Summer

 
 Wow! Time flies when you're having fun........

A long silence due to being too busy to spend time at my desk.

For end of May and June we had family visiting.  Did the usual sightseeing and touristy things, as well as lots of relaxing in the garden.  The flowers in my borders were magnificent this year.  A real pleasure to just sit and admire them all and watch the bees and hummingbird moths feast themselves.  I won a prize at garden club in May for this lovely rose.

Spent a lot of time cuddling the chicks too..... to the point where one of them is super tame and just wants to be picked up and cuddled all the time.  A little rooster with a HUGE personality.  We have named him Garlic (he loves raw chopped up garlic above any other treat) and will hang on to him for a year or so to fertilise his clutch mates.  Luckily he is from our nieghbours hens, so unrelated to mine.

Another little rooster from that clutch will go back to our neighbour.  His nasty rooster was killed by a dog in early july, so his girls have been wandering around a little lost and almost stoppped laying.

I have two lovely hens - a legbar, and a legbar/araucana cross from the same clutch.  They will stay with me and be Garlic's girls.

The day they turned 12 weeks, Apricot chicken hatched a second clutch.  Six in this one - but she was sitting on 15 eggs!!!  I had given her 7 eggs to sit, but the naughty girl was stealing the eggs from the other hens and rolling them in to her nest to sit on.  By the time I realised what was happening it was too late.  No one else had a broody that I could put the eggs under, so they had to be thrown.  At least they fertilised my nectarine and peach trees and didn't go in the bin.

So now I have 6 little puffballs running around.  Looks like 2 legbars, 1 dwarf/legbar, 1 araucana/legbar and 2 marans.  The legbars are hens (thank goodness for autosexing!!!), but not sure on the rest.  Am hoping the dwarf is a hen as they make excellent broodies.  Any roosters from this clutch will go to the freezer at 12 weeks or so.

We have had horrendous heatwaves here for all of July and most of June.  Really difficult to keep water up to the veg, and the crops are suffering everywhere.  The river is almost dry, and even the wells are drying up, and that never happens here!  We did get a few millimetres of rain last week, but that was only because Wayne had fitted new guttering to the arrier cuisine and cellier...lol.  It actually rained before he could get the pieces glued together which is typical contrary weather.  I am hoping it will rain on us again in next few days as he is fitting downpipes to the back of the atelier and garage..... would be nice to get some water in the water butts.

My veg are suffering, but hanging in there.  Have been picking heaps of tomatoes, but nothing like my neighbour who has irrigation up to his.  Photos from his tomato patch used here as much better looking than mine.  The deer have been into my potager stealing all the fruit and veg for the moisture.  Then they rub their antlers against the tomato plants and the plants wind up broken. Grrrr.  Have no strawberries as they have stripped the plants of leaves and fruit.  No matter what I use as detterant, they are so desperate for liquid that they are willing to risk anything.

Aside from visitors, chickens and gardening, I have been completely inundated with preserving the fruits and veg from the potager and verger.  Everyday is spent cooking or prepping in one form or another.  Not the most enjoyable task in teh extreme heat, but it must be done, and we will enjoy the benefits all through winter when eating our own produce.

I have developed a new jam for this year.  Rhubarb and vanilla.  I love rhubarb and could eat it every day, but it doesn't preserve very well as compote and freezer space is precious.  So I now have a few litres of this jam sitting on the shelves.  Some of the rhubarb did go into the freezer to make compote and fruit tarts over winter, but I did not have room for the (nearly) 10kilos that I picked. 

McKinnell has settled in well, and has a new nickname "The Apprentice".  He follows Sophie around and helps guard the property.  So funny to watch.  Still a really sooky boy who just wants cuddles and attention all the time.  Only real problem is that he dribbles when happy.... so you have to be prepared to get a little damp when having cuddles.

Well, enough time sitting at computer.... back to the potager and kitchen for me.

Cupcakes

Long time between posts..... sorry about that.  There is this little thing called life, which keeps interfering with my leisure time...lol

This weekend was the annual Marché aux Fleurs et vide grenier in the village. 

Lots of interesting stuff to look at in the vide grenier (trash and treasure or white elephant sale), but nothing that grabbed my eye.  ...Actually, that is not true.  There was some gorgeous furniture - but Wayne would have had kittens if I had asked him to lug it all home... no transport as we had walked in to the village. Hmmm.  So I bit my tongue and did not even ask.  Yes, I know, you cannot believe that I showed such restraint.  Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour.

Actually, I did say how gorgeous the furniture was and he said, we shall think about it while we walked around.  Knowing full well it would be snapped up before we had completed one row.  I could have insisted, but let it go.

Aside from that, the marche aux fleurs was good.  Not fabulous, but I found everything that I wanted.  I have about 10 tomato  plants sitting under cover waiting for the Saints des Glace to pass.  This year it is the 11, 12, 13 May - depending which region and which one of the saints you are waiting for.  Basically it is the date that signals the end of frosts, and you can start planting out your more delicate and frost tender plants.  Of course, it is not an accurate science, more a rough guide, so you still need to check the meteo before planting.

One thing which was great was the cupcakes on sale by Bev and Paul from Chez Tante Mabel.  Absolutely gorgeous confections, which tasted as good as they looked!

I had a vanilla cupcake for lunch, and bought four to bring home and enjoy.  They are almost too pretty to eat, but I shall enjoy one with a cup of tea in a few minutes. Cannot wait.

Bev does incredible edible artworks.  I love going over to Fondemoulin for afternoon tea, and always hope she has her lemon drizzle cake on the menu.  Her decorated cakes are beautiful.  And of course, they are all delicious!

Paul is no slouch either.  He makes the hand made soaps they sell, and is a dab hand at carpentry.  I love checking out the doll houses and furniture that he has.  Simply gorgeous.  I want a doll house for myself, they are so lovely.

Anyway, enough about yummies.  On to work.  We have spent the past four days demolishing the rabbit hutches and pigeon house.  For something that looked so rotten and ramshackle, they certainly were a lot of work to tear down!  I could not believe how many nails had been used.  Seems that the person who built them, and then repaired them later, subscribed to the theory that if one nail was good - four nails were better!  Phew!

All is looking good and the fence posts for the chicken coop are up and the concrete is setting, ready for more work this weekend. 

My veg are nearly all planted.  The peas and beans are well and truely out of the ground, as are the potatoes.  We shall see how many kilos of potatoes we get this year...lol  Still eating last years crop, and think they will see us almost to the new crop.  Only a few bags of green beans in the freezer now, and one bag of leeks.  All the peas are long gone, along with the spinach, carrots and parsnips.  I have a bag or two of kale still on hand, and one drawer still has fruit.  A few jars of tomato purees and sauces still left, and a few jars of apple compote.  All in all, I think I managed to stock just enough to see us through winter and to the growing season.  I am quite pleased with it, so aim to reproduce the same quantities this year.

Our fruit trees have flowered and you can see tiny fruits.  We are hoping that we  don't get a bad frost or storm and lose all the cherries this year.  If all goes well we will finally get to taste them in a month or so.

One thing which is a bit annoying is my resident mole.  I think I actually have two in residence.  One at each end of the land.  Will check on them today and see if they have gone.  I poured used kitty litter down the burrows last night.  Last time that got rid of them tout de suite!

The flower beds are coming along fabulously.  Thanks in large part to lovely friends who keep giving me cuttings, bulbs and divisions from their gardens, and to my favourite nursery - Arbres et Abeilles.  I never seem to come home from gardening club empty handed......

OK, enough typing.  Time to have my cup of tea and cupcake, then get out in to the garden and make the most of this glorious sunny day.

A bientot!

Autumn Abundance

Life has been a bit busy lately.  Firstly, we had family here for a month, so that was fun.  No time for blogging though as any spare time was spent in the garden.

In fact, quite a few days I had them helping to prepare the bounty of the garden into winter stockpiles.  Well, I say they helped... but in fact my Mum seemed to eat as much fruit and green beans as she prepared..... hmmm.  All good though as we had more fruit and veg than we could cope with.

My arriere cuisine is filled to the brim with jars of compote, stewed fruit, jams, sauces, syrups and condiments.  The cellier is stockpiled with parsnips, potatoes and carrots, with more potatoes in one of the dependances.

 In one week I lifted over 130kgs of potatoes!  This does not count the potatoes I have lifted for eating over the summer.  A bit of a shock as it did not look like that much on the ground.  I had 2 rows like the one pictured.  Next year we may just put in one row I think.  Thank goodness for generous neighbours with tractors and potatoe lifters!

We did buy a second freezer, and it is cram packed with veg from the garden.  I have prepared enough green beans, courgettes and kale to last us till next harvest.  Also lots of blackberries, mirabelles, plums, raspberries and other sweet treats filling the shelves. 

Just waiting on the pumpkins to ripen and I can bring them in to add to the collection.  There are some citrouille and butternuts, along with something else that I have fogotten the name of.

I feel a little bit like a squirrel hoarding food away for the winter.

There have been a few fails.  For some reason the rhubarb and peach compote did not want to remain in the pots, and proceeded to ferment and fizz all over the shelf.  Really upset about that one as I adore rhubarb and peaches.  My first batch of tomato sauce did not work either.  It was simply pressed tomatoes with fresh herbs.  Think the herbs needed to be cooked or blanched before adding to the sauce.  I threw them in whole as it looked pretty, and so I wound up with mouldy sauce - even though they were put through a water bath.  Oh well, live and learn.

I do think I have done alright though considering I did not have a big steriliser and have been processng in small batches on the stove.  A huge time saver was my lovely pressure cooker which was an early birthday/Christmas pressent.  So nice to cook things in 30minutes instead of 6hours.

Now it is time to prune the plum trees, and tidy up the rest of the garden.  The apples need to wait till later, so at least the pruning is a bit more spaced out this year.

About 150 bulbs have gone in to the ground so far, with another few hundred to go.  My lawn is looking nice and shows real promise for being lush and verdant next year.  I have been attending gardening workshops at a local nursery, and have quite a few cuttings quietly sprouting away, ready for planting next spring.  Next week we look at dividing plants, so I will increase my stock again.  We have a real liking for grasses, geraniums and lavenders, so they are going to be the main plants, with others scattered amongst them for interest.  Photos will have to wait till next year though as nothing to see now.

Plums!

...and suddenly, there were plums.....

Plums by the hundreds!

All different shapes and sizes, and colours.

All ripe at the same time.

All begging to be made into something, - anything.

What to do?

Well there is only so much jam you can make before you have to say no more.  ... and I do not eat jam, so it would only be poor Wayne who would be going through it.  He does not eat that much bread or toast, so it would take him a lifetime to get through it.  So jam is not going to be practical.

In desperation I turned to bottling. 

A quick scour through my books (which took quite a long time actually as I have a whole bookcase dedicated to cooking, food etc) and I found an easy method for preserving fruit.  This has been my saviour in the quest to use the bounty of our orchard.

Basically you take ripe - but not too ripe - fruit and wash and dry before deseeding and packing in to glass jars.  A layer of sugar goes between each layer of fruit.  Then you close the lid and put in a pot of water and boil.  Voila!

Of course there are measurements and timeframes to take in to account, but it is super easy and quick.  Perfect as I am picking kilos of fruit each day.

I do prefer the fruit in light syrup to jams and other sweet treats, and know I will enjoy these even more come winter when I can make compotes and other treats with our own fruit.

For now I have beautiful jars to look at when I open the cupboard in the arriere cuisine.  Bliss!

For now, it is back to the kitchen to start on the tiny mirabelle plums.......

Cold courgette soup

I know, sounds revolting.... and the pictures of it do not look appetising either..... but seriously, this soup is delicious!

Normally cold soups leave me, well, cold.  If I think of gaspachio I think of cold insipid onion flavoured red water. Blergh!  Not my thing at all.

This however is packed with flavour, refreshing and can be eaten hot or cold.  Much nicer and really easy to make in big batches when you have a glut of courgettes. Simply freeze the excess and thaw for hot or cold soup another day. 

Foods that can do double duty are important to me right now as I have run out of freezer space already, so anything that is going to be squeezed in now, has to be worth the effort of rearranging and making fit in any available centimetre.  Think there is going to have to be a new (bigger) freezer budgeted in before the end of summer to be honest.

The garden is bursting with goodies now.  I have countless kilos of beans (of many types), super sweet peas, sorrel, herbs (too many to list), kale etc etc in the freezer.  We have started getting fruit from the trees, and the hedgerows are starting to fruit as well.  The little wild plums are soooo cute and such a deep purple.  The little cherries are quite tart and nice to snack on while I work in the garden.

 I am in heaven!  I love foraging, and love being able to go in to the potager, or for a walk to the forest and to look at what needs picking and plan our meals around that.  Bliss!

As summer has hit with force, and we are experiencing temps in the mid to high 30's, something cool and refreshing for dinner is perfect.  This has been in the mix every week since the courgettes started fruiting.  Another favourite is melon de Charentaise (our region of France) with dry/smoked ham and feta cheese.  Full of flavour, but cooling and refreshing after a long hot day.

I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Cold Courgette Soup

This is not really a recipe, more of a guidline.  I normally see how many courgettes I have ready, then pull up a potato plant.  Some of the spuds go in to the soup, the rest for another meal.  When I don't have enough parsley in the garden I use lemon thyme.

1 or 2 potatoes - depending on size
5 or 6 courgettes
pinch of white pepper
half teaspoon (or to taste) of nutmeg
fresh parsley

Wash veg and cut into smallish chunks.  Do not peel potatoes - that is where the fibre and vitamins are!

Put in to pot with a cup or so of water and bring to boil.

Add pepper and nutmag and parsley.  Cook till potatoes done.  Do not overcook or you will be left with a grey flavourless sludge!!!!

Whiz in blender or with hand blender.  It should be a lovely green puree.... which unfortunately does not photograph very well....hmmm.

This is the perfect stage to freeze excess. 

To serve, add some sour cream/soft cheese (eg; laughing cow, etc)/sprinkle of parmesan/croutons/herbs whatever you fancy.

NOTE:  Yes, there is no onion, garlic etc in this recipe.  This is because I am not allowed these vegetables.  My recipes are relying on herbs and other flavourings to give them a boost at present.  Feel free to add it if you like, but the nutmeg flavour will be masked.

You can make it a thick or thin soup by adding more liquid after pureeing.  It is nice as a hot soup with a bit of milk added to thin it slightly.  Makes it more substantial and filling.

Poussins

Whilst awaiting the renovation of our chicken coop, I spend time each day with the neighbours chickens. 

I love chickens

One of the hens recently went broody, and hatched a clutch of 13 chicks, or poussins as they are called in french.  They are soooo cute!  Peep, peeping around the garden and running  hither and yon.

The mother was very pretty and a super hen.  Unfortunately, she was attacked and killed by one of the dogs in the village a week ago.  Wish people would not let their dogs run free, especially hunting dogs - as this one was.  It entered the garden, which is completely fenced and secure, and killed the hen and 4 chicks....  leaving its trail of destruction through the garden before escaping and returning to its home.

Anyway, the remaining chicks are doing well and hopefully will survive to adulthood.  I managed to pat one of them last thursday, and friday had them follow me in the garden.  Super cute!

Finally, we are experiencing summer weather here, and the veg garden is starting to show results.

I spent this morning picking spinach, lettuce, green beans and courgettes.  Along with much weeding.  Hopefully things will start to crop more heavily and I can put away the produce for winter.

My corn was decimated by deer and hares.  I have about a third of it left.  The strawberry plants have been eaten to ground level by the deer as well, so no fruit from them this year.

If this keeps up I have decided the only cure is to eat more venison........ home grown of course.....

The neighbours raspberries have been fruiting like crazy.  There have been numerous friends coming over to pick fruit, and it still looks like the bushes haven't been touched!  I have made a few batches of jam, and frozen a few kilos of fruit for making frozen drinks and ice creams etc later on.  Some of the fruit was bigger than my thumb.  Enormous and absolutely delicious!

There is a sureau at the bottom of the terrain which is in full flower.  However, this year there will be no elderflower champagne..... not after last years adventures!  Instead I will hold out for the baies and make jelly and syrup.  Much safer option.

I promise to post some more recipes soon.  There is a salmon recipe with sorrel that I want to share, and a spinach dip which is obligatory at all parties with our friends as it is sooo delicious.

encore pivoines

My second lot of peonies are now (finally!) flowering.  They are a lighter pink than the first ones, and a smaller shrub as well.  Still absolutely gorgeous and I am loving them just as much.

The roses are all starting to bloom also.  I have numerous different types and colours.  This one is near the gate to the terrain.  Small flowers with a lovely sweet scent.

A lovely creamy yellow with a blush of rose colour on the outer petals.  Really big buds, but not perfumed at all.

This strange little one which is such a dark red it is almost black.  I say strange as the whole plant is probably only 5cm tall!

Finally, this climbing rose which is such a vibrant red it was difficult to get a good photo.  Seemed to just glow and have no definition in most of the shots.  Nice perfume though, and I have a bunch on my desk to enjoy whilst at the computer.

Lots more roses still to bloom.  Am enjoying my walk each day looking at the changes in the gardens of the village and admiring the colours and scents.  Many good ideas coming together for our garden. 

Will start lanscaping the garden and lawn area during summer, and planting will start in autumn and be completed in spring/summer next year. It is frustrating to not have a lovely garden to sit and enjoy the (brief!) days of sunshine, but I want to plan properly and then do the work properly so that it all comes together into my vision of a relaxing and beautiful space.  Do not want it to just develop organically and then have loads of work to change things to how we want the final result to look like.  It will be worth it in the end though.

Potager is coming along nicely.  Carrots seem to be a bit of a miss this year, but everything else is surviving the extraordinarily long, cold and wet winter and springing forth.  Hopefully we will start seeing some proper spring/summer weather soon and get some good yields.  Unfortunately the cold has killed off most of the cherries.  Saturday and sunday I noticed most of the fruit (only half ripe sadly) had dropped off the tree..... just when we had all stopped holding our breath and started thinking that the cherries would crop....  So now the second year of no cherries in this region.  sigh.  Oh well, plenty else to occupy our tastebuds in the orchard.

Fruit, finally

 
 I am sure that everyone is sick of hearing about the weather conditions here, but it is a fact of life when living in the country.  The weather is vitally important.

Fruit and veg have been so horrible.  Poor quality and expensive.  Something we are not used to, as normally the quality is very good and the price is low.

After our wash out spring (literally!) the stone fruit is almost non existant this year.  We had 6 weeks where it hailed every day - right when the blossom was setting on the fruit trees.  Thank you mother nature.

Since then we have had to rely on fruit from Spain and other countries.  Not such a bad thing in the big picture as it has helped their economies, but the price went up as a result, and the quality was just not the same.

Yesterday was a public holiday here.  Assumption Day for those of you interested.  We decided to join friends in the town of Parthenay for coffee.  A drive of about 45mins for us, but worth it to spend an hour socialising with lovely people.  Whilst at the café our friends mentioned that they have far too many plums on their trees and cannot keep up with the demand.  What to do??

So I have kilos and kilos of lovely Damsons and Mirabelles to turn in to jam and sauce.  Bliss!

The reason their trees survived the storms is that they are planted thickly and in some places form the hedge.  So they protected each other.  Genius!  A lesson learnt here for future reference.

I was in heaven at their farm.  Cuddling cats and dogs, picking fruit and fussing over the horses.  What a great life!

The highlight of the day for Wayne.... brunch was served by our friend, and it was cumberland sausages and english bacon..... one happy boy!

I have the most beautiful sunflowers in the garden at present.  Each stem has half a dozen or more flowers on it!  The bees are going wild for the pollen and come away looking like they have been gilded.  The bright bright yellow of the flowers is so clear and sharp that it is almost brighter than the sunshine.  Such a treat as the flowers in my wild meadow area are just about finished and it was looking a bit faded, and then these beauties have decided to pop up and show how flashy and bold they can be.

P.S.  Normally fruit trees need to be planted with space around them to discourage mildew and rot and to encourage ripening of the fruit and good air circulation.  Don't know why the opposite is providing such healthy trees at our friends, but it is working well.

Finally, the rain has stopped

We have had 2 months of almost continual rain.  Fabulous, I can hear all the family and friends in Australia saying.  Miserable and depressing for those of us here in Europe.  Spring has been a long time in coming this year.  Up until a week ago we were still lighting the fire each morning in an effort to stay warm and dry.

Combine the rain with hail almost everyday, and gale force winds, and you have a scenario that is not good for the keen gardeners.

Luckily, my garden has pulled through without too much stress.  Sadly, I did not get the riot of spring bulbs that I had hoped for, however other plants have benefitted from the rain and are showing a glorious array of flowers.

The irises are particularly good this year.  I have a pale violet, and a deep dark chocolate with hints of orange.  Both are a mass of colour and scent at present.  The dark iris was a surprise.  I had been given it at a cemetary in the Somme Battlefields (they were replacing the plants and throwing away all the old ones.... what a waste!).  No one could tell me what colour it would be, so it was nice that it is such an unusual shade.

My tiny - and very spindly - elder tree is flourishing also.  I have already picked a huge amount of flowers and they are fermenting away in the cave to make elderflower champagne.  An experiment.  We shall see if it works or not.  All depends on how much natural yeasts are floating around in our garden.  There are plenty of flowers still on the tree to turn to berries and make gelées and sirop later in the year.

The pea shoots have been galloping ahead.  So much so that I have taken to picking them and adding to salads and as garnishes to our meals.  They are nearly 2metres tall and only just starting to flower!  I have been picking rhubarb and strawberries already, and my herbs are looking lush and green.  Tomato plants are in as well as butternut and queensland blue pumpkins.  We shall see if they grow here.

We went to a bbq last night at a neighbours house.  It was a great night, but it was even nicer to be able to go in to the garden and cut fresh flowers to make a bouquet for the hostess.  The roses are magnificent this year, and the sweet peas are heavenly.  I made a pretty posy of pink roses, lavender and deep burgandy sweet peas and pink and burgandy dianthus.  Beautiful and fragrant.

Le brassage (beer brewing) has commenced this weekend with the start of the warm weather.  I am starting with a bitter, to get my hand in and refresh my memory.  It has been a long time since I home brewed!  Hopefully I will be able to bottle next weekend and in 2 weeks after that we will be able to commence sampling the brew.  Tshirts have been made to commemorate the occasion and I have 3 official taste testers waiting (impatiently!) to pass judgement and select the next type of beer brewed.  Think they are going to keep me occupied over summer with requests for new batches.... Photos will follow in a future post.

The last photo is of a neighbours garden.  She has 9 different colours of iris planted in groupings under the fruit trees.  It is spectacular!  I think it rivals Monet's garden at Giverny actually.  Hope you enjoy the colours as much as I did.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

......hopefully.

Things have been a  little hectic around here lately.  Between an overly productive fruit and vegetable garden, house guests and the usual daily tasks, I have not had time to post for a while.

The cherry harvest has finally slowed to almost nothing.  In fact after the high winds of yesterday and today I think there will be none left on the tree at all.  Sad, but I cannot help heaving a sigh of relief.  It feels so wasteful to not make the most of the bounty offered up to us by good soil and lots of sunshine, but it is exhausting to try and keep up with.

I did not think to weigh the cherries as we picked them.  A shame, as I am sure we had over 10kgs from our half of the tree.  I will be better prepared next year - and not so naive.....

My rhubarb decided to turn into a monster and overtake the raised garden beds.  A lot of picking and processing was needed to bring it back to a manageable plant.  Luckily I adore rhubarb so I was not too stressed about what to do with all the largesses.

The gariguette strawberries, wild strawberries and the others (type unknown - alright, but not fabulous flavour) also decided to put forth masses of fruits.  A friends' children helped out by foraging and feasting one sunday afternoon.  They were enchanted with the tiny wild strawberries and think they liked them best of all.

There has been plenty of home brewing happening as well.  I have limoncello (second batch - first batch decimated by visitors one sunday afternoon), strawberry ratafia, rhubarb liqueur and rhubarb syrup, cherry pineau, cherries in ginger wine and cherry liqueur all sitting nice and cosy in the cave.

Recipes for all the above will follow this afternoon - or tomorrow morning - depending on time.