Caterpillars nil.  I love this pine tree. It is growing out of a rock all on its own on the upper terrace.

When we first bought this farm I saw it as a teensy seedling growing in the wrong place. I was strimming at the time and contemplated cutting it out.  But I didn’t. And look at it now. It does lean a bit, but it is easily four feet tall.

But it has an enemy within its leaves.  The dread pine processionary caterpillar. That’s thaumetopoea pityocampa to you.  And pity you if you have them. They cause an incredible allergic reaction if you touch them or get near their hairs on their bodies.  And some people get incredible reactions just from being in the forest near them as they shed hairs all year.

They weave the most fantastically strong nest to over winter in.  How strong? I couldn’t pull it away even yanking hard on the branch. So I was forced cut out quite a bit of the tree just to get the two little nests off. 

Our woodcutter friend Michel said that the only way to kill them once they have spun this nest is to shoot them with an air rifle when the temperature drops below freezing. That way they freeze to death inside their cocoon.  But if I can reach the nests they get cut out.   Michel can no longer work in many forests as he has become incredibly allergic to them and swells up and can’t breath just from being near them. Poor man.

And what do I do with them? Sorry Dad, all god’s creatures and all that. But they cause so much damage to the pine trees. And there are plenty of the nests too high up the trees for me to reach.

So that was my destructive start to the day.

The rest of the day was spent doing good in the soft fruit orchard. I have weeded like mad, put the hoe to energetic use around each bush, raked the existing mulch, and then added more. 

It’s always the way; I never have enough. I only bought five bags, and with two going to the village garden bed, I only managed to get some cover sorted.  But it’s fine. And the mulch is cheap, so I just need to get a dozen more bags next time I go to Castorama.

The trees are gorgeous in their autumnal colours.  That’s this mild weather for you. Actually I thought it might rain today, it was very overcast and blustery.  But I didn’t get wet. And in fact I’m going to have to water the grasses and a few other garden beds tomorrow to make sure they get a bit of moisture before the weather turns very cold.

And then I had a rush of blood to my head.  Nicolas left a pile of stones beside the orchard for a future project. Why not build a mini wall?

Well I won’t be putting any stone masons out of a job. But it’s cute and it puts a good full stop to the edge of the terrace.

Just a year ago this was a sloping area that teetered onto the terrace below and was held up with brambles.  I weeded, put all the compost onto the edge, covered it with weedproof fabric and didn’t pester it for a whole year.

And now it’s soil. Alchemy or what? So up came the fabric, and I need to add just a teesny bit more soil (about three or four wheelbarrow loads I think – which means six or seven half loads for me).  And then the mulch.

Next year.

So more fun things to tick off my list.  If I get time tomorrow I’ll start on the top vegetable garden.  I’m going to need mostly gauntlets up there.  The brambles are growing up through the wire fencing.   And I need to change the weedproof fabric on the paths.  And add the comfrey to the compost bins. So many things to do.

But first I need to get a lesson in tile repairs on our guest house roof.  Bring it on.

The last day of November and I had to go and get a sun hat at lunchtime to keep out the glare.  A gorgeous sunny and windless day.  I started with one fleece and two sleeveless fleeces and a woolly hat at 830am and then gradually shed as the day wore on.

I was on the grass work all day. Well it felt like that. One of those ‘you’ve started now you’ll have to finish project’.  And by the end of the day I can see that I have two square metres of grass transplanting to go.  But I won’t.  I must attend to weeding of the soft fruit orchard while it’s so fantastically mild.

And I’ve looted all the easy festuca grasses close by and have to start ranging quite far and wide to get my stock.

So I decided that before I start spending all my time walking up to the top terraces it would be prudent to have a tidy of the area and call it almost done.

First up was to take out all the asters that I plonked here as a sort of nursery bed and distribute them about.  Most of them went to the terraces just close by.

But I did go and put some into the east garden lilac bed to bulk out the beds there too.  Sorry the pictures are so unappetising: this is the end of November after all.

And I tried to take photographs of the heathers that I planted up above the lilac garden in a forgotten little space.  But they just disappeared into the background of grasses, rocks and ahem, weeds.  So you’ll just have to trust me that seven plants went in.  That part of the garden which abuts the gite is a future project. In about ten years time I’ll probably get round to it.

For now it was love what you have and attend. So I raked all the fallen chestnut burrs, nuts and leaves from the path above this new festuca bed; and pruned back some of the small branches of the chestnut that looms.

It looks a teensy bit neater now.

And it is in direct contrast to the path above the walnut walk where I took most of the afternoon’s grasses.  Battle of the Somme on a slope.  But I need to weed here over the winter anyway (it’s on my list), so I guess I could say that I’ve made a start on next year’s project.

I have been hunting grasses all day.  It’s a strange activity but quite satisfying.  On paper the idea looks great; smother the bank in grasses to improve the rather bland landscape of random weeds and mulch.  After all, that’s what nature does all over this mountain top.  But after a day and a half of work, I am not quite sure of the results. 

It all looks a bit green and fluffy and, well, ordinary.  Maybe that’s the trick of some landscaping; it looks effortless. But right now it just looks like any un-landscaped part of the natural terraces around.

I have snuck in a few euphorbias in among the biggest of the grasses.  And I curse not ordering another few hundred bulbs: all the soil is soft and just perfect for a mass planting of tulips and daffs in among the grasses. Maybe next year.

And I’m now thinking that maybe I should use the grasses as a mulch in and around the shrubs on the other side of the path.  Just to try and balance things out.  But I can’t do that yet as I’m hoping that all the small plants I’m growing on will be planted out and bulk out the beds.

I’m sitting here in the living room listening to a fireworks display inside the fireplace. Cracking and crackling pine logs in the open fire.  But the drizzle and the glowering sky meant I had to down tools half an hour earlier than usual.  Winter is frustrating when you are just desperate to get as much work down outdoors.

Earlier in the day I ducked over to St Michel and added two bags of mulch to the new bed next to the mayor’s office.  And delivered pots of paperwhite bulbs to friends in the eco hamlet.  So good deeds done.   It’s growing by a house each time I visit. A very impressive project.  Dario’s house is half way there, and I swear I never noticed that straw bale two storey house to his right last time I went.

Tomorrow I’ll try and finish the rest of the bed and then get started on a mass weeding of the soft fruit orchard.

Oh yes, and here’s what I forgot to mention yesterday: I straightened the wonky path on the potager.  I love how everything is on an angle on this farm.

I noticed how crooked the vegetable garden was when I was planting out the strawberries.  So I have now made a proper path.  I still have no idea whether I’m going to order 50 hornbeam hedging trees and put them in. Or just have an extravagantly large edge to the garden to permit the passage of a wheelbarrow without snagging on the chestnut walls on the narrow paths.

It will depend on whether I sell lots of jams at the Christmas Fare next month.  And on that note I think it’s toast and jam time. And a cup of tea.

Ah, a project. I have been plotting this one for a while now.  When you walk up the path from the house towards the potting shed you are confronted with what I call the shade garden. Two huge chestnut trees overhang this area of garden. And therefore make it dry and shady and not much fun for plants.

Oh, and it slopes. So it’s not a lot of fun. No wonder I have just mulched it and pretended it didn’t really exist.  On the left hand side I have been planting like mad.  But not madly enough. I’m still not happy with the look.  But I need to quadruple the quantity of plants to make it look half decent. And all my little cuttings are a long way off turning into plants.

So what to do? Or in the Leninesque way ‘what is to be done?’.  Cheat. I have decided to turn the area into a lawn. But with a difference. I’m using the local grass here called Festuca Glauca and a fine plant it is too. People actually pay money for it.

And as it’s a weed, I can stalk about and uproot them and move them into a new home.

First I had to clear the area first. That’s about ten metres long by three metres wide. And full of stones.

But it was a beautiful sunny day, no wind and Artur took up position nearby to keep an eye on me; but mostly to snooze.

By early afternoon I had enough cleared and raked and preened to be able to start transplanting.  But I had a few other chores to do first. Forest work. Chucking logs, and pruning roses.

The roses are fun because you get the pruning leavings to try and turn into plants.  So wearing thick gauntlets I pruned back all the courtyard roses and collected the sticks in a bucket. Cut down to size and then plunged into the newly cleared area of the wildflower garden near the pool.

See accidently planting all those lily bulbs in that bit of ground wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

And then I remembered that first thing on my list for the day was actually strawberry work.

I had potted up the runners late summer and now was the perfect time to cut them free of their parent plant and plant them in the bed.  Some of the leaves are turning a fetching red.  And the soil is nicely soft to pop in the new baby strawberries.

I had forgotten my mighty rubber gloves, so the nettles that grow out of the wall behind the strawberries and lone fig and forest of verbena bonariensis live for another day.

And then in the late afternoon, we went down to the lower terraces and set up the trail camera (infra red night vision) to try and find some wildlife.  We have missed our chance of getting the badger which had nested down near the vineyard.  No action on its territorial dung heap and the path through the forest looks neglected.

Hopefully we will catch something plodding on the path over the next two months.

Kneeler’s knee, bulb planter’s blisters, bramble scratches, pyracantha lacerations, aching back. Cracking day.

The village looks a little prettier.  Well, a little less neglected. The village committee assembled at 9am. And it ending up being just Jean Daniel and me.  But his enthusiasm with a pick and shovel just about makes a tribe of any fey gardeners.  We have launched ourselves into neglected beds, removed trees, cut back a forest of rosemary, and even uncovered a lost garden bed that was hidden under builder’s rubble.

I don’t know why I ever think it’s just going to be a gentle morning’s bulb planting.

Still we did some great work. And it will be a treat in springtime when the bulbs emerge.

And the fun of working at the village is just how many people are about.  There were a group of villagers working in the undercroft of the village hall preparing duck portions.

I know, wierd or what. But I peeped up from the lost bed we were weeding to see a production line of people and a huge teetering pile of duck bodies.  If I were a real journalist I’d have gone up and asked them what they were doing. I suspect there was something christmassy about the production, but I had enough to do just trying to remove the weeds.

We finished the work appropriately with a mighty bonfire. But I saved a lot of the willow branches from one of the beds to put through the chipper at home.

My afternoon’s entertainment, or should I say Artur’s entertainment, was to be under attack.  Here he is high up on the pergola poised to play drop bear on my head. It’s a good thing I wear a whoolly hat.

For an elderly gent, he is full of mischief.  I almost miss the cat who slept all day in the nest in the potting shed.  But at least I had plenty of company when I raked up the leaves.

The courtyard mulberry has almost dropped its load.  And I’m so pleased that we’ve had so little wind over the past week. It’s so much easier to rake them up in the courtyard, rather than chase them all over the gravel.

And then I had a treat.  In the box Andrew sent up where not only daffodils; but some gorgeous fat lilies as well.  They are bigger than grapefruits and look plump and healthy.

At first I thought I would add them to the small collection I have in the wildflower bank above the swimming pool.  And I even went down there and weeded like mad and planted them as deep as I could.

But when I next turned to the planters in the courtyard I had my ‘duh’ moment.  I needed them there.  So the wildflower bed was the wrong spot.

Down I trudged, out came the newly planted lilies and up they came.

First I needed to clear away all the mint from the pots; and dig out the soil.  That gave me the space to add new compost, some fertiliser, the lilies and then some tulips.  I have some stunning reds for next years display: Uncle Toms, Rococo, Dolls Minuet, Couleur Cardinal and Queen of the Night.

Over the top I added the mint roots which I had removed.  They can sit over winter and brood.  But I have plenty in the potting shed keeping warm and alive and thriving.  So I ought to have a good crop all winter.

Then it was another layer of compost and a final mulch of gravel.  Neat as a pin.

I was keen to get inside to tick this chore off my list (sorry Sarah!) and realised to my annoyance it wasn’t anywhere on my list of Winter Garden Tasks. Rats.

Nor is the tulip planting in the village tomorrow. On the dot of nine I am to front up at the village square and meet the rest of the garden committee and get bulb planting.  I must remember to pack my band aids. I already have mini blisters from the few hundred I put in today.

A week later I have returned. And at last I can admire the wall in its finished state. What a beauty.  It sits so comfortably in the landscape.  And I have decided to leave it be.  No planting in front of it. And only minimally on top.

I’m still leaning towards the hornbeam hedge.  And I may even go down to the pepinieres on Monday or Tuesday and inquire about the price of 50 bare root trees.

Nicolas has warned me that the wall is not robust enough to have thick roots growing near it.  But I think I can get away with something.

I must find some grass seeds to sow in the small bed that now exists in front of the wall.  And I must sort out the path behind it.  It is amazing how crooked my vegetable garden was.  I never knew that it leaned so dramatically inwards.

But enough of remedial planting.

The best thing I have done today on my first day back was to get as many tulips and daffodils into the ground as I could.

Half of the daffs are already pledged to the village. So that leaves me with 100.  And all of them were quickly swallowed up in the bank below the plum trees.  I have planted them in the steep narrow strip between the two levels.  And I couldn’t believe how quickly this long garden swallowed up 100 bulbs.  I had just enough.

And for the tulips I had to plan my way around a landscaping feature. I want to plant thyme balls here in this bed.  Well, I don’t want to, but it’s a good solution to the part time planting and weeding regime I now enjoy/endure. 

I would love to try out all sorts of mediterranean shrubs here, with kniphofias, summer bulbs, grasses.  But the thought of having to drive up each visit and see the weeds defeating any sense of style is too much.

For the forseeable future I’m going to be safe. Plant uniform shrubs, mulch mightily, underplant with bulbs and leave it at that. If I was a real chicken, I’d just plant box balls.  But they are dull.  And with thyme balls I get the added bonus of flowers in spring.  And I can dry all the prunings.

The fun bit is that I have pre dug the holes. And I need 56 plants. Ouch.  At around 3.50 a plant plus tax that’s going to be a lot of smackeroos to do the whole terrace; but I’ll get it done. Eventually. 

And in the meantime I can have fun with all the holes. It looks like a mole has gone mad.  And I’ve planted the beautiful Mt Tacoma white peony tulip in between.  That took one hundred bulbs as well. It’s the perfect bed to plant up as I can stand and just reach all parts of the soil. No back ache required.

Artur came down to inspect my work. He stalked past a few times and then leapt onto the wall and came almost within patting distance.  That lasted for about ten minutes until he came up just as I had a handful of tulip bulbs and a trowell in my hand.  And demanded a brief pat, then he scratched me. So no change there. He will forgive me by Sunday.

I was standing under a very hot shower tonight trying to work out why my arms are lacerated in a six inch band all they way around each arm.  And then it came to me; the playful gap between gloves and sleeves.  I was collecting buckets and buckets of stones this morning and had to scrabble about among long branches of brambles to reach them.

Amazingly I’d forgotten all about it. That’s a long day’s gardening for you.

The wall is almost but not quite done. There’s an hour or two to go, and Nicolas has to finish it tomorrow morning as I have London duties to attend to in the afternoon.

But I did my stone duties first thing, and then scooted off to attend to things more verdant and fluffy.  For months I have been battling my way past the eragrostis grasses that are growing like triffids in the calabert bed. They won’t put on such verdant growth when they get sent to the pool garden bank. So I hope they enjoy the lush spot for now.  But I don’t. So today I recycled the string from the peas and bean poles in the potager and tied them in knots.  I even plaited a few, but that felt very odd indeed.

And then I actually cleared up the last bits of the vegetable garden. One glam new wall on the edge of the potager means that the rest of it has to look good.  So I pulled up the last of the cosmos and tomatoes; dismantled the bean poles, and even did the hands and knees weeding thing.

The best bit was tossing the small stones over the edge to Nicolas’s pile. No more stones in this veggie garden.

And then with a freshly dug and tidied potager it was time to attack the wildflower garden.  We have been ‘editing’ our London home in preparation for the move. And editing was a polite word for the work I had to do.

I was carefully supervised by Artur who was losing a few of his hiding in the jungle spaces. But the dying plants had to go.  I made sure I shook all the seeds out of the plants before I piled them into the wheelbarrow.  And I managed to find a few rogue nettles in among the achillea. Tingling fingers as I type.  But there’s more work needed over the winter.  I want to sort out the far end of the huge bed.  It’s about 40 feet long.  It is slightly shaded so most of the wildflowers haven’t really taken at the far end.  There’s a rather useless elderberry tree up above.  But it does seem to be moist.

Suddenly I find moist places all over the garden.  Maybe I ought to divide up that monarda I planted and spread it around in this new spot.

For a last task I tidied the potting shed and potted up some of my hundred lovely paper white narcissus. I need to keep all the neighbours supplied. They prove a hit each year.

Oh yes, and here’s the final product from last night’s work.  I can’t believe that all the thyme and rosemary I have been drying since spring has yielded just two jars of herbs.  I had visions of selling pots and pots of the stuff at the Christmas Fare next month.  But this looks just enough for our own consumption.

What a great day. The only thing that defeated me was the lack of light. I could have gardened for hours more, but 6pm was my cut off point.

I did manage to cram lots in. My main objective was to get in the plants that Leslie and Teo gave me.  And to reduce the stick pile in both the courtyard and the parking area and turn them into mulch.

Luckily the plants and mulch form a special relationship.  I cleared the weeds away from the top three terraces on the bank above the potting shed. And left the hardy clary sage and emerging cornflower seedlings.  But there was plenty of room to plant the hemerocallis (day lilies) and new teasel plants which I grew from seed.

A thick mulch around each plant, all over the rest of the area and it looked almost decent.   And I had my usual company in that part of the garden; Ulysse.  When he is not escaping, he tends to hang over the fence, whinnying loudly and demanding apples.

And Artur was a barrel of luaghs. This cold weather makes him frisky. And he can’t settle in the potting shed as there are enemies about. Yesterday he had Nicolas’s dog Lolita lurking  and he hears hunting dogs in the distance.

So he decided to hunt me.  His trick of climbing up onto the pergola and dropping on me didn’t work. In summer it’s easy as the vine leaves protect him.  But in the blazing autumn sunshine and lack of vegetation meant I saw the attack coming. Bless.

When I wasn’t fending off the animals, it was transplanting the white roses from the terrace bank down to the bank in the corner of the potager.

And I planted the monarda in the only sunny but damp area of the garden.  This is the far end of the calabert garden.  When you leave the house and walk through the open barn and head up to the potting shed you pass through these new beds planted last year.  There must be an underground spring here because the euphorbias and rosemaries and cistus plants in here have romped away.  So in between the shrubs I have placed this gorgeous flower.  Here’s hoping it will thrive.

And in case you think it was all plants and chipping, I did collect a huge wheelbarrow load of stones as well.  In the gloaming, I was ferrying buckets of thelittle beasts down from the cache above the top vegetable bed and putting them into the back of the car.

Tomorrow is to be another wall day and I will have to keep up with Nicolas. Heavy gauntlets at the ready.

And I have a list of things that need moving into the potting shed. The lemon verbena plants in the pots are too heavy for me to do on my own.

Monday morning and the wall begins.  I can’t believe how warm it is – sunhat and  t shirts. But with the fetching sight of guantlets as well.  My job for hours and hours was to keep up a steady supply of rocks and stones for Nicolas.

So that meant putting the car to use yet again.  Poor vehicle; on the weekend it was wood, today it’s rocks.  And the whoppers go into the wheelbarrow as they are too heavy for the car.

I have found a few caches of rocks from some crumbling walls above the road near the forest. But I have to come up with some more tomorrow if I’m to keep up.  I think there are plenty up near the top potager, but I’ll have to work out how far that will be to struggle with my buckets of stones.

I had to set my alarm for 2pm as I had to dash to Aubenas to meet Andrew for a plant swap. Yesterday it was Leslie and Teo, and today Andrew. That’s my idea of a great week.  My curency is a stock of freshly uprooted raspberry plants.

I have kept the suckers alive all year – I usually just hoe off the escaping raspberries from the bed.  But I knew that everyone was in the market for the wonder fruit.  So I have been struggling past them all season getting snagged but knowing that they would make good gifts.

And in exchange I am blessed.  I have day lilies, violas, monardas, irises, winter jasmine and pelargoniums. And from Andrew I have my fantastic supply of tulips and paper white narcissus.

I suspect I have more plants from Teo and Leslie which have escaped my memory – I did unpack things in the dark last night. But I’ll see them tomrrow.

I have a huge planting day ahead of me.  Oh, yes, and I need to stockpile a small mountain of stones for the Wednesday wall work.