A singular crop

One single raspberry up in the weed fest that is the top potager. Only thing clear of weeds are the asparagus, and that’s because I put down a weedproof frabric first.

Must dig up more spuds. Twas a shop fest sort of a morning today: I bought in some lettuce seedlings from Gamm Vert (well I was up at the shops doing a beer and water run, and just couldn’t pass up the chance to rebuid the stock of salads for the summer)

And spent a happy half hour in my super clean potting shed: potted up some new yellow swiss chard seeds and while I was admiring the nascent flower bed, decided I could get a few more free plants from the catmint. so I happily propagated more nepeta six hills giant.

Random notes: I noticed on my drive to Vernoux that the good gardeners of Silhac village which I pass through have acres of dwarf French beans. Note to self, must start lots and lots of these earlier next year.

It’s hot right now, so I don’t seem to charge about with any fixed sense of purpose. I tend to wander past things and have a stab at propagating or hacking. That’s what happened to the vile elderflower tree near the pool. I had been meaning to hack off some of the lower branches that have sprouted from the base after its radical prune in the winter. But I noticed that Nicolas had got there first. He very kindly bent back the long branches, making it easy for me to nip them off with secateurs. I loathe elderflowers. Not because of the flowers or berries which are very worthy. But simply because we have so many of the wretched things self seeding all over the garden. One slap bang in the middle of my Rose New Dawn shrub in the herb garden; another under the vines and a mighty one at the base of the barn – I am obliged to snap off branches each time I pass and then endure the stink of the sap until I remember to scrub my hands.

Berry harvest after lunch; took a box and sat down under the shade of the soft fruit trees to collect fruit. Quite a haul of black currants, a few jostaberries, too mahy white currants and amazingly, two blue berries. Will buy more of those bushes next year. They do well here. Despite everyone’s dire warnings that we were too low to grow them.

The rest of day was devoted to weeding interminably and getting the fabric down on another quadrant of the lower vegetable bed. Then in the blazing 7pm sun I planted up twenty five lettuce (half salvaged) and netted the lot. A contemplative watering and in for the night.