The empty grate

A momentous spring day.   I have decided not to light a fire this morning. It is so habit forming, and delicious to stand in front of a roaring fire drinking tea, planning the day, and getting dressed.   But it promises to be mild and sunny and even warm. So I shall not light it until tonight.   There is no other heating in the house. Apart from cashmere cardigans and hats.

It also means that I don’t need to worry about feeding the fire all day.   It sets up a rhythm where you have to stop what you are doing every few hours, come indoors (tracking dirt and mess from shoes, knee pads, grubby hands) and add logs.   But garden beware – uninterrupted hours lie ahead.

I decided to start on a job I would otherwise ignore. Plodding down to the lower terraces and digging up the chestnut seedlings of the unwanted variety.

Chestnuts are amazingly productive.   Every few feet on the path down to the vineyard you can find enterprising seedlings trying to get established. One more year and these will be hard to strim.   So I applied fork and a bit of wellie and managed to uproot most of them.

Every now and then some were so well entrenched that I had to resort to just chopping them with the loppers and hoping I can keep them in control.   I’ll try and keep an eye on them.   But with such a large area to manage, some things tend to slip.   The lower terraces are definitely in that category.

The best I can do is try and keep it under control. One day, when we are here more permanently, we will have sheep.

Walking back up towards the house I did a bit of a detour on the first terrace (my favourite as it’s under control) and found that my mental boasting was unfounded.

Pesky little verbascums have survived my winter massacre. These are the plants which grow incredibly tall and give off so much pollen that in the words of electricity pylons: ‘near approach will cause sudden death’.   I’m exaggerating of course, but I am very allergic to them and cough as if I’d put away 70 fags a day the minute I brush past them.

Nothing to do but get down on hands and knees (covered in trusty kneelers) and pull them out.   They have log taproots, but I can rip the leaves with gusto and hope I have slowed them down.   I worked my way along the terrace, about 150 metres, all the way up to the old rabbit shed.   And there I decided to scoop up some of that lovely leaf mould I have been nurturing and put it to use.

Where to put this precious soil improver? Well, in the end I plumped for half a terrace on the bank above the potting shed.   I need more.   But I never seem to want to trot all the way down to the terrace just to bring up mulch.   So I’ll attend to it another day.

Instead I attended to the call of the potato.   I have too many seed potatoes, still. Somehow one does wish they are mysteriously put to good use overnight.   But no.   Instead I had to squeeze some more in.   This time up at the top vegetable bed which is fast becoming a repository of excess.  

I managed to put in a row of Juliette main crops beside the trusty Charlottes.   And I didn’t have to unearth any of the Purple Sprouting Brocolli to do so.

And a thank you to my sister in law Jane. Yes, psb does freeze well. I had them tonight (from frozen) with cumin seeds, chilli and roast potatoes. Delicious with a sauce of mustard, fried onions, emmental cheese and fromage blanc.

Lunch intruded at this point in the exciting narrative (well, not really, a bit of a plod) of gardening. I’m writing this late at night after a beer and a glass of Muscat de Beame de Venise so I fear it’s a tad dull.

The afternoon was devoted to my favourite sport: mowing. Such a joy.   Especially as this is the first proper cut of the year and the thrill hasn’t faded.   I worked away at the main lawn, paying particular attention to the grass in between the miscanthus grasses on the edge of the lawn.   Right now, after almost an inch of rain you can’t tell the difference between lush grass and lush ornamental grass.   But I think I’ve managed to make it easier to distinguish between the two.

I beetled my way around all the property: having a bit of fun in the orchard working in some playful curves in the grass.   I hope it will be a compromise between wild and contained.   I use the curves on the east lawn as well.

And may add some more elsewhere. Watch this space.

I use all the lawn clippings (there’s no phrase for it in French, fancy) as a mulch for the spaces between the rows of potatoes and on the path on the top vegetable bed.   Anything to try and convert the dull weedproof fabric or bare earth into something contained.

And as I was bagging up the future mulch Jean Daniel drove up to admire the crisp edges and clean lines.   ‘Fancy some four footed lawn mowers?’ he asked.   The two stallions have cropped the grass around his property and he needs to move them on.

Bring it on I say, and in mere minutes down he came with his charges.   I have put them onto the lower terraces to do their work.   And give me some welcome manure at the same time.

I must remember to go down there with a wheelbarrow, rubber gloves and a shovel in a few days time.

Here’s my view from the office window just after 730pm.   Ulysse tucking into some lush grass.   It’s so lovely to have horses on the land again.   And I will ooh and ah until they make a complete mess of the lawn by tearing up and down in a mad frenzy.   Ulysse likes to tease the old man Spirite by biting him on the bum and then running away.   Stallions, kids, not much difference there.