We have been busy, so busy in fact that it makes me realise just what a lazy year we  had last year; so I have suggested to Rich that we need to start to get up earlier, because on the rare occasion that Rich is not working (yes work has really picked up for Rich but that is for another post) we have been extremely busy in the garden. However when I say early I mean about 8.30 instead of 9.30! But please let me explain that part of the reason for this may be that our bedroom has roll down shutters that turns the room into a pitch black cocoon that, quite simply, you don’t want to get out of!

But back to gardening – my recommendation to anyone coming to France is don’t get caught up in the dream of having acres of land, we have .8 of an acre and trust me that is enough, or you will be in the garden 12 hours a day every day, and if like us you have to work that that’s tough.

So this week Rich also put his back out, and was struggling to move, all you could hear was oh! Ah!eh!oh!eh!oh!ah!oh!oh!oh! ah!  It was like living with am aspiring boom box! So when it came to digging out the new vegetable plot (yes we’ve gone all Tom and Barbara, just wish my arse was the same size as Felicity Kendall’s!) it fell to me to do the main man.

Now I don’t know how Tom  and Babs did it but trust me it is bloody hard work lifting the sods of earth (aptly named sods!) and all I could think about to motivate, me was “think of the calories” and keep going. After lifting the sods you than have to get the precious earth off them, for which my beautiful Welshie boy helped his mummy greatly and dug all the dirt off for me. Here is a picture of my beautiful boy.

 

With our “Good life” heads on we used some of our logs from our trees to form the raised bed and this was the finished result.

 

Behind it you can see the new hand-made composter, for which we old pallets, and it was made by Rich’s fair hand, and today we have been mowing our small field where the grass was over two feet long (yes really!) and, because we don’t have a grass collector for our super-duper mower I have  been collecting the grass by the old-fashioned raking method to put into our composte, as we have earnestly put our food scraps in it and desperately need to add some grass before it smells! (Please no comments about what to put into a composter because everyone says something different, so I’m going to go with the old fashioned method of if it smells add brown waste, if it’s not rotting add green.)

Prior to the mowing we  had to move the majority of the old trees as mentioned in my previous blog, to enable Rich to get his mower up the chemin, *Ooh Matron!* (sorry but it was crying out for a Kenneth Williams quote!) And after two hours in 23 degree heat we now have only about a third left to move.

During the week, whilst Rich has been working, I have planted out some of our cucumbers, with another two to go, a tomato plant with about another twenty two to go, (yes may have been a little over eager with my seed planting on that one!) Although say that to the bloody cucumbers as only one of them grew, stubborn little buggers. I have come to the conclusion that tomatoes are like Z list celebrities you can invite tomatoes and they will always turn up  but the cucumbers think they are the A listers and act like their doing you a favour! I have also planted twenty five spring onions and fourteen sweetcorn, so watch this space to see if they come up in twenty days time –  just like it says on the packet. There are three peppers, with another fourteen to go, when established, and a chilli plant that we took pity on in Lidl because it was smothered in chillies but not being loved.

We have decided to go with the plants we buy every week, and to be honest I think that this will be my contribution to vegetable growing.

I have also planted up my pots, planted some of my established plants from pots in the garden, and although it will take years for the garden to take shape we are making headway, in a small head kind of way.

 

We found an old chimney pot, from our two hundred year old barn we think, or from our two hundred year old house, and loaded into the wheelbarrow and put it centre stage in the front part of our garden. I have planted a clematis in it and cannot wait now for it to cascade down in a flurry of beautiful flowers. I love it!

Add to all of this the added complication that our hose is out of action; so off I trot around our garden with my five litre water bottle and eight litre watering can to water them all, but hey ho think of the calories. Perhaps from now on all my posts for the garden will start with “think of the calories”!

I hope your enjoying my return to posting, look out for more posts, and please share with as many people, don’t let me stop you.

Have a good weekend.

Moisy