Don’t you just love clichés? I have put straw around the strawberries. And collecting the hay gave me hay fever. I sneezed all the way up from the stables to the vegetable garden. And I refuse to do any more mulching this week. I am all sneezed out. It all looks rather yellow – but the weed collection in the strawberry bed was impressive. I don’t think I had neglected that part of the garden; but goodness the poor plants were positively swamped. Hopefully they will keep flowering and maybe fruiting.

Everything around the house is suddenly lush. And it may be time to launch the strimmer. Is that like the first campari of spring event? The first cuckoo, the first need to test the strimmer?

Today wasn’t a full gardening day. But I launched myself into the weeding in between rainstorms. Watered more of the little seedlings in the potting shed (not eaten by rodents overnight, such a relief) and spent ages sawing up the poles for the climbing beans, sweet peas and cucumbers. Some are decidedly wonky. I didn’t range too far up into the forest to search for straight ones. But when time allows, I will replace with ramrod straight ones before I get the plants up and climbing.

Tomorrow, if all goes well, I will get some more potting compost from the garden centre and get some more seeds into some soil.

The rain is having consequences for the terraces. They are positively weeping. The strawberry bed ressembles a swimming pool where the water is gurgling out of the stones. And the terraces around the pool are very soggy. The drain below the wall works well – it is gushing out. Naturally we are going to yearn for all this rain in the summer. But right now I just can’t collect more than I have. It’s overflowing all the containers I have around the garden.

The tulips are almost out. And the narcissus are holding on wonderfully. Can’t smell a thing with this cold, but I admire their ability to stand so proud with all this rain. They form part of what I understand is a ‘white’ garden. These mystery plants are doing their part. And the wistaria is about a week away from blooming. Even the white lilac looks threatening. I sowed a few white ‘milkmaid’ nasturtium seeds directly into the soil under the lilac. But naturally have some on the go in the potting shed as well. Never do trust nasturtiums to germinate without nurturing and fussing.

Oh joy, the vegetable bed is still intact. I squelched out there this morning first thing to have a look. And despite a rather sustained storm that lasted for hours last night, I even have mulch between the rows as well.

Relieved that the whole afternoon wasn’t wasted I set about a major potting up session. First off was to collect the molehill soil from the lower terrace. Wonderful stuff, crumbly and hopefully weed free, I have molehills a plenty. Mixing it with a rather indifferent supermarket potting compost (our garden centre is closed on Mondays, but I had to go up to town first thing) I found it was almost okay for the huge amount of seedlings.

First I potted up the two eggplant and pepper plants into the large window box sized planter. They are going to be neglected for two weeks later this month so I have to do everything I can to maximise the moisture retaining qualities of these bigger plants. They are going to become desiccated in their little pots in no time.
The same thing had to happen to the tomato plants. I have six marmandes and six super steak varieties, and they needed bigger pots and lots of water. The potting shed looks gorgeously lush with all these plants now.

And then came the major quantities: 28 pots of land cress, 49 rockets, 28 curly Russian kales, 20 agastache liquorice blue, 21 red bor kale and three nasturtiums. So much fun. Occasional rainstorms pattered the roof of the shed as I worked away. Very repetitive but intensely satisfying.

I really want to get stuck into the pea sticks and bean supports. But I can’t have another whole day in the garden. More painting awaits in the guest house. If the rain holds off (and they aren’t promising it) I may get a few hours in tomorrow.

Why anyone would chose to plant up a veggie garden and lay a straw mulch in a wet gale is beyond me. Bit it was my first full day in the garden for a week and I was yearning to get it done. Madness of course. More straw blew off the beds than stayed on at a few blustery moments but I thought I was winning. Tomorrow will show.

In a desperate attempt to keep the straw settled on the bed I found myself watering the straw with the hose. In a light rainstorm. Hoping that no one would see this odd behaviour. ‘Oh look there’s that mad foreign woman, watering her garden in the rain’. But I had to get that straw to stick somehow. It was hauled up from the lower stable in sacks. Endless loads as I realised just how large my vegetable garden is.

And it was done amid great straw dust induced sneezes. Adding to the ones from my now heavy cold. A charming snivelling sight as I trudged endlessly up and down with the wheelbarrow and the wayward bags of straw. They did tend to fall off at crucial moments in the blustery bits. But I’m quite pleased with the work. I just know I will never have this garden weed free if I’m away for two weeks at a stretch. This straw won’t keep them all down. But at least the sight of the main garden won’t be a sharp intake of breath at the array of all the weeds. And believe me, weeds seem to shoot up fully formed and a foot high overnight. This rain is perfect for that.

Earlier I planted out yet more cabbage in the brassica bed, interspersed with chives. This brassica bed is almost complete. Insane to have it so early in the year; but I have so much to get done that I just have to hope that a late frost/hungry deer/ marauding wild boar won’t find all those juicy young shoots and wipe out the crop.

A half-day of gardening. I came back from the train station with great plans for lots of planting. First was to finish the thyme path beside the lower vegetable garden. I now have a full set of plants to line on side of the path. Does it look odd? A bit, but it’s the most aromatic and neat way I have to keep the side of the steep bed in place. If all goes well I will slowly get more thyme plants for the other side. Unless it looks way too neat and I think of something drastic for that side.

Heading down to the compost bin (and turning it over) made me realise that the corner of this part of the garden really is vile. Too messy with left-over strawberry pots from the summer, random bits of plastic that end up beside the house, and a lurching empty huge water container that is still waiting for its drainpipe to be attached.

Half an hour was all it took to transform the squalor. Mind you I can’t manage the water tank on my own. Spent a comic time trying to prop it up on bricks and a heavy piece of metal track – only to realise that one side would always list drastically after each effort. Must ask Bernard to help.

Then it was on to top up the nettle soup I have fermenting beside the compost bin. A wonderful if smelly fertiliser. I have no lack of nettles. The septic tank is the perfect environment for these beasties. What is that Australian expression? The grass is always greener over the septic tank. Too true.

Things I want to do this week: pot up the land cress, pot on the eggplant and peppers I bought from Gamm Vert. Pot up the kale, the cavalo nero, the rocket. And if all goes well sow some flower seeds too. The Echinacea could go in the ground in front of the potting shed.

So what is up? Miracles – some of the cleome seeds has finally germinated. One out of three separate sowings. The tomato gardener’s delight, the land cress, nicotiana, verbena, nasturtium, dwarf French bean, antirrhinum and thyme have all germinated.

Up in the top vegetable garden I even have the first flowers on my broad beans. They are a bit bent and battered from all the rain, but a few deft sticks have propped them up above the wet soil. I have taken the plunge and actually prodded the asparagus bed for signs of life. I definitely have ten plants alive. Some even look like asparagus. But that’s a lot of missing plants. And I think its even worse in the raspberry bed. I think I have only eight plants with leaves. And even then not a romping away plant of leaves. Just a few. What to do? Give in and buy more? I don’t want to waste a whole season. We shall see.

The pea seeds are germinating away up there as well. And there are even a few potato leaves poking out among the rows. Amazingly fast germination.

Other garden news: the mint prison finally has more mint inside than creeping about the path. And the garden at the furthest end of our plot – the vineyard – has had a haircut. Nicolas wielded his mighty secateurs last week. Things look decidedly tidy.

And I planted up the lemon verbena Sally and I bought at the Vernoux market on Thursday. I had thought this little planter was going to be the destination of the blueberry plant. But that has now gone into the ground under a plum tree. (’Shade, shade, the bush needs shade’.) And this will hopefully be the home of a bountiful lemon verbena crop over the summer. I have put it in a smaller planter so hopefully it can come inside to the potting shed when the weather turns. It’s an odd thing to consider now that it’s spring. But where is the warm weather? Making its appearance on Thursday, the day I leave. Chuh.

It has taken months. Months longer than we expected. But having served some time on the wall gang I can tell you that it really is back-breaking work. Mind you, my skills meant that I was firmly relegated to the cement mixer work, plus collecting the right sized stones and placing them in easy reach of Nicolas – the wall master. It really is an art of the jigsaw fanatic. Plus hard graft. His father even came over on two mornings to help out. Two generations of wall workers.

The results are just wonderful. And we can only hope that the previous wall builders over the past few hundred years would feel proud that we have added our bit.

And there is hope that the lower terrace wall will be coming into its last stage soon.

Unashamed photo gallery of our cherry trees. Who says you need to go all the way to Japan for some blossomy bliss?

Well the rain has finally driven me indoors so there is no excuse for putting off these notes. Nothing worse than having a week’s worth of information to impart. I almost feel like being barred from the garden until I have caught up. So – scrabble around for the small bits of paper that have been accumulating since April 1st and off we go. Random notes I fear as I haven’t dated any of the bits of paper.

I have had a Gamm Vert birthday feast. Jan has kindly given me money towards plants – and I have gorged myself on the glories of the St Péray garden centre. What fun. To atone for all this easy gardening (I bought some tomato plants, some aubergine and even some peppers already up and well advanced. Cheating.) I went up to the top vegetable garden and spent a very hot and sweaty afternoon removing each and every weed. (For this week). Into this pristine environment went one and a half rows of pink fir apple potatoes, twenty more broad bean seeds and a row of mangetout peas. If all goes well they will grow up and attach themselves to the wire fence. I now have two rows of charlottes and enough pink fir apples to hopefully keep us in spuds for this year.

I was racing to get the row of peas sown before going up to Jean-Daniel’s horse riding school for manure. He has kindly let me have a few sacks of the fresh stuff to use on the raspberries next year. Heavy work hauling it out of his manure trough below the stables, heave them into the car, drive them home and then struggle up to the top potager and create a good sized pile. The amount looks paltry even though I hauled and heaved.

***

It has been a day of gardening and muck. I sowed seeds, weeded the lower vegetable bed. Sowed yet more chives, tidied the broad beans which are doing very well. Amazing that almost all of the seeds I planted up earlier in the winter have germinated. Not so the peas which seem to have been eaten. Or else just frozen under the snow. But reassuring to have such a success rate in the bean bed.

I need to rebuild some more of the central path. It has lost some of its bark chips which are heading slowly into the onion bed. Nicolas has a lovely method of using long straight logs of chestnut to make the sides neat. I’m trying the ‘chives and abundance’ trick first. But what is the bet that next year I will give in and get some more secure structure?

Watered all the seedlings in the potting shed; there are even tiny teensy little stipa seedlings coming up. Goodness knows how I’m going to get enough of them to germinate and romp away around the swimming pool. It’s an expensive seed – £3 for just 25 tiny bits of seed.

The alliums are still bursting out of their pots. Amazing that I only planted them up last week. They were obviously ready to get going. Thank goodness for plant hormones. The ones in the herb bed are also up and growing away. I’m sure they have grown six inches since the weekend. They are towering over the artichokes, which isn’t supposed to happen. I do hope the artichokes will catch some warm weather and take off. I had planned for the allium foliage to be hidden behind large leaves of artichokes. But right now it’s an allium bed rather than an artichoke one. I do think I have enough sage and thyme now. I will take cuttings in the summer to bulk out the bed. Weed seedlings are already poking through the mulch and it can only get worse.

There are buds on the black currant and Jostaberry bushes and the cherry blossoms are just starting to take off.

A milestone tonight. I didn’t feel the need for a fire this morning. It must be spring.

Another warm and sunny morning. I planted out the mizuna salad that I grew from seed in the lower vegetable garden, and then grabbed a bucket and scooped up the molehills that have appeared overnight. Smack bang in the middle of the cabbage bed this time. Luckily I am still at the ‘share the garden with all creatures’ stage. I used the soil from the molehills to fill in the small dip left by the old forsythia that was plonked among the plum trees. It could do with another wheelbarrow’s worth of soil. But Nicolas has bagged all the spare topsoil for the back of the pool garden wall. I shall have to scrabble about for the molehills in the lower terraces.

I know that rain is forecast, but I took the time to fill all the water barrels up at the top potager. And positively soak the recalcitrant raspberry canes. I am still in dead stick anxiety mode with most of the canes. They aren’t doing anything – just sulking. I can see a few leaves on a few canes. But it looks tragically like they are all dead. I don’t dare yank one up to see. So just keep saying ‘hold on for another week’.

I found a home for the alliums that are busting out of their pots. I have buried them in the new future flower bed just beside my potting shed. It’s flat, it’s stone free and it’s bare. Perfect for a trial run of all sorts of flowers I want to have but am too scared to try on a grand scale. In went the bulbs (still in their pots as it won’t be their final resting place) and two of the stipa pots that I brought out earlier in the year.

***

To Vernoux market today for a look around. It’s still rather agricultural and thin compared with the summer markets. (Well, poor Vernoux is always rather frumpy compared with markets further south. But at least there is not much Provencal tat.) But I did buy three pots of mint and a lovely lemon verbena plant for the summer garden.

Later I want down to the compost bins and worked in some activator. The compost is quite good and ready, but still not perfect. So with the activator and my lovely pungent nettle compost I have high hopes that the next few weeks will be all I need to get the compost looking perfect. Where will I put it? On the vegetable bed I suppose. I want to nurture the euphorbia plants which are sulking somewhat. Things need to grow up and hide the compost bins. I’m hoping the artichokes will do that in the short term. But keep seeing broad sweeps of gorgeous euphorbias in other people’s gardens and have such pangs of envy. The spring green of the euphorbia just lifts the spirits like little else.

Each trip up the drive right now means another blast of cherry blossom. Hope the bees have done their work before these petals fall. It’s great to see just how many wild cherry trees there are in the hills around us. It’s only in spring that you get that view of stark white blossom in among the oak, pine and chestnuts.

My 33 cabbage seedlings are enduring their hardening off period. Poor things, they look so stricken in their pots being blasted by the wind on the terrace. Must stop this now and go and bring them in for the night. It’s cold again here this week. Spring not quite ready to reveal itself in the daytime temperature. And I don’t think we have frosts at night, bit it is parky.

Just back inside from giving the apple tree a good soak. It was a lovely birthday gift from the Welsteads last week. A Melrose variety which gives lovely homage to the Scottish roots of the donors. it’s planted at the end of the blackberries. And one day may form the edge of the arbour. When we get round to designing it. Right now it all looks a bit bare sticks in the middle of nowhere. But one must plan ahead.

Spring is creeping up on us. The plum blossom is rather glam right now. And the tulips are almost making an appearance. There are some narcissus already up. I did wonder what they were. They were definitely not tulip shaped when they poked bravely out of the snow last week. The peach blossom is less exciting. But then again it did come out too early – or just in time to catch the frost and snow if you wish. Most of the Drome seems to have been blighted by the early cold weather. Dramatic pictures of frozen blossom on the front page of the local Two Minute Silence (Le Dauphine Libere) last week.

Have only been away for just three days and it seems we have missed some rather windy weather. No battered garden. But the potting shed looks distressed. All the carefully applied plastic is sitting in twisted heaps and not doing much good. Need to have a good go with the gaffer tape when I steal some time. (It’s painting of the doors in the guest house time yet again this week.)

And I have brought dozens of packets of seeds with the great dream of actually getting them into seed trays and eventually soil. They seemed to languish in a plastic box in London most of last year. Will they be viable? Let’s see. It’s all going to be rather experimental this year. I’m going to launch myself into all sorts of seeds now that there is a real garden to plant. And play with.