Final Days of the Confinement

Part of my gardening routine is to take a walk first thing in the morning, checking on progress in the veg plot and the new beds, looking to see what jobs need doing and, camera in hand, just enjoying the quiet of the garden. The aquilegia continue to do their thing, endlessly crossing to produce a range of pinks, whites and blues.

As we come out of strict Covid-19 confinement this morning it is of course lashing with rain, making any meaningful gardening either at home or for clients quite impossible. Instead, here are some photos from the first ten days in May, the last ten days of the lock down.

Both the nigella and violets happily seed themselves around. The violets in particular have taken up residence in the gravel drive, taking advantage of only being driven over once a week for the last two months!

Another virulent self-seeder is the bronze fennel, although at least it is playing the game and mostly replicating itself through the herb garden. As usual it is home to caterpillars of the common swallowtail butterfly.

They are initially quite hard to spot, the red/brown colouration allowing them to blend in with the bronze foliage. But they soon turn to this stunning striped green!

We have a large area of wild flower meadow; I dream of finding orchids in there one day, but the ragged robin is establishing itself well, especially liking the damper areas where the springs appear during wet weather.

But it isn't all about nature, we have to eat, too. The young peach tree has set fruit for the first tme this year...

... And the pear crop looks promising. too.

One of the butterflies we see quite frequently is the Southern White Admiral.

This one must have only just emerged it was so glossy and almost velvety. Beautiful!

And we still await the patter of tiny green lizard feet!

Comfrey Leaf Experiment

I use comfrey tea a lot for my fruiting and flowering vegetables, giving them a weekly hit of nitrogen (to promote leaf growth) and potassium to aid flowering and fruiting. See this post about making comfrey tea. 

This year I am going to experiment with simply dumping some chopped up comfrey leaves in the bottom of some of the planting holes instead of using a liquid fed during the summer. I am interested to see if the slower but continuous release of nutrients from the rotting leaves is more efficient than the once a week hit from the feed. The decaying plant material may also keep the soil in those areas more moist and water retentive.

I grow six plants each of Roma, San Marzano (both for bottling) and Prince Borghese (for sun-drying) in three rows, so it will be easy enough to treat half one way and half the other. The soil and growing conditions will be largely the same - depending on where the mole decides to tunnel - so if the results are markedly different it should be clear. And if the leaf-in-the-hole plants are starting to lag behind, they can just be inculded in the round of weekly feeds.

Tomato planting will probably begin in the next ten days or so, although some of the plants are still a bit small, and I'll post the results at the end of the summer. And if I find that decaying comfrey leaves are a vole repellent I will be on to a winner!

Happy gardening!

Jobs For May

May is usually a super-busy month in the garden: all the tender vegetables will need to be planted out as and when the conditions allow. Timing is key; the longer they have in the ground the better the harvest is likely to be. This is especially the case for some of the chillies. Last year my two Krishna Jolokia plants only started to set fruit in late October just as the first frosts wiped out the plants. But we must be patient, if the ground hasn't warmed up enough yet, or the weather is too cold, or if the plants are still too small or haven't be hardened off properly then we will have to wait until the  time is right.

The Blow-away greenhouse - stage 2 between the house and the garden.

'Organic' Deer Fencing

Caught on the Trail Cam eating an apple tree.

We are surrounded by kilometres of forest so inevitably we get roe deer in the garden. The only sure way to keep them out is to fully fence the garden, or at least fence the bits we want to keep them out of. 

Earth Day 22nd April

Today will possibly be the strangest of Earth Days here in France, and in much of the rest of the World, too. Lockdown to reduce the spread of the new Coronavirus Covid-19 will stop us visiting any natural places beyond a km from home and with events cancelled, Earth Day here at Le Sarramea will be spent pottering in the garden. But first I'm marking the day with some photos taken during the last week.

The blue honeywort has been as spectacular as ever, humming with bees and other pollinators and self seeding all over the place. I'm having to ruthlessly remove seedlings as the plants can become pretty big and I'm worried they'll crowd out the lower growing sun lovers like the thyme plants.

The fedge, a cross between a hedge and a fence, made by planting and then bending goat willow stems, is starting to take shape. The lower branches are removed, leaving a hedge at the top, giving a light and airy division between the cultivated border and meadow beyond.

Pruning Early Flowering Shrubs & Taking Cuttings

With the first flush of spring behind us it is time to cut back the winter early spring flowering shrubs like this forsythia and some of the shrubby honeysuckles. 

This is also a great opportunity to increase your stock of the plants you like by taking cuttings. I now have half a dozen forsythia scattered around the place but only bought the first one; the rest have come from cuttings taken at this time of the year. But don't go mad - you don't want to end up with a garden crammed with only one or two plants that only flower for a few weeks of the year! We once bought a house with a long rectangular lawn some 10x3m lined on three sides with rows of alternated weigela and potentilla. I have refused to have either in any garden since!



As well as the forsythias I need to cut back a glorious winter flowering honeysuckle fragrantissima, planted outside our bedroom window so we can enjoy the intense fragrance in December and January. Not a total success as the windows are mostly closed in the winter, but it is worth standing in the morning sunshine and breathing in the scent. It will often be visited by bumble bees out for a mid-winter wing stretch and refuel.

The second honeysuckle, a Tatarian Honeysuckle, is a deep pink flowered one, the flowers and leaves coming out together in March. It can be invasive so needs to be managed to prevent it escaping, another reason for cutting hard after flowering to prevent the spread of berries by birds. Apparently it will also reach four metres if left to grow unchecked; I wish to keep it compact so it will be pruned hard in the next few days.

Sowing in Trays Versus Modular Sowing in Individual Pots

Although some plants hate being disturbed so need to be sown direct - carrots and parsnips for example - many benefit from being sown in a protected environment away from predators or extremes of weather. In this way we are more likely to have a high germination rate and higher survival rate. I know from experience here that if I sow a row of lettuces directly into the ground, the slugs will devour the seedlings as they emerge or flea beetles will wipe out most members of the cabbage family before they reach the true leaf stage. 

 Of course other gardens and environments will be different, but this is why we see flowers that produce thousands of seeds - if they all germinated and survived to maturity the world would be overwhelmed with, say cosmos. Would that be such a bad thing!