Ah the joys of getting an extra half hour in bed. No need to water this morning as we had the mother of the summer’s storms late night blowing over the region. It has been dull and overcast most of the day. But only spits of rain, and I thought we had missed out again.

But it made up for it around 8pm. The sort of storm where you see the lightning flash and then duck for the thunder. And that’s when you are inside the house and safe from the worst.

The storm lasted only a few hours. Dumped heaps of rain in a rather fast time, and then moved off. Naturally I would have wished for a long evening of gentle but soaking rain. But mustn’t grumble. Water is great.

And now that I have donned shoes and trudged up to the potting shed I can happily announce we had a third of an inch of rain. Not masses. But I am happy. And with this lovely overcast day ahead, I may even get some digging done. And plant out the spinach in the soon to be vacated lettuce bed. (Most of the poor plants have bolted.)

And here is the new-look lettuce cloche. A few swiss chard, a few lettuce, one land cress and more spinach. All the tastiest morsels for the mystery creature that likes these veg. But we shall see. I am leaving the three swiss chards in the same spot where they have been munched already. And not even bothering to repair the netting – which has a monster rip. They are welcome to them. As long as they leave this cloche alone. (Hah, don’t you love these admonishments. I have no control whatsoever, but it’s nice to pretend I am in charge.)

And here is the tentative news about the beetroot under their own cloche up above the leeks. So far so good. And growing wonderfully. Sorry I had to shoot them outside their enviromesh covering. I don’t dare disturb them for fear or letting beetroot aromas out.

As it was a cooler day I decided to tackle the cabbage first. (Yes, I know, I was supposed to double dig a shade garden area, but sitting down among the brassicas felt more fun.)

This was the very first time I have cleared the dead vegetation from underneath the cabbages since I planted them back earlier in the year. Extremely maintenance free gardening. And we have just been stir frying the outer leaves so far. But now it was time to get a few of the mankier cabbages out and put in a few more winter kale that have been growing on in the potting shed. 

Not a madly exciting picture; but you can see some dead leaves below the cabbages. Don’t know why I didn’t take an ‘after’ shot. Perhaps because I was head down and moving onto the next cloche before the sun came out. But no. Had to take a break and go and change for a broader rimmed hat to protect from the heat.

And naturally I can’t resist scoffing grapes each time I go past. The courtyard grapes are heaving with fruit this year.

Once the brassicas were tidied; twas time to do the same for the cosmos. They are such workhorses in this potager. And will definitely be repeated next year. I may go for less white cosmos (Purity) and do more of the tall mix. The white flowers look so tatty quickly. And I can’t keep up with the dead heading. But once you go down the rows things look so much lovelier in now time. I can’t reach some of the middle flowers as I have to lean dangerously over the cloches. And don’t fancy falling in. But you can see the effect.

And they even look pretty from the feeding station, sorry, grapes up on the next terrace.

I had to place the picture further up the blog as I have more pics than text today. Brain addled from too much lovely rain. I have been meaning to talk about the second flush of beans we are having. The poor plants suffered dreadfully earlier this summer from a lack of water at a critical time. So I re-sowed a new row. And they are coming along beautifully. It does mean we will have a glut around September when I can’t spend as much time here. But that’s gardening.

And in for lunch for a healthy serving of salad, endless salad and tomatoes. These orange ones are not going to be on my planting list next year. The orange and red centres remind me of blood oranges. Or garish ice lollies. Not what I like to envisage on my plate with the mozarella and the basil. But juicy and tasty like the rest.

Well if you were checking daily you would have had baited breath. Did she, did she weed the lilac bed? Indeed I did; albeit a day late.

That’s the sort of thing that happens in this heat. You spend all your precious gardening hours (before 10am) watering. And not getting round to other chores. But it’s done. And if I remember to go and get the plant food next time I’m up in the potting shed, the whole task will be mastered.

The lilac throws up suckers everywhere. So that’s was fun getting each and every blighter out. (I missed two, can see them in the picture.)

And then I decided it was well nigh time to do what I call the east gite wall. Way, way back in April I promised to get this cleared. No time like a woman wielding secateurs. Up I went and out it came.

Now this won’t show you the detail. But there were plenty of baby brambles, tendrils of ivy, wretched perriwinkle. And other assorted weeds up here. Now that it’s tidy I have no idea what to do with it. Some scented shrubs level with the guest bedroom window would be ideal. But I have already killed an expensive daphne here. Not an acid loving plant methinks. And there is a chance that this whole area will be excavated if we are going to put in proper drainage around the exterior of the guest house. So I shall not leap in here just yet.

Right, time to mooch and eat grapes. Job done.

Don’t you just love the shortcomings of digital photography?  And those who wield the shutter. Try as I might there is no way I could convince you there are four healthy but small olive trees lurking here on this terrace.

Below the plums (and the endless suckers) and above the track that leads to the orchard. And just to the right of the large established olive tree we inherited.

They survived being snowed on this winter and a blasting of cold weather. They are now being slowly killed by the hot summer. But I am attentively watering every ten days or so. But even more often now that I can actually see them from among the thicket of weeds.

I have a list of chores to do; and they all revolve around where the sun will be at any particular time of day. Had to get the olive terrace weeded before 10am and the sun became too fierce. (I am half an hour behind schedule, but it’s just raking and dumping the cuttings in the new compost pit behind the stables.)

And of course watering before breakfast. Before the sun heats up the potting shed I want to sow a lot of next year’s flower seeds. And then by lunch when I will be hiding, it will be washing the tomato seeds time. (They have been soaking in water for three days.) And writing, and doing day job stuff.

And finally if all goes well I will move to the lilac garden in the late afternoon and get things weeded and fed. Plans, so full of promise.

A happy and productive afternoon up in the sauna; sorry, potting shed doing what it says on the door. Potting. I am bursting with winter kale seedlings. So they had to go into containers and individual pots. I don’t dare put them out in the garden until I can sort out the creature eating my swiss chard.

Next up the lovely coriander fronds. I know I’m late in the season to actually get these going. But everything bolted in the heat earlier. So it will be autumn stir fries for these beauties.

And while I was gently basting, I decided that it was time to hoik everything outside into the relative cool of the shed shade. Out came the seeds. Aquilegias not doing as they are told. (But Andrew reassures me that they are beasts to germinate and I may be better with plants instead.) Cuttings sulking and in some cases dying.

So out they came and were minutely inspected. Some of the jostaberry cuttings are actually alive which is great news. They are the soft fruit du jour around here. And I realised that of all the cuttings, verbena bonariensis comes up trumps. Tough as boots. Why even the bonariensis hedge was on the brink of death just a few weeks ago from lack of water. A slosh or two and the brown flowers have turned their delightful mauve again. And the butterflies thank me for the effort.

So down I nipped and managed to rustle up two pots more for propagating. Wish I had more seeds to sow. But I will just have to be patient a few weeks more.

What else had the treatment? I potted on more spinach sown a few weeks back and looking lush. And more echinacea and some cornflowers which are up. No sign of the sweet rocket or monarda yet. Nor the nigella. But perhaps they will do better out of the blast of heat that is my outdoor office. Watch this space.

What a strange phonemenon in the sky. Clouds. Whispy and wimpish, but enough cloud cover to give me a surprise at 10am. I wasn’t basting in my own juices as I worked. Potato crop was up first. Paltry but at least we will get two more feeds before I am forced to go to the farmer up the road and buy his.

And then it was into the strawberry bed. I had around 35 runners to plant up (lost count). Snip into the weedproof fabric, water well, scrape, plant, water again. Looks rather lush.

And I even managed to eat a few berries that have escaped the fauna that thinks eating my veg is fun.

All this before 11am. So now I’m going to have to drink some tea, sample some tart. And then rinse off the slime from the tomato seeds that have been brewing in water for three days, dry them and hopefully have a good crop next year.

What is this doing on a garden blog? Okay, well I am showing off. But at least they are blackberries and raspberries from the garden.

And I decided to make a huge batch and freeze most of them so that I’m not caught short when it comes to entertaining. Or just scoffing elegantly for afternoon tea.

Here is a garden picture. Sunflowers. Devilishly hard to get them all to face forwards in the vase. This is my third attempt. They sit proudly on the kitchen bench so they can be admired when cooking.  And other such mundane activities such as watching the World Cup athletics on the box.

Tada. Twenty five grasses all in a wonky row. They had a night soaking in water, and I didn’t have to prepare the soil as it was pristine and well raked. And there is no problem with the drainage as the stones underneath will help with that.

I agonised about how to group the plants. But decided that this will be the first layer just to get some roots down and bind the path. Later I can do more creative things like weave some low growing gaura or other such hardy plants.

Planting was a doddle. Especially as it was only 7am and deliciously cool. Wish it were like this for hours and hours instead of teensy window of opportunity each morning.

I promise to water diligently a few times a week just to save them from the heat.

And after that small foray into the creative arts of planting up it was back to the day job. Harvesting tomatoes. Hiding indoors, and giving the seedlings in the potting shed a drenching.

Need to get the strawberries planted up. Tomorrow perhaps.

Now here is the finished product. A strimmed orchard. Tidy and neat and it pleases me no end. Well, I ended up on the sofa with heat stroke later in the evening so that was an end as well.

Fancy. Too much sun. I should have learned. Managed to avoid this all summer and then get too keen to finish my list of chores rather than lie down in the middle of the day and finish my book. Ah well. Didn’t last long and I had a very quiet day today. But lesson learned.

But enough of all the dull stuff. Here is the new look Calabert path. Neater and wider and ready for grasses and gaura perhaps.

Nicolas started with the wall itself, weaving young chestnut saplings around well thumped in metal reinforcing rods.

Next up was a thick layer of stones abutting the fence. This is for drainage and to strengthen the wall.  Finally came a top dressing of soil.

And don’t you love that expression a top dressing. Comes nowhere near explaining how hard it is to excavate soil around here. First we had to chose a site; the area opposite the shade garden seemed likely. It is on quite a slope which seems to indicate that over the years soil has come down the mountain and settled here. And the wall had fallen down long ago and just left to erode. Out came barrow loads of granite stones. And then the soil. One wheelbarrow, loads and loads of soil.

And what do you do with that small mountain of mini granite boulders? Why you turn them into a feature. Terraces need supporting. But instead of a laborious new wall here is the solution.

Can’t wait to get into this new bed and plot the planting. But not in the heat.

Now all I need to do is soak the pennisetum grasses I bought earlier in the month and plant up tomorrow morning in the cool.

I am hiding from the heat. 1130am and the house is the only place to hide from this incessant blast of summer.

A litre of water, a cool cloth to the head and I am almost ready to head out again. In fact I would have kept it up an hour longer but I just couldn’t get the strimmer to start. It’s protesting the heat as much as my head.

It seems 730am to 930am is the only window of opportunity in which do to hot work. The sun gets up over Mont Godin around then and you have to change bandana for large hat.

But I have made progress: found a lost wall that was buried under a sea of brambles. I couldn’t strim the thing as it was so thick. Instead I had to take to it with large loppers.

And then raking the darn stuff down to the flat bit of the orchard was the next grueling task. When Nicolas heads off to lunch I will be able to sneak the wheelbarrow he is using and get all the mess into a neater pile. And that pile I think is going to be a new compost section. Hidden well behind the stables. But close enough that I might be able to make use of the compost in a year’s time.

It looks rather odd seeing the trees all on their lonesome down at the base of the slope. Makes one want to plant more. More soft fruit? More trees? Or just a wall of perfectly trained grasses.  Hmm, I can see the year’s planting stretching out ahead.

But at least all the while I was doing grunt work on a lower terrace I was comforted by the fact that creativity was happening elsewhere.

The new chestnut wall is almost complete. And it can even withstand a bit of bouncing when I plant up the grasses. Proof from the creator of the wall.

It is going to give a broader area to plant up the grasses and perhaps permit some room for gaura and other fun sun-loving plants. I know already (to the cost of the mini meadow experiment) that this is a dry area indeed.

But can’t think of creative stuff. Back to my toil.

Now that’s a good way to start one’s day. The bushes have responded well to that sluicing of water I gave them this past week. Groaning with berries.

I am mostly freezing them for the next batch of raspberry cordial. But plenty more for munching.

Actually the day started with a trip to town with my neighbour Danielle who is incapacitated with a broken arm. I to the boulangerie to get bread and treats, Danielle to the market to get strawberries for her 93 year old mother.  She is of a venerable age, but has voluble needs. And luckily a craving for fresh strawberries could be satisfied with one small trip to town.

My other main garden task was to start the week of strimming one evening early. It is promising to be 32C every day this week, so the only hope I have is to start early and finish late. And probably lie prone on the floor at lunch trying to recover from the exertions.

But before I regale you with pics of half strimmed terraces. And believe me, they are of a monochrome straw yellow right now. Here is the first peacock orchid emerging from the rose planter. Each planter has a few out and they will no doubt delight for the next month at least.

I want to get the lower terraces sorted before the end of the month. But first off was the terrace above the orchard. I have neglected it terribly this summer. It is one of those long sloping terraces that just seems to ooze wildflowers, tangle of brambles and mess. So starting around 7pm I went into the lower slopes and easily removed the dead vegetation. The steeper slopes are much trickier. Especially when you are wielding a heavy electrical instrument. So that is going to have to wake for tomorrow’s early attack.

One of the treats of the dusk strimming was to find that the Falstaff apples are ripe. And what juicy beauties they are. So crunchy. And such a nice break from the din of the strimmer and toil among the brambles.

I lay prone on the grass (well, crisp grass-like area) and ate it through, relishing the quiet. All except for the incessant noise of the male chaffinch. Our summer’s chorus. What a glorious place.

And then I realised too that I have neglected to record the progress of Nicolas’ latest landscaping progress.

This is the linking wall between the end of the calabert (open Ardeche barn) and the apple tree in the middle of the terrace and the top of the steps that lead down to the pool. It would have been of stone if any of us had the energy, the patience, the funds or the will power. But I for one couldn’t bear the site of the cement mixer cluttering up the now clear calabert for another winter.

So a woven little wall of chestnut saplings it was to be. Luckily chestnut saplings is something we have in abundance. So with the aid of iron reinforcing rods, here is the wall.

Can’t quite work out where it is in relation to the rest of the garden? Try this angle.

Sorry the view is so parched and yellow. That green lawn will come back, we hope. And tomorrow I shall get on with more strimming and less gazing at someone else’s garden work.