Now here is another chore ticked off the list. I have made a leaf mould cage. It’s a bit wonky and rustic. But I think it will do the trick. I have sited it right down on the first terrace behind the old rabbit shed. Well out of the way; and in the shade of two chestnut trees. So with luck the leaves will rot down over the next year to eighteen months and make some lovely soil improver.

Naturally once it was up I realised it needed feeding. So out to the road I went and raked up more leaves. I have been hoarding bags and bags of leaves that I raked late last month. But this large expanse of cage soon eats up the contents.

And where leaves are raked one gets to study the length of grass growing on the sides of the road. Too long. Time for a strim. Out came the mighty strimmer and that was my afternoon. Satisfying when you can slash away at long swards of grass. But tedious when you have to sort out the whippy chord that keeps snagging or needs lengthening.  I have heard there are better designed strimmer heads, and maybe next year I will ask Santa for a replacement.

But I did manage to do all the way down the road, in the orchard and up around the house. No pictures, I was too busy wielding the mighty beast and rushing to get it done before dark.  It was wondrously and surprisingly sunny today. The weather is predicted to turn by Friday, so I am making the most of it while I can.

Besides, the builder are at the noisy and dusty sanding stage of the walls and ceiling, so it’s safer outdoors.

Here it is: the great unveiling of my new look potager. I have raked the last quadrant and moved a bit of soil about just for a spot of styling.

I am so delighted with the final results: and best of all the quadrants will stay this way until March at least. I am counting on a cold winter to keep weeds at bay. If you peer at the cloches in the far left, the broad beans are actually up. Peeping up out of the soil. I only planted two and a half experimental rows to see if they would survive the winter but so far so good.

And here are the finished paths. Long may they stay weed free and with the bark chips firmly in place.

The where? I didn’t even know I had an olive orchard. Well I do now. Five trees make an orchard and I am poised to order two more trees.

The previous owners had planted two olives on the property; and they have grown well. Despite not being staked and leaning at a rather sad angle.  My plan is to have two more trees planted right next to this one specimen. And then hopefully I can give this poor one a radical prune to get it back into the upright shape.  No olive oil for a bit I guess while these trees grow.  But the four ones that I planted last autumn are coming along. Slowly.

But right now it’s the hard landscaping of the area that causes the most pleasure. Nicolas has been working away at the pile of stones. And this is the result. A fine and handsome small wall right in front of the house.

Not bad when you consider that this area is just a holding bank for weeds and clinging wild clematis. No, don’t get excited; they don’t even have interesting flowers. Just choking long tendrils that try and reach the trunk of the olive tree.  And there was so much of the wall rubble showing that it’s a relief to have real soil on it at last.  You can see how these terraces get built: just chuck rubbish on it in the form of broken tiles and rocks, add some soil, and let it run amok.

When I get some time, I shall remove the scrawling soil and weeds from the rock directly in front of the house. And then it will be neat indeed.

And speaking of which: here is a small picture of the potager paths. I bought some extra bark chips on my journey up to the house today.  Tomorrow I shall be able to take more pictures of the whole finished project.  The light was just too low in the sky to do it justice this afternoon.

So what do you do with the contents of your three foot thick walls that are being demolished?  I didn’t realise just how many granite boulders go into the building of these old Ardeche farmhouses.

So when Etienne and Clovis asked ‘where to you want ‘em?’ I just pointed vaguely at the courtyard and hoped that they might be of use to Nicolas in the garden.  He needed about a dozen or so good sized rocks for his extension of the little wall he was going to build in the lower vegetable garden.

The little wall that is now in place is where the strawberries grow. Or try to grow between the weeds.  And I wanted him to help me with the difficult corner that hosts more brambles and an old sickly rose bush than I ever could have wished for.  So he proposed extending the little wall all the way around the curve. I would lose a bit of space in that quadrant of the potager; but all in a good cause I think.

But I hadn’t counted on this huge volume. So what to do? Why keep building of course. Dry stone only, as they are quicker and also because these are lower walls that the usual ones on the property.  Watch this space. 

There are days flying by and no postings.  I have been rather  preoccupied with house renovations this week.  But I try to get outdoors each morning for some warming exercise.  And what could be more invigorating than raking leaves?

It’s a deliciously positive task. Except for the volume of leaves I have to remove. You start out enthusiastically on a small bit of verge, and before you know it you realise you have to keep going all the way down or it would look odd.

Doing Alice’s path was much easier – except for all the prickly chestnut burrs. But now the area is clear and the grass can happily sulk over the cold winter ahead.

I have also been in a part of the forest I rarely visit. This was to broadcast the honesty seeds that Andrew returned to me last week.  Or was it the week before? Time flies.  I can’t wait to buy one of his famous honesty wreaths to add to our Christmas cheer.  Mind you, I wouldn’t put it up just yet. The house is a building site.

Other news? I have added lots of extra soil to the shade garden and the Pennisetum bank. Not sure if it will do much good; but it feels right to be adding to this rather dry and gasping part of the garden.  The Pennisetums look quite sprightly in their winter garb. I won’t be cutting back the grasses until Spring.

And when the weather was too poor – and believe me with over three inches of rain on Sunday and a driving storm with gusts of 85km per hour I did seek refuge in my potting shed.

There I had a lovely morning potting up the seedlings that will hopefully last all winter in this slightly better protected environment.  I have a list somewhere on my cluttered desk.

Long pause there. I found it.  Ragged Robin, Monadia Bee’s Favourite, Echinacea Pink Parasol,  Nigella Moody Blues, Hollyhock Icicle,  Erysium Blood Red and some Sweet Rocket.  Not a large variety of any one plant; but I do seem to have a lot of Angelica Vicar’s Mead which came up well from my fresh sowings in October. Or was it September? Feels like aeons ago when we were sweltering in the heat and watering like mad. 

I have also cleared the cutting garden area beside the potting shed. This will hopefully be where the newly positioned potting shed will go.  But not until the new year.