Well it looks like we weren’t the only ones to enjoy the succulent Swiss chard as a side dish last night. Up this morning to water the garden and found that someone (and I suspect our resident deer) has eaten 12 Swiss chard plants and four lettuces. Grrr.

No more gardening for the day: we went rock climbing instead. Well that was the plan. Until I managed to catch a wasp on the mouth. It flew into me on the walk to the crag and in the space of a second had hit me, stung me and flown off. After an hour or so I still looked like a love child of Mick Jagger and the pain was rather insistant. So distraction in the form of retail therapy (pool furniture and beach towels) and then a long swim and soak and generally feeling gingerly sore.

It seems like fencing is in order. I can’t believe we have got away without a fence all this time (that the philosophical gardener speaking, the real me was ready to throttle the deer if I came across it. Swiss chard is definitely my favourite veg). I had two metres of netting up in the shed. So out it came and with help making the wire surrounds, up it went. Two metres down, thirty to go.

Daisy the Deer is still hanging around. We caught her in our headlights when we drove back last night from dinner. Not a good sign. She has already mauled the apple tree about. Almost ring barking it in her enthusiasm for the sappy soft wood. I have a protective wire around it now. But didn’t calculate the consequences of her appetite.

Up early (ish) to do an hour’s watering and weeding with the new water system. No more tadpoles making a bid for freedom luckily. And then it was down to do a bit more strimming and tie in of the last rows of vines. At last it is finished.

Walking back it is easy to be diverted by the chance to cut more poles for the fourth wigwam in the vegetable bed. The chestnuts have been coppiced so beautifully they throw up perfect straight thin poles. Perfect for the garden. And then it was on for a spot of Verbascum slaughter.
We have a plethora of the weeds. What do you call a field of verbascums? A vastness of verbascums? A vileness, a voracity? A verbosity? Too many of the meaty things. Naturally I am prejudiced. If they were a delicate mauve or subtle bluey pink I would find them charming and take pride in their effusion. But yellow? Blech. Doesn’t fit into any of my fantasy planting schemes.

And then in a moment of madness I took the strimmer up around the fruit trees and had a bit of a go. And naturally managed to murder a branch of young blueberry bush that I planted in the wintertime – must make a better wire guard around the little bushes among the weeds if I am to strim indiscriminately.

There are plenty of the sanguisorba variety of seedlings successfully sown in the potting shed. But nowhere to put them in my tiny patch of trial flowers. A quick look in the gardening encyclopaedia saved me: they tolerate a light shade. Well that’s a relief, as there is only the patch of soil under the cherry tree left. Amazing to think that in 17 acres of land I am cramming plants into such a tiny space. But the garden is a season off. And that is all that has been cleared.

Gave Bernard a little care package of garden produce. So lovely to be able to give a bit back to such a helpful neighbour.

Final task for the day is the theme of this two week trip. Hose work. Now that I have free spring water gushing out of the trough I am profligate in the extreme. The cabbages can’t believe their luck. They were watered lavishly under the sound of mighty rumbles of thunder in the distance. It’s like washing the car before it rains.
But the storms may miss us, so I kept it up until dragged inside for dinner.

Driven by guilt, I set the alarm for an early hour and watered the top vegetable garden first thing this morning. The peas and beans up there seem to thrive on neglect right now.

Nothing beats that – cool breeze in a cloudless sky, sun threatening to burst over the mountain and bake for another day. It has been two whole weeks of ‘scorchio’ on the French weather map: little bright sunshine symbols over all of the Ardèche. And no sign of rain in the next few days either.

The row of land cress is growing well as is the curly kale. Although some insects are giving it a good beating. I threw a whole bucket of water on the poor rhubarb – it really could do with being shaded in this heat. And did the same of the asparagus. It is doing surprisingly well and has plenty of fronds waving in the breeze. One year down, three to go.

And speaking of years, we feel that there has been so much achieved in just one year. But finding a good water source for this lovely vegetable garden is going to be a winter priority.

I also need to get more water up to the barrels around the potting shed at the same time. I have used the last of the water on my little flower seedlings today.

Down to the house for some serious hose action on the lower vegetable bed and lawn.
Once the heat died down it was back down to the vineyard with the strimmer. No way was I going to hand pull that number of weeds. Especially as there are so many nettles a lurking. It was short work – but hot under that protective head gear (great orange monster of ear muffs and visor) so the sweat dripped prettily and rather constantly off my nose as I thwacked into the weeds. But done. And now I can spend the weekend tying up the rest of the vines. And just to show you what three weeks of rain will do. Here is a reminder of what this vineyard looked like on the 1st of June.

But then it was back indoors to make our very first white currant and red currant tarts of the year. Didn’t know we even had a white currant bush. It produced no fruit last year at all. A bit tart. And tricky to destalk. But dump a load of sugar on any tart thing and it hides all bitter sins.

Oh yes, forgot to mention. We sorted the hose. The water trough in the courtyard receives water from the overflow of the tank. It’s way up in the hill and is gushing down right now. And I always found it such a shame that it would overflow onto the pebbles in the courtyard rather than be used usefully on tomato plants instead.
So with a bit of deft DIY it is done. Now all I need to do is untwist the hose and out the lovely spring water flows. Only drawback – there are some tiny tadpoles in the trough that discover life can be very exciting but short indeed. If they are curious about the green snake like contraption sitting on the bottom of their pool they get sucked in. And end up fifty feet away shooting out the end of the hose and landing on the cabbage bed.

My fingers are tingling as I type. Found a rather unexpected patch of stinging nettles when I was in the vineyard this afternoon. It’s a long walk and a hot one today, but I spent three absorbing hours tying up the vines. It all went well and rather monotonously until I made it twelve rows in. That was where I got up to with the major weeding back earlier in the year. Back when the weeds were ankle high and laughably innocuous. Is that how it’s spelt? Well, wimpy. It was hard work hacking away with the mattock and hoe. But I would have finished the entire vineyard if I knew what an effort it would be just to reach the damn vines one or two months on. The bracken was head high. And dense as a jungle. If the vines weren’t a luminous lime green I swear I would not have noticed them there at all. But even after three hours it was so satisfying to see the vines tied in and trained the right way. Dare it say it, I’m almost interested in this vineyard caper.

Back to lie prone on the sofa after lunch in the cool stone farmhouse and then out for more tying in the lower vegetable plot. This time it was the easy matter of fixing twelve tomato plants to more secure canes. They have put on quite some growth in two weeks and even have fruit. Hurrah.

Making the most of this relentless dry heat I put all the onions out to dry.
And then the thought of dry made me trot guiltily up to the top vegetable plot. Out of sight out of mind, everything must be gasping up there. It’s too far for easy watering and tends to get neglected.

But luckily there was plenty of greenery up there, even if the potatoes are decidedly ‘ready’. To my amazement I found the first raspberries of the year - on the autumn fruiting variety (of course) but they were carefully cradled all the way back to the house. And the potatoes are coming up beautifully. Heaps for every meal.

I then spent about an hour laboriously de stemming (or is it destalking?) the whitecurrants and black currants which I collected by the bucketload from the soft fruit orchard. No time to make tarts. Into our new freezer and on with the outdoor activities.

Sweet peas in little vases served as flowers for the house. And the lilies are coming along beautifully.

Walking down to the letter box in the early evening I had that feeling that all around me everything is just zinging with growth. Or is that the tingling of the nettle attack?

A full day in the dirt. Except for the small diversion of driving to town and buying a deep freezer for all the broad beans I had harvested. It was becoming like a small processing factory in the kitchen this week. Harvest the beans, sit in the shade shelling the blighters. (After a while I found it easier just to sit next to the compost bin and toss them in. It would have been more comfortable sitting under the shade of the peach trees nearby. But the peaches developed Peach Leaf Curl this year and the trees are bare and grim.) Then racing into the kitchen to blanch, peel the outer skin and freeze.

In between times I staggered up to the potting shed (great exercise on a hot day) to plant up more of the seedlings into the flower garden, pot up the tomatoes and even plant up the emerging beans. They germinated in no time in this heat.

After a few hours of this I felt as wilted as the verbena bonariensis seedlings I planted in the rocks in front of the shed. Time to go down to the pool and get some cleaning done. Not the best thing to do in the heat of the day, except for the refreshing plunge once the grubby pool had been transformed.

In the cool of the evening I pulled up almost all the onions and garlic. A lot of the garlic is still in the ground. I can’t reach things for weeds and just yanked mightily on the fragile stalks. Not A Good Idea as half of them snapped. But was too pressed to get down and dig them out properly. Had to duck down to Valence TGV (100km round trip) and then prepare dinner.

I am proud (nay, boastful) to say that everything on the menu tonight came from the garden. Barring the lemon and the pork chops.
Garlic
Onions
Potatoes
Peas
Baby carrots
Mint
Herbs for marinade
Even strawberries for dessert. Well, a grand total two.

I could picture us growing lemons in pots (they will have to overwinter in the potting shed) but draw the line at keeping pigs.

Wouldn’t you know it. After three weeks of solid rain, we have now had two weeks of almost heat wave conditions. The seedlings could have stayed outside after all. But then they probably would have been fried to a crisp. Luckily Bernard and Nicolas kept things watered, and the lawn is only parched in patches.

Arrived in time to spend hours (it seemed) watering. When you come from a drought stricken country, this activity is still a novelty. And it means you get a good look at all the plants while you save their parched little lives.

The figs were in the weeds somewhere. I unearthed them and gave them a drench. Then worked on the lower vegetable garden trying to ignore all the weeds. Who says a deep mulch of well rotted compost will keep down weeds? Mine are just as dominant as before.

Didn’t have dinner so much as munched my way through the peas and broad beans as I worked the rows. This is serious harvesting time.

And after all that weeding, watering and wolfing, I retired for the night to plan my assault on the morrow. It stays light until 10pm so there is plenty to pack into the day.

After a refreshing walk around Mont Godin (scoffing some delicious early cherries at Boucharnoux village enroute) I had one of those ‘oh god, where do I start?’ moments. Monday was to be departure day for two weeks and it was agony knowing the neglect and watering difficulties that lay ahead. So many of the poor little seedlings had drowned outside last time. Do I leave them all inside and beg Bernard to remember to water?

Or put them out again and hope the poor Ardèche weather improves. While waiting for inspiration I decided to bring all the endless pots and containers inside, call Bernard our neighbour and beg. And just to while away a lovely drizzly Sunday I potted up 20 tomato plants that were bursting out of their nursery pot, more verbena that had survived their soaking, some little Swiss chard (finally some yellow and red stemmed one) and six cucumber plants.

It never ceases to amaze me how much easier it is to pot up in a shed rather than at the kitchen sink. (And ever mindful of making messes all over the draining board and floor. In my potting shed I just sweep things onto the earth floor below. So practical.)

I’m not sure if I have missed the season, but decided to try sowing yet more dwarf French beans and climbing beans to replace those that went swimming last month. I have a suspicion that two-week departures over the vital growing period won’t produce healthy crops, but we shall see.

One of the discoveries of the wet season was the nicotiana. Something (and I suspect slugs) had eaten most of the little seedlings that I had placed out under the cherry tree beside the shed. So instead of starting again and losing about a month of work, I simply had to look in the bin. I had pricked out endless quantities of the little seedlings before I left and just had that ugh, forget it action when confronted with dozens more. So putting the pot of yet more little seedlings aside, I went on with more valuable plants – of the edible variety. But now here is the neglected pot all sprouting and healthy and ready to take their rightful place in the garden.

With all these new flower seedlings it was time to sort out the trial beds. I did a spot of minor landscaping and created a mini bed for this seasons’ flowers. Outside now are the following:

Deschampsia

Calamagrostis brachyta

Horedum jubatum

Poppy black paeony

Gaura

Penisetum hamelin

Stipa (of course)

Lupin My Castle

Nepeta grandiflora

Agastache liquorice blue

Liatris

Verbascum Aaron mix

Sporobolus armoides

Plus the nepeta six hills giant which I bought from one of the gardens we visited in Devon.

As you can see from my Chelsea experience I had a bit of lupin envy: such spires of colour and fat plump plants. They seem more pleasing than delphiniums – but that’s probably because I am such a novice and haven’t learned how to grow any yet.

Back inside for yet more cups of tea and out to prick out the last of the Swiss chard. Cuckoos in the nest came to mind when I was looking carefully at my packet of Swiss Chard rainbow seeds. Why oh why were there so many tomato seeds in there as well? And you can guess what has come up. My dreams of yellow and orange and red chard in gentle drifts all across the lower vegetable bed may have to wait another season. Instead it’s leggy and sickly tomato seedlings to nurture and hopefully plant out and harvest in a few weeks time.

So with Friday being a rest day then Saturday was to be full throttle strimming. And it took a day. Two weeks later I can still feel a twinge of the wrist from too much repetitive pressing of the motor. Note to self. Don’t do more than a few hours at a time. But it is so satisfying; if slow. Cutting into nettles is a lovely thwacking activity, so too is creating little paths through the meadows. But when we have a lawn mower (oh joy) this will take half the time and be hopefully less painful on the wrist.

And suddenly my notes run out. I am sitting on the Game Boy express (sorry the 0853 to Lille and Euro Disney with a carriage of excited children all chirping and beeping on their machines) and trying to assemble the notes from what seems aeons ago. That will teach me for prevaricating. All I have left is ‘Saturday. Flower Day. Strimming.’ A bit blank when it comes to details as you can see. But now it comes back. As a reward for all the gardening work we had done around the vegetable beds, not to mention the massive clean-up of the barn and the hauling of furniture in the guest house. We went off to visit a garden for the day. Now that’s a surprise.

It was the Roseraie de Berty; a rose garden in the southern Ardèche which I had read about in French garden books. Books about gardens can be deceptive. Both Jan and I were a little disappointed by the Beth Chatto gardens in Essex last year. It wasn’t the gardens that were a let down. Far from it; and her garden writing is stimulating and inspiring. But when you have forked out a fortune for a train fare, trekked across to Essex, found a taxi, paid your garden fee and stepped inside… well you want to be able to do more than go around one lap in less than twenty minutes.

I had read that the rose garden was only about a hectare in size, so was expecting a similar let down. But it wasn’t. Smallish for a two hour drive down to Argentiere, but what a great treat. Almost every plant in the valley was a rose. And so artfully grown and lush and relaxed. It gave one ideas about how natural roses can actually be. And the scale was impressive. And the scent. I don’t think I would ever embark on a garden that could only be sublime for one month of a year. But was delighted to see someone else had made it her life’s labour.

And now lovely to know that the New Dawn roses I planted against the artichoke wall will be such impressive beasts when they grow up. If they aren’t mauled about before then. Every time I pass it seems I have to pull out yet more vile elderberry leaves from the old stump which was cut down to make way for the roses and the herbs. It rates as my least favourite garden smell. Up there with nettle leaf sludge. And crushed aphids.

A slug. I actually found a slug in the lettuce bed. Now for all of those who find such an event a daily occurrence (and it was true for the London garden) this was the very first slug I have found. Not bad for a year’s gardening. But it was big and it was juicy and it was launching into a large head of lettuce. In broad daylight. Curses.

Up early-ish this morning to add yet another tonne of weeds onto the compost bin. Both are almost full and I haven’t even finished weeding the onions yet.

We will have to find another place to put things. Perhaps way down behind the pool. But then that will mean a monstrously long traipse. And the wheelbarrow wheel has a puncture. Actually I think the entire wheel has died but haven’t been able to bring myself to inspect. That’s the problem with a big garden and so little time. You find yourself prioritising and ending up with neglect.

I have been relying on Nicolas’s barrow which he had parked here for three months. But yesterday he came to use it on another job and I am bereft. Of both the gardener and his barrow. But he will be back for more wall work this weekend. And I must find a solution to the wheelbarrow. I did buy a cheap one and am paying the price now.

Asparagus peas. I think I have weeded out the asparagus peas from the potager. That will teach me for not labelling properly. At least I think they were peas. I can’t be sure. It such a jungle that I can only tell they are carrots from the different foliaged tops. And everything needs thinning. And what are those strange roots that are appearing everywhere. I think they are a crop from last incumbent. But again I can’t be sure.

One day I am going to write a gardening book that shows plants in all seasons, and all stages of growth. That will make weeding easier. And also teach the novice (or pig ignorant as I am finding myself) just how bare your garden will be for how many months of the year.

But goodness only knows what these weeds actually are (The mind wanders with weeding. So mechanical and you do get carried away.) They don’t look madly edible so they are yanked up and added to the pile of compost. Adding roots to the compost? Another cardinal sin for sure.