I’m having a pause: one quarter of the road done and too much to go.

And that was as far as I got. Days and days have gone past. And to put off finishing the blog I have even gone so far as to tidy my desk and write to the French taxation department over a piece of lost paperwork.  But now it’s nose to the grindstone and finish the landscaping news.

It took a weekend of work, but I have managed to move the turf and soil to parts more worthy: first to the edge of the road closer to the house that has a distinct list to the south.  Then up to the orchard for some much needed remedial work.

It’s rather fun knowing that I may be able to mow this part of the orchard in a few months time. There were plenty of annoyingly large stones lurking in the slope, so I built it up first with rock and then filled in with soil and turf. 

And all this time spent in this part of the grounds had me thinking.  Why not put some of those jostaberry cuttings to good use?  I had struck some cuttings (show off, I just purned them rather hard a few years back and stuck the twigs in the ground) and they were putting on some typical jostaberry growth.

If you don’t know the jostaberry you will not be surprised to learn it’s no beauty.  A cross between a blackcurrant and a gooseberry, it produces wonderfully tart fat berries in the late spring.  But never seems to suit commercial production as its branches grow all over the place. Not a plant for the neat gardener.  But I have plenty of room here, so I planted three cuttings.  There are still enough for Nicolas of the two year old and one year old cuttings still up near the potting shed; but it will be fun to see if these three fruit.

The white powder is wood ash from the fire.  Ought to help things along.

But that brief interlude of creativity was tempered by yet more loads of wheelbarrowing up to the orchard and even further up to the plum trees. I added more topsoil and turf under here too.

And finally, finally it was the last trudge and I could look down the road and see it all clear.  And ready for the next snow plough damage.  Shame about the centre of the road and all those thyme plants that used to be there. But they’ll grow again.  Or weeds will.

Next up was even more punishing heavy work.  Goodness knows why, but the eyesore of the building sand left over from December was irking me.

It was the first thing you saw when you turned the car up to the house and parked.  This time I hadn’t come up with a cunning plan for making use of the sand.   So I have just piled it up near the potting shed.  That’s wheel up and over the pebbles (never easy) run along the rickety path through the calabert, up the slope to the shade garden (mind the rock dead centre in the path that’s too big to move) and then stockpile up against the un-used door of the shed.  Easy peasy.  If you are a builder’s mate.

And I forgot to mention the sand was damp. Playfully heavy on the spade.

For some soothing recovery work I sowed garlic and onion sets into modules of a mix of compost and mole hill soil.  It’s way too cold for them, but if I get a thaw in the next few weeks they may take off a bit earlier than had I planted them directly in the soil.

And of course it’s the question of which predator to avoid: deer in the potager or mice in the potting shed.  I found one small moribund rodent inside the fish blood and bone fertiliser.  Poor thing must have gorged itself to death. It was barely bigger than your thumb, so not a scary thing to dispose of.  But it does remind me that I am providing food in the shed in the form of seeds and bulbs. I have plenty more onion sets to sow directly in the soil when it warms up.

My last task was to remove the sedges that are growng on the edge of the lawn.  The plan will be to plant miscanthus sinensis here instead.  It will be a bit of a scavanging hunt for the first bit: I have about eight or nine grasses elsewhere that can be transplanted.  But with the entire length of the lawn needing the ornamental grass hedge treatment, I may need at least ten more grasses in the spring.

And to finish this rushed post (I have a plane to catch) here is the latest picture of the advance of the wild boar. They were in the east garden last night. About ten metres from the house. Urgh.

There are days when you are reminded that you are sharing this mountain with more than mere humans.  The cold and snow is bringing the wild boar lower and closer to the houses.  I walked up to the source this morning to have a look at our water supply (flowing nicely all your Manon des Sources fans) and found out just who our neighbours are.

They are grubbing about looking for fungi and anything edible under the soil.  But to get to the grubs you would think they are using a snow plough attached to their snouts.  Destructive grubbing indeed.  This main bit of fossicking is about 60 metres from the house up near the forest.  But we have to be resigned to the fact that they may come into the garden itself.  I shall take a long, lingering look at my perfect potager and accept that it amy be laid waste any night now.

I even closed the gate on my top potager.  I haven’t for a year. Daisy doesn’t seem madly keen on the sharp thorns of the raspberry canes, so I have not bothered. But the thought of losing my asparagus to wild boar just when we get the chance to eat the first spears after a patient three year wait will be heart breaking.

And speaking of Daisy: here is (probably) her handiwork on the pillar next to our front door. I am aware that our wild deer get blamed for every destructive force around the farm. But she really is the only one who can reach this high.

And what have I been up to apart from photographing the traces of wild life?  I have made the first of 2010 pots of jam.  Five pots of mirabelle plums.  I found them in the deep freezer when I was hunting for a pint of milk.  No good having them skulking in there; I held some back for stewed fruit for dessert and the rest will go towards my very first stock pile of sweet treats.

Oh yes, and I am wood treating the potting shed.

I’m doing a spot of compulsory landscaping this morning: the snow plough must have come through last week to enable Jean Daniel to escape the Mont Godin ice slide of a road. And as a consequence most of the road up to the house has been dramatically and decoratively scalped.  If you were looking for a tool to landscape your garden, you wouldn’t use a snow plough.  It’s a touch clunky.

Great chunks of grass with soil attached are sitting by the roadside just waiting to be put back or, better still, put somewhere more useful.

So after doing all the pruning of the grapes in the courtyard, I took the wheelbarrow down the road and starting scooping up.  Now there are two things that mitigate enjoying this landscaping job. It’s a steepish slope to push the full wheelbarrow up to the garden. And the soil and grass is heavy.  Sort of a two nurafen plus job if you ask me. One now at lunch and if still pinging with sciatica, another one before bed.

But it’s a sunny winter’s day. The woodpeckers are making their particular song, or warning in the lower forest on the trees.  And the small birds are flitting about in the cherries up near the house.  And best of all, there is the most delicious scent on the air. I have no idea what tree or plant is exuding this perfume, but it’s the sort that makes you stop and sniff and then inhale exhuberantly in the hope you can keep it imprinted on your memory.  Would that I knew what it is.  I thought I knew most plants in this part of the garden. But you can never be a know all when it comes to plants.  But glory be if I can find it.

This landscaping job was not on my list of chores today: I really need to get the potting shed treated with mite killing chemicals before they spring back to life.  And this sunny day is perfect for outdoor painting.  But I did achieve one other task on the list. It may not look pretty but I have put weed suppressing fabric around all the fruit trees in the orchard.  Not the world’s easiest task as I have huge deer proof fencing around each tree. And I therefore have to squeeze my hands in between the bars to tuck in the fabric.

Now that’s more like it. Here is the property covered in the white stuff.  We are still in London, but Jean Daniel very kindly plodded over from his house and snapped a few wintry shots.

I’m just dying to get out there and make my own tracks in the pristine snow.  But I must be patient. And even wait until it thaws a bit so I can actually drive up to the house. The rest of the mountain community are using snow chains.

That just about sums up a winter trip to France: a happy hefty log pile ready to be stored away for another winter.  It’s about the most satisfying scene to survey. And the most practical.

Practical chores were on my mind on the last gardening day before heading back to the metrop.  Filling yet more holes and wonky bits in the area around the walnut trees up behind the calabert.

My steady supply of topsoil came courtesy of the rocks above the path.  Last month you may recall I started clearing away the debris.  Today I kept on going. It’s too steep for a wheelbarrow up here, so I did spend more time than I planned filling buckets of soil and plodding over to where I needed to fill.  But I had time, and it was sunny and my back was grateful for the lack of strain.

Around the big and very fruitful walnut tree (this year) there has always been an impossible to mow and almost impossible to strim section that required a quarry of stones to build up the level before I added soil.  It’s still steep and may not suit the mower, but at least it’s an even slope.

And there were a few other parts of the path that were topdressed with the lovely soil.  I really ought to be stockpiling it for adding to the potting compost come spring sowing.  But as you may recall, that shed is full and not ready to take on extra mess.

From a distance you don’t see it.  But look closely and you will find that our resident deer is still haunting the garden. Poor creature. Freezing cold and windy and dark. And all she has to supplement her meagre diet over this season are a few straggly leeks.

That can’t be fun. I took the rake to tidy up the potager just after Christmas and to erase the footprints of said deer.  But she was back the very next night cropping the tops off the leeks and working her way down the row.

I don’t mind (I’m not a fan of leeks myself). And even felt a pang of guilt that I don’t have anything juicier for her to steal.  But I’m not about to fall into the trap of leaving her proper food just to get her through the winter.  That would be disastrous come the growing season. And the wrath of gardener when confronted by marauding ruminant is not to be ignored.

And this thought was even before we noticed that she has taken to stripping the bark off the wooden pole supports right at the front door of the house.  Now that’s what I call peckish.  Here’s h0ping she doesn’t spot the little daffodil shoots that are just staring to poke out of the soil and grass in front of  the house. That would be heartbreaking indeed.

I was sure that this was the title of a previous entry. But short of reading laboriously through every post since June 2007 again, I’m going to risk being repetitive.

Guilt feelings about shattering the peace of the countryside accompanied each and every trip for more sticks. But I am delighted with the results.  Especially as my ear muffs keep me so toasty and warm.

My main source of the chippy sticks came courtesy of Electicite de France’s trusty chainsaws. One day last month when I wasn’t looking they roared up to the property and cut away any branches threatening to touch the electricity lines. Down came some mighty chestnut branches. And as they were in such a rush to fulfil their quota they just left the branches where they fell.

And on with the scavenging for those of us lower down the food chain.  With help cutting the logs into smaller chunks, I spent a happy afternoon collecting the sticks, dragging them to the chipper (which doesn’t thrive away from a power socket) and turning them into mulch.

The bark chips now reside on the newly created calabert bed, plus extra for the lilac bed in the east garden, more around the plants in the shade garden. And finally lots under the walnut tree on the path up to the top vegetable bed.

That short paragraph belies how much work is involved. But warm work on a cold day never goes unremarked. And one has to earn the christmas cake somehow.

For an encore we even went down to the lower terrace and finished off the dead oak and chestnut trees that were felled in the summer. Andrew thinks that if I can get three inches of mulch on the beds I stand a good chance of being weedless, as well as locking in the moisture and mulching the plants.

Here’s hoping it works. It certainly helps with the aesthetics of felled trees.

I was looking over the pictures to add to this blog and found them all to be rather dull. Is it the photographer? The season? the subject? Or the fact that I can barely see the computer screen here in the London office from the low sun glinting off the snow.

Oh yes, snow in London and all the accompanying dramas. But out in France last week it was just cold and sunny and perfect landscaping weather.

We arrived to find that Nicolas has used up the very last of the stones that were removed from the living room wall.  There is an hour more of work to do before it’s complete, so the picture isn’t very revealing but this is the eroded piece of wall outside the house and near the fig tree.  It was crumbling away with heavy rain, so I’m delighted that now I won’t have to worry about the fig tree sliding down the hill.

And I think this means that all the wall building is complete. Have I said that before? Probably. But things look tidy and a touch elegant and everything has been recycled.  Nicolas must have run out of rocks, because I noticed that the steep bank just above the lawn is now tidy too. No more boulders lurking halfway down the slope threatening to flatten the grass. So bravo for him to hauling them about.

My rock contribution was not to haul but to clear.  Christmas day and I took out my toys and worked away at rocks directly in front of the house. How direct? Well they hold the house up.  The stone farmhouse is built on stone. The huge bedrock that juts out of the front in a wonky but hopefully solid fashion.  They had been covered in weeds and neglect for too long. So along came the secateurs for the brambles, the trowel for the soil and the wheelbarrow to take the lovely rich topsoil away.

It was lovely work in the sun and the illicit knowledge that for the first time in my life I could garden on my own plot of land on Christmas day.  There is more to do (in the form of round up of the weeds in spring to really see them off) but it’s a good start.

And where to put this rich dark soil? Some to fill in the gaps just beside the rocks and in front of the olive tree. But I had other more ambitious plans.

There was a hefty divet (sorry, divot – you can tell I’m not a golfer) just in front of the steps near the lower vegetable garden. The sort where the lawnmower lurches into it and threatens not to come out the other side when you are cutting the grass.  That was the first candidate for repairs.  I will need to sow grass seeds in the spring over the top of the new area. But for now at least it is more walkable.

And I needed to add more good topsoil to the little wall in the vegetable garden. Rich chocolate cake look to the future planting area. I think this might be where I plant out the flower seedlings I am aiming to grow. I won’t be able to protect it from hungry deer, but I won’t feel as bereft as losing a row of radish.

But the other idea became the project du jour.  I notice that if I can lawn mow the paths around the garden during the growing season then things are in control and tidy. If they are hard to access and require a strimmer and a good sense of humour (you do have to work on a steep slope), then they get neglected.  And the slope under the plum trees is a perfect example.  The old terrace has eroded over time.  I don’t have the energy, desire or funds to build it up properly. And indeed there is no need. But to get it the same level as the neighbouring lawn path required a bit more than soil.  I started off by filling in with stones to get a bit of height (sorry this is so dull, it’s the theme of the entire story).

And then more and more soil to get it mowable.  I dug entire clumps of grasses (not the exciting varieties, more weed than anything else, but bracingly binding for slopes) from the area behind the calabert I am working on.  And after about ten loads of wheelbarrow work, I have a better looking orchard.

It may all fall apart in a heavy downpour before the grass seeds push through. But right now we are expecting heavy snow and freezing weather, so it shouldn’t shift just yet.

Happy New Year to you all.  And well might you say about time too. Many of  you may know that I have been here in France, and in the garden for more than a week now. And no news.  Lazy, busy and I blame a cold office.

But it’s the day for resolutions and writing up the day’s notes are the second tick off the list. The first was the biggy and it took all day. I cleaned my shed.

I don’t dare give you a before picture. Just the look on Andrew’s face as he poked his head in yesterday ought to have been enough for any guilt stricken gardener.  Since October or so I have been under the dream of upgrading the chicken shed and turning it Cinderella you will go to the ball into a real potting shed / green house. I was kept awake planning and plotting designs. I have pondered flooring. I have even tried to track down cheap windows in depot vente shops.

Nothing to hold me back except for the skills of a carpenter or a builder to get the structure moving along. Concrete footings, beams, all sorts of things that baffle me, and made me turn to the large number of clever carpenters in the area. And the result? Everyone is too busy. It looks as though Dario – my first choice – is not going to be able to get anywhere near the project until mid June at least. (There is the small matter of major renovations on the guest house first.)

So I have been neglecting the shed for months. Lobbing in tools and plants and generally being a complete slattern. But today it is back to a semblance of order.  And it took a day.

Pat on back, cold glass of beer, and now on with the rest of the week’s news.