Greens

And now I’ve gone away from the brown and am into the green. Sorry it has been a few days. But I fear that the forest has taken most of my outdoor gardening time this weekend.

We have set ourselves a mad task. To cut down and remove all the huge box trees that are growing all over the forest right up at the top of the property. So top in fact it is the summit of Mont Godin.   I can’t work out why the box grows so regularly up through and beside all the dry stone walls.   Was it planted? Surely not.   It’s just a local native tree left to grow and grow and obscure the walls.

It’s a shame we can’t make use of them. Don’t they use box to make pencils? Right now we are just stacking it and hiding it and pretending it doesn’t exist. We have no way of getting the wood off the top of the mountain yet.

Our neighbour M. Perochon, is going to create an access road on his side of the mountain one day to harvest the douglas pine trees that thrive up here. But until that happens the box is not going anywhere.

And in between forest work it has been raining. Well constant drizzle is more like it. But we are having sessions of 5mm each day which is all great news.

I have managed to plant out all my salad crops. It’s lovely moist soil so the little plants don’t appear to be too shocked by the move.

I seem to have filled two enormously long cloches the bottom left quadrant in the potager.   Hundreds of little plants all grown from seed. That’s satisfying. (Fingers crossed they don’t get decimated by deer, hare, rabbits, drought.

And for once I’ve managed to make my own new cloches. Nets, sturdy plastic bits of hose and metal rods. I want to use all the special home made cloches for the cabbage area this year. I never seem to grow enough cabbage varieties, so I’m determined to use the most of the space well this year.

Tomorrow, when I’m more dynamic and not lying prone on the sofa with a sore back, I’ll post more pictures and offer more news.   But that’s it for Sunday night.