Sorry about that. I had a rogue photo that kept drifting below the end of the text and I couldn’t find a way of fixing the technology.

Where was I? Lawn maintenance. Who would have thought it? There are some things I never imagined I would be tackling in middle age. But attending lawns has become one of them. From a distance the lawn looks to have survived the summer, but on close inspection it has bare patches and threatening weeds.

I had done my first rake a few days ago, but realise that I need to give it a few hours of vim and vigour to get it sorted. And I’ve run out of time.  This sloping bank also needs some work.

I need to get all those rocks and stones down. You never see them in the summer for the weeds. Sorry, native grasses.  And something else needs doing.  I had pictured a wall. A lovely stone wall mirroring the one beside the swimming pool. And all that lovely soil up near the spring. That would go perfectly behind a retaining wall and solve the problem of the crumbly rock surface.

But that is fantasy. In the realm of lottery wins and unlimited funds. I should instead concentrate on tidying what we have, picking up all those endless apples that drop all over the slope and lawn. Not eating apples, good enough only for the horses next door. But I never get to them until they are either dessicated or oozing with drunken wasps and slime.

And speaking of the horses next door. Look who I saw when I went to the Mayor’s office this morning. Le Tout St Michel seemed to be there. And Jean Daniel trotted up too. He was taking his grandchildren on a long three hour ride around the mountains. Oh how I yearned to be with them. It was such a perfectly sunny cool day. I couldn’t imagine anything better.

But I did my best and doing ‘good’ and picked up the fallen chestnuts from under the shade garden plants instead.

This is a chore that is definitely on the toil side of chores. You climb into your kneeler pads, don your rubber gloves, grab a large bag and get to picking up the burrs.

This will only be half the crop to fall. I need a bit of a breeze to get the rest of the chestnuts down. Or time. They are quite amazing plants. You couldn’t imagine the number of little seedlings that I pull up from under the mother tree each year.  And I am ashamed to say that I haven’t even bothered to harvest any and cook them and freeze them and wow myself with a chestnut stuffing at Christmas. One can have a surfeit of chestnuts.

I didn’t buy a single chestnut or chestnut product at the Chalencon chestnut festival on Sunday. But I counted the visit a victory as I managed to make contact with the water diviner and the pool man. And wave hello to our local electrician.  Country life.

I also had a tidy of Alice’s path just below the shade gardens and the potting shed. The grass seeds have germinated in all this rain we have had. And the path looks quite fetching. Yes, I know it’s patchy as well. But give it time.

What else have I done in the past two days of glorious garden work? I took dozens and dozens of verbena bonariensis cuttings. I am going to need scads of this plant in many areas of the gardens next year. The hedge of verbena at the edge of the potager needs bulking out. It was a bit too dry to get many little self-sown babies up this autumn. But once I actually get round to weeding the herb garden I may find a patch of them there.  I am pleased to have so many euphorbia seedlings up.  Lots for Andrew as a gift tomorrow. And lots for me to transplant elsewhere around the garden.

My plant palette has shrunk from my mad fantasy stage of earlier this year. No more trying to fit lush moisture hungry plants into a very dry garden. It will be verbena, gaura, grasses and euphorbia from now on.

Don’t you love these bold statements! As if I’m going to follow this advice.  Sensible jobs complete today (you can see I’m keen for my whisky and bed) were to compost the straw around the baby olive trees.  And to tidy up the compost bin.

Oh yes, a picture of my bins. But this time it is surprisingly neat. I have watered the pile, tucked it up with plastic and held it down with a pallet.  And just look at those marvellous euphorbia bushes behind. Drought tolerant beauties.

The green bag contains my body weight of bark ready for the future paths in the potager. Fingers crossed I will be able to do that chore next visit.

So many beautiful pictures to post tonight: I don’t know where to start. Perhaps with this exquisite gloaming vision of the forest which I snapped while walking back from the top vegetable bed.

I was actually admiring the strimming work that Nicolas had done on the brambles that infest the rocks on the side of the road, but even I was caught by the evening light.

So struck indeed that I took a few more. My brother would do it better justice as he is such a great photographer, but here is my paltry contribution.   Shan’t bore you as I have much to tell, but here is picture number two:

Earlier I had taken up a bucket of cosmos to Danielle, our neighbour and realised that they have the most amazing view in front of their house. You can finally see autumn colours on the hillside across from our houses.

These cosmos plants are nothing if not tenacious. I’m waiting (rather impatiently) for them to fade so I can collect the seed for next year. Most of them are prone on the ground from last week’s rain, but they are still flowering. Perfect for vases if you don’t look too closely at each and every bloom.

I am impatient in the potager for another reason. Once the cosmos die I can dig them out and dig it over and get sorted for winter. I had an energetic afternoon yesterday digging over two of the lower quadrants. Done, while Nicolas started on the heavy work of digging out the paths.

I had done the earlier spade work (sorry) of measuring and pegging and digging the first spoke of this soon to be four spoke wheel. But I knew that I couldn’t do much more without the aid of extra muscle.  I had to wait until early this morning to show the progress, as every picture I took yesterday afternoon involved my shadow. And some alarming looking dark bits that obscure the soil.

It looks like the Somme right now, but it will improve, truly.

You can see in this picture the planned curve. I need to be able to manoeuvre  (is that how it’s spelt?) the wheelbarrow around this central tub of tulips and wallflowers, so it looks rather wide right now. But I am willing to sacrifice a bit of growing space for some aesthetic merit. There will be more flowers planted next year here as well. That’s my pledge.

Earlier in the day I did a bit of mowing to complete the toil. This is the bank above the lawn. And there’s a project and a pledge. I need to rake it thoroughly and spike it and give it a bit of love.

So, where was I? Digging. And not just in the forest or some random new project; but the original dig. The potager. This is my mighty vegetable garden to the right of the house and just below the courtyard. After two years of productivity, it’s getting a makeover.  Well, a digover.

With the new huge wine barrels that I have, I thought it an idea to plant one up with tulips and wallflowers and place it somewhere in the vegetable garden. Only one place really if you think of symmetry and design. Slap bang in the middle.

So I needed to excavate the middle path, place the weedproof fabric down, roll the barrel into position. Plant up and voila.

Except that I’m only a quarter of the way there. Expensive osteopathy treatment means that I’m not throwing myself onto the spade and hoping for the best.  I have dug half the path and temporarily placed the weedproof and such. It isn’t a pretty picture.  But I have planted up the barrel. The tulips needed to get in and I had the wallflowers bursting out of their pots up in the potting shed.  The multi purpose compost had to be hauled out of the north cellar where it is lurking awaiting the rebuild of the potting shed in January. And then decide which tulips to plant.

I have gone for a dazzle of pinks and reds: Christmas Marvel, Menton and Uncle Tom. And planted the Cheiri Red Wallflowers over the top.  If it’s ghastly I will yank them out. But it could be fun.  I have a lot of the plump Mount Tacomas left over. But I think they will go in the east garden beds.

But why all the soil out you might ask. Well, I asked myself this as I excavated a mountain of it and laboriously tossed it to the sides of the path. I am short of soil in the top two quadrants of the vegetable bed. In fact I am on bedrock up the top. And I cannot rotate my crops properly.  I have four cubic metres of soil way up near the spring that M. Dumont excavated last week. But no way of getting it down the mountain. Besides, the soil in the potager has been worked and manured and tended for centuries. So I didn’t want to see it going to waste underneath a more permanant path.

The tricky bit is I need to make an 80cm wide path all the way around the middle planter. But the leeks and the cosmos are still growing away. And are in the way. Perhaps another day will reveal the better logic of the design. And hopefully Nicolas will come on Tuesday to make the chestnut log sides of the path.

Twas a sunny and surprisingly warm day. Layers were peeled off and just  for punishment I decided to do a spot of surveying of the forest. The next water diviner gets his package of information at the Chalencon festival on Sunday (multi-tasking, everyone will be at the chestnut festival at our local village this weekend, so it’s the perfect place to make appointments and find them).  But he needs to know our boundaries a bit before he launches into his pendulum and water divining sticks.

We have a dog leg of land up near the forest that needed to be delineated. So up I went with 100m of string on a measuring stick, a compass and the photocopies of our land plan courtesy of the government website. All measured up.  And it was actually fun (if you exclude the overheating from stupidly keeping my beanie on my head and the tripping on the random brambles as I played out the string) and quite revealing. I have measured off two big parts and left a thin piece of twine (132 metres long) in situ so he can see what needs to go where.  On Tuesday I must buy a brighter coloured and more robust piece of twine so people don’t decapitate themselves when they walk up the forest path.

Now what do I do? I have almost three kilos of walnuts in various stages of undress (some with skins still on, some naked and nutlike, some a mystery package indeed). But what next? Just dry them? Pick off the outer skins? Eat them? Must contact Uncle Bill and ask.

It was my dusk task yesterday. I must have harvesting withdrawal symptoms now that it’s October. No beans to pick, few cabbage leaves to try and salvage. Tomatoes long gone. It’s a strange time of year. The light is so low that the photographs were hard to take without my shadow intervening in each shot. And those I have look odd.

But the big news this week was the rainfall. Andrew had five inches, and we had somewhere over three and beyond. My rain gauge only goes that far and I have never expected such a wonderful soaking. First trot around the property was to inspect any possible damage from so much rain. And amazingly, there is very little. The banks are in place; the bulbs don’t seem to be floating in any of their planters. And best of all, the lily ponds are full to the brim. That’s one chore to tick off my list.

Sorry about the fishnet stocking look. But any day now the mulberry tree in the courtyard is going to drop about a cubic metre of leaves and if I’m not careful half will blow into the nearby water lily ponds and everything will go slimy.

Everything looks moist and dark brown and well watered. Very happy; especially as it took place while I was away.

And it has made planting things easier. In went ten Pennisetum Hamelin plants that I hauled over. The first few inches of soil on this bank are fine, but bone dry further down. Would you believe after all that rain? That’s drainage on a slope for you. These poor plants are never going to flourish here. So I must try and get more compost onto them whenever I can.

Another tick off the list was to get the planters covered in a gritty composty top. I scavenged the little gritty stones from the roadworks before I left. Just a few buckets worth of the gravel that has been pushed to the side of the road after the surfacing. I needed to soak them in water for a bit to make sure there was no tar left on.  And the rain did that for me.  The little gritty bits are the perfect size as I hope the tulips will be able to push their heads above and around them.

And then came the big dig. I was going to post this separately, but need to get on while it’s still daylight. It’s clouding over and getting gloom and it’s only mid afternoon.

Yes that is sunset in the background of this picture. I finished my terrace just as the sun was dipping and the temperature dipping even faster. But it is so satisfying once you have ticked yet another terrace off the list.

These terraces actually aren’t in bad shape. A few brambles, a few low growing Spanish broom, lots of grass, and some other random plants that I cannot identify as I mow over the top.  They take a cut well and once I pass a second time with a lower blade they can almost look like lawn. From a distance.

The low branches on the chestnut tree were playful. I kept my visor down but still managed to be thwacked in the face with a ripe conker. Ouch.

Once I had finished this one I stalked the rest. It looks like there are four more terraces to go (I’m ignoring the big one in the list) but I can’t quite see how I can get the mower down the steep slope to do the two terraces above the vineyard. Which is a shame, as they could turn into a nice tidy patch of grass in no time.

Ah well. We shall see. It’s a next week project anyway. Right now I need to light the fire and warm up. A cold day and luckily the house has kept the heat.

Well that was fun. Three hours of work from M. Dumont and we may have our source back. He came, he roared up the hill, he dug.  Four metres of excavation into the mountain and four deep.

We have found the water source again, but it is a weak old thing. So we must now wait three weeks and see what comes of this mighty digging exercise.

I made myself useful by wheelbarrowing (quarter loads only) nice soft and weed-free soil from the top down to the new calabert bed. Great exercise as I managed about nine or ten trips.  And I was on hand to take photographs and generally look cheery as M. Dumont dug into the countryside.

Right now I have a sunny afternoon ahead of me – well, 9C and sunny. I think I will finish chipping the sticks in the courtyard, get the mulch onto my new soil. And then head down to the lower terraces with the mower.

Update: we have water in the source. I went up to take another last look and found a small puddle with hopefully more to come. You may not be able to discern much from this picture, but it’s a good sign.

Well here you have the fruits of someone else’s labours. Nicolas set to with vim and vigour at an early hour this morning and in no time he had created a new garden area.

It is short on a bit of soil. Something we hope to be rectified with the arrival of the bulldozer tomorrow morning.  But once I have built up the level I can plant out all the gaura that are lurking about the property.

I was thinking of grasses here; and will do so. But where once I would have plumped for miscanthus or pennisetum, I think it’s going to have to be eragrostis curvula. The mighty African love grass. It sure loves the Ardeche. It is the only grass here on the terraces that has actually thrived in a drought.

Now I know that you will therefore have to keep an eye on it in a wet season. But I’m happy to do that; we have to multiply that grass a thousand fold to secure a good cover of the garden.

Other news? Well I didn’t really do any garden work. Piled logs, drove to town, went to the train station, went in search of a light switch box for the bathroom sink. Bought a giant window and a giant mirror. Drove to Vernoux, dropped off paperwork and went in search of the now sharpened chain saw blade.  So there you have it. And tonight I am cleaning my room (a regular refrain I hear) and watching the history of British agriculture on the computer while I work.

Tomorrow I need to be up bright and early for the bulldozer driver. Camera at the ready, it ought to be a treat.

Oof, three down umpteen terraces to go. How many are there on the lower terraces? Sweet of you to ask but I have no idea. Well I do; but I have to think. Eight perhaps. But one of them is four times the size of the rest and is basically one monster slope.

You get the feeling that after building so many dry stone walls on the mountain that our predecessors just went “eff it”, let’s just leave this one as a slope.

And you may be able to guess by the pictures that I started with the easiest ones. The terraces that actually can be tamed by the lawnmower. And you are right. I’m building myself up for the tedious strimming.  But having said that, you do need a bit of skill. I have the blade way down to 2 for this easy terrace, but you have to make sure you don’t mow off the heads of the flowering thyme, but really go for the wretched yellow verbascums. And the fleabane.

The third terrace (forgot to take a pic of the second while it was an action shot) was simpler. Start at the highest level you can go (7 if you are interested) to half kill the spanish broom and the brambles. Then once you have almost tamed it, drop it down to a nice sharp 3 and try and pretend you are mowing a lawn.

For an encore I mowed the road. Look how green it is after that gorgeous inch of rain. Almost reminds one of spring. This should be the last mow of the year. So it may just stay this neat until spring.

Now here are a few things I did this weekend but forgot to mention. And besides, I hadn’t resized the pictures until this afternoon, so it was going to be as dull as the last post.

Chipping. A fabulously noisy sport. But it is the best use to make of that forest of small sticks for the garden beds.  I took up the monster tarpaulin during the forestry work, and just lobbed them onto the sheet. Gathered up the folds and then dragged it down the mountain. Naturally I snagged on every single protrudance on the way down. But it sure beats trying to get things down in a wheelbarrow.

And then where to put the lovely chipped stuff? Well onto the existing beds. First…. have I mentioned this before? I suspect so. Sorry. Here are the pictures instead of yammering.

Each terrace gets a top dressing of chips. And in the wrong order as I had to mulch later. But at least the layers are building up.

The creative bit (unless you call stuffing sticks into a whirling machine creative) was to plant up the new courtyard  planters with tulips.  My stock of juicy bulbs from Andrew’s order had to be inspected and colours consulted. And here it is:

Mount Tacoma x 7

Maureen x 5

Shirley x 5

Spring Green x 5

And only Andrew will know that I have gone for the safe mostly white and slightly green option. With a tinge of violet on the edge of the Shirleys.  But I promise to ramp up the colour and the clashes with the rest of the planting.

One other task was to park the cloches for the winter. I had thought of taking them down to the stables and storing them there. But instead I opted for the easy walk: just a few feet away onto the strawberry bed. It may even keep the critters off the strawberry plants. I noticed that they are looking decidedly nibbled of late.

Not as bad as the cabbages which are frankly decimated. But that’s gardening. You plant the cabbage and put them safely under cloches to protect them from the cabbage moth butterfly laying eggs. Instead you keep all the predators out that eat the aphids and you lose them anyway. Can’t believe I will actually have to buy cabbage at the market this Thursday. Fancy. Last year we ate Cavallo Nero until April.

I’m up and it’s still dark. Well, almost 730am pre clocks going back. But it feels heroic nonetheless. Just wait until I have imbibed this entire pot of tea and I might even be able to keep my eyes open.

Yesterday was a big day outdoors. All morning in the forest finishing off the tree cutting and clearing away the branches (my job). And then down to the lower terrace to do the same to the two dead trees that were cut down in the summer. I managed to snag a barrel load of lovely bark chips for the potager path. They are slabs of bark more than chips right now. But once I get a hammer to them they will crumble beautifully.

Naturally this has meant I want to redesign the lower vegetable bed incorporating more paths. But that is going to have to wait until the dead of winter: the cosmos cannot be disturbed now they are so magnificent. And besides, I have more work in the area around the potting shed.

Oh yes, after hauling branches and carrying loads of sticks and logs what does one want to do? Dig out compost and mulch from the secret store and get it onto the plants.

Wish I had taken a photo of the action; but I was loathe to carry my camera yesterday as I have already donated my pedometer to the forest floor somewhere. And finding it will be worse than looking for a needle in a haystack, so I decided to leave all toys behind.

The horse manure that I collected from Jean Daniel’s riding stables a year ago was well ready. Dark and soft and perfect. So out it came in buckets and onto the shade garden plants, the terrace beds and the rest of the garden down to the calabert. I fed the anemanthele and euphorbias, the grasses and cornflowers and gaura along the new calabert bed. And as a final encore I tossed bucket loads onto the pennisetum plants on the steep slope. It will probably end up down the bottom of the slope and feed the wildflower bed. But I need to get some nourishment onto that area.

The pennisetums are growing, but not romping. That soil is so poor after  two decades of just brambles. And I had fallen for that ruse that grasses don’t need much love. They do in this dry climate. And I wished I had enough compost to plant around them back in March. But I am trying to catch up with compost and fertiliser now. But naturally it won’t be perfect. I shall have to nurse them better next year.

The grasses in the new calabert bed look better. Richer soil and a bit more attention. And naturally, the bed is on the flat. Rare around here and it will hopefully get better and better. I have broadcast sown lots of poppies and cornflowers here. And they are germinating. As are the weeds. But things can run riot a bit more this year.

For October it was a warm and sunny day. Down to the t-shirt in the late afternoon. But this week’s forecast looks cooler. But sunny thank goodness, so I can keep on with the list.

Right. Tea is drunk. Dawn colours are appearing on the horizon. Time to seize the day.