get things neater. I hate having to leave tomorrow. There just isn’t enough time to get things done. I swept and cleaned and then launched into this mad dusk bulb planting work. I realised that tomorrow morning will be swallowed up visiting the mayor’s office and pleading our case for three windows as well as the planning permission for the roof.

And then it will be time to go. I will have plenty of work while I’m away. Nicolas wants us to go to a nursery to get some serious seed and plant purchases in for the bank. Gulp.
 

Rush all day. I noticed at 6pm tonight that I was still wearing my kneepads, so you could call it a long day of gardening. Naturally there were distractions. Race to M. Brun’s to deliver a cheque and send a message about wanting to order gravel for the courtyard and pool. Then work with Dario on the permutations of the new guesthouse bathroom. There are pipes and mess everywhere and complicated decisions to make.

Then as soon as possible it was out to the courtyard: clear all the leaves from the mulberry tree; clear all the weeds from the sides of the steps down to the lower garden. It was a matter of yanking out the weeds and moving the stones aside so I could put the pale mulch stones underneath. It looks a bit white right now – especially as it surrounds the artichokes, thyme and sage beds. And as the artichokes are decidedly junior I’m hoping they will grow and thrive and cover most of the whiteness. Next it was on to the mess of the removed quince tree. Not sure what to do there. And as Nicolas was decidedly absent I couldn’t get advice. But I think it needs filling in with something. And the edges need rebuilding with yet more walls. Will I tire of stones? Hope not.

Bernard and Nicolas arrived briefly to stick the reinforcing rods into the future walls. Fingers crossed they will be built by Christmas. I’m shelling out for work that isn’t getting done. Minor gripe. But then if I were here more often things would get done sooner. We have both pledged to spend more time here next year. I want a good session in January. Especially as it is vital to be here when building work takes place.

Then the afternoon was spent hauling the compost (not quite ready from the bin but I have to get it in) up to the asparagus bed. I wished I had time to plant it today, but tomorrow will have to do.

By five it was almost dark; and I was still weeding the onion beds. Gad that’s a lot of work. I start to despair of the bare style of vegetable beds. Give me weed proof fabric and bark chip mulch any day. I did try and get some bark chips at Castorama yesterday when I was scooping up 30 metres of wall tiles and floor tiles and such. But the colours of the bark chips were horrendously orange in colour.  What happened to a natural hue? So I will have to do without, or try and track some down from the saw mill in St Michel de Chabrillanoux perhaps. Future project.

Right now I just have to do the weeds, plant things and start again at the end of the month.

Oh, yes, and the big project today, how could I forget when I can barely feel my fingertips; was to clear the weeds from the useless bed under the grape vines. Brambles, weeds of the tenacious variety and lots of fallen grape leaves. It isn’t going to be as messy next year. First Nicolas needs to help moving the six monstrously large stones that sit in the middle of the bed (one down, five to go) then I can put down a weed proof layer and add a pebble mulch over the top. And then I can think about four or five large pots to put something in. Anything better than six foot long brambles and hollyhocks madly seeding all over the place.

One of those nights where you wake up around 2am and can’t get to sleep because your brain is in a hyper mode. I tossed and turned for hours with thoughts and plans and too many things on my mind. Exhausted now and it’s only 8pm. But we had a day away from gardening by going climbing at Le Pouzin further south.

And when it gets dark by 5pm you really can’t nip out and do anything more for the day. So instead here is a list of 3am thoughts:

Remove old quince branches from the artichoke bed and the stones that are in the middle of the plot
Clear around all the fruit trees and apply fish blood and bone fertilizer
Shovel the gravel that is lumped in front of the jostaberry bush and spread it as mulch about the herb beds
Remake artichoke bed
Clear all leaves from courtyard and garden and compost in special bin
Empty and move the blue water butts from the lower potager and take them up to the top potager
Pump water out of the trough into the water butts. Defying gravity as you do so (haven’t worked that one out yet)
Plant a row of asparagus
Cover the row with a weed suppressing fabric (with appropriate holes cut for the asparagus plant
Wind big hose back into the safety of the cellar
Investigate the weed proof fabric M. Pontgeard has left for use (75m I think)
Put this fabric onto the lower potager path and secure
Find source for bark chips
Dig last of the trenches for the electricity cable in front of the lower compost bin

And by then I finally fell asleep exhausted.

Water in the lower potager is sorted by dint of a tap in the underground cellar nearby. And a 200 foot long piece of hose. The top potager is a different matter. I have been puzzling how to get water up there. And what the previous owners did. I think they pumped water (somehow) from the trough in the courtyard uphill a hundred feel and into some conveniently placed water butts. Or did they have a way of diverting the slow drip overflow from the water source down diagonally to the top garden? Must ask Bernard if this can be done.

Weed suppressing fabric had my brain whirring in a particular way. To cover or not cover the asparagus. All the books mention careful hand weeding of the crowns in the first year to prevent them getting crowded by competing weeds. But will I be that diligent with all the other chores that will need to be done? And frankly, it is one of those out of sight out of mind issues. Because you don’t look on the top veggie garden, you tend not to go at the weeds or water as often. I didn’t get up there from August until last month and that was just a rough weed. So if I can design the weed suppressing fabric properly, maybe I can avoid ruining my crop before it has a chance to romp. This is a long-term project crop. We won’t get any asparagus spears for three years at least.

And then there was the issue of how much fabric I have. I think there is a roll of 75 metres. Will it be enough to cover the steep blackberry slope above the pool and the courtyard gravel garden as well? I don’t think I can countenance another summer of endless weeding in the courtyard. Not when there are ten other acres of weeds just busting out everywhere else. So I will measure the distances if I have time. Add that to the list.

You can see how one loses the sense of proportion on these sleepless nights. None of these tasks are really important. Well, the water issue is. Now that the water tank is full to the brim there is a small but steady drip of an overflow. Right now it is dripping into the two courtyard troughs - which are full.

I have to find a way to pump out the water (leaving enough for the lads to use mixing some cement for their wall work) and accept that because we won’t come back for three weeks then there may be an almighty flood. I guess I’m going to have to put the pipes back that snaked all over the property when we first came here. And where do I place them? The previous owners kept sheep and therefore used their excess water to top up a drinking trough on the first terrace below the house. Maybe I will water the orchard. Who knows? Must take advice.

I only have until Thursday this trip (unless I change the ticket) and there just won’t be enough time to get all this done. Especially as we need to buy sinks, taps and tiles for the new bathroom building work (which starts tomorrow). And I will have a bit of painting to do for the new shelves, which Bernard is building in the kitchen.

Sigh. Time for a beer and dinner and hope I get a better and less list driven night’s sleep.