Rain and sun, sun and rain

       The weather continues to be "grand growing weather". Its warm and wet and the vegies are loving it. There are pumpkins on the Giant Pacific pumpking plants and squash on some of the squas plants. Continue to dig up AGATA potatoes and the colorado beetle are becoming more prevalent despite lots of squishing of beetles and larvae. Fortunately the potatoes are pretty much done with growing but still it would be nice to give them a little longer. Courgette have started to appear. This variety which is a bush type I have never grown before. It will be interesting to see how "bush" courgettes work out compared to the usual ones. I have also sown a couple of "round" courgette seeds to see it I can get some to produce some round courgettes.

  More of the general maintenance done. Weeding, tomato shoot removal, tomato tying up, cleaned out the chickens, weeding the front drive, mowing the grass, pruning the grape vine etc. My last Black Mountain water melon has been transplanted in the poly tunnel. Never grown one on in the poly tunnel before. It will be interesting to see how it does compared to the ones outside the poly tunnel. More Great Lakes lettuce transplanted. These have been put between my rows of cucumbers. Now if I can keep the chickens off....

Two courgettes on my bush courgette

 

Turn your back...

   Another week dashes by. Here we are in the middle of June. Well, least here in my part of the world we are being allowed to move around a bit. I have been shopping for the first time in over three months. Not a lot of difference other than most people wearing masks and one metre space markers at the checkouts. The checkouts staff are protected by sheets of what I guess is clear plastic sheeting. Anyway I digress.

    The weather has been mostly kind. A little sun, a little rain, not to hot, not to cold.  Not too much of anything to stop stuff growing. In fact it has been perfect growing weather which of course includes the weeds and the grass! So the week has been taken up with weeding, tying up tomatoes, digging up new potatoes (variety AGATA), pulling the odd lettuce and oh yes I nearly forgot planting out Black Mountain water melons. A friend has given me a load of well rotted horse manure. Ideal for a water melon bed. Dig a hole fill with horse muck and chopped up comfrey (good green manure comfrey), mix it all up cover with old roofing felt, cut holes for the plant and a plant pot (used to water the melon) and hey presto one has a water melon bed. Melons love to have warm roots. The photo show two out of the three beds I have made. A forth plant I have to put out I think I am going to put in the poly tunnel. Never grown a water melon in the poly tunnel before. 

   The haricot bed has not been doing as well as I would have expected. I suspect part of it is because of old seed. Anyway gaps in the haricot verte and barlotti rows resowed and another two rows of each sown to hopefully get some succession of the crop. More gaps in the sweet corn bed. Do not know what is going on there for sure. Also the sweet corn bed has now been completly sown.The tomatoes are looking good. Strong, currently healthly plants with first truss flowers starting to show. I have transplanted Mamouth Leaf basil inbetween tomato plants in some of the beds. The tomatoes in the poly tunnel are half as big again as the outside ones. Only the one bush tomato outside has fruit on it  so far. The summer cabbage looks good with my new variety Glory of Enkhuisen living up to the seed notes in that they are going to be HUGE! Winter bassicas looking good. They are enjoying the cooler and wetter days that is for sure. My Champion of England red top swede looks well establish and they to have been enjoying the cooler, wetter conditions. New potatoes are doing well with some twelve and a half kilograms of potatoes dug up so far. Worth about forty two euros if you had to buy them in the shops here in France. (My AGATA seed potatos for 1.5kg cost 4 euros 70 cents.)

   On the chicken front the chicks are growing fast and we will soon be able to see whether we have hens or cockerels. Egg laying is averaging six a day. 

   So on we go! 

Return to cool and damp

   The grass got to a point where I just had to go and borrow my neighbours mower. I am very impressed with his machine and am on the look out for one. All the grass cut within a significantly shorter time than usual and I was not so worn out! 

   I finished forking and weeding the winter brassica bed and populated the last third with Brussels sprouts. With the cooler and damper weather later in the week they have settled in well and the whole bed does look good. I have started to dig up new

Winter brassica bed 

 potatoes (variety AGATA) and very nice they are too! I have transplanted Mammouth leaf basil seedlings which have been transplanted between tomato plants. It will be interesting to see how they do outside the poly tunnel. I have also transplanted Champion Red Top swede seedlings some grown inside the poly tunnel and others in a bed outside. The poly tunnel seedlings are a little bigger but have suffered from flea beetle unlike the outside ones which have not. I guess they will catch up with each other eventually. My grandsons and grand daughter pulled the first carrots much to their delight. Oh what a difference in taste to shop bought ones. Most plants are doing ok but there is plenty to do and I would now like a few days of cool but dry weather.

   Chickens are being chickens and the chicks are growing fast. Unfortunately when we came to move Mrs Bramha and her eggs to a new nest (more secure and less likely to be predated) we found she had not been brooding them well and on the move she abandoned the eggs. None of the eggs were viable. We are now going to incubate twelve more in the hope of getting a second batch hatched.

Chick hitches a ride

New potatoes variety AGATA

The sun continues to shine

Tomatoes!

    Yep the sun continues to shine and the temperatures hover in the mid twentys (centigrade). Phew! And its only May!
   I planted out a few more tomatoes and thought to myself "How many have I planted out now?" So I counted them up and I have planted out ninety nine plants. Man! I need to find a space for at least one more somewhere and I did. In fact another twelve!!
   More forking and weeding (never ends if the truth be told) done. Four more cucumbers planted out this time variety Marketmore and I also have sown four more Marketmore seeds in pots, the idea being, to get a longer cucumber season. Had to do some resowing. One Waltham butternut squash seed which had failed to germinate and a good few sweet corn seeds that had also failed to germinate. Lost a couple of lettuce to heat so they too were replaced. Poor germination in my Hope cabbage so they also have bee resown. I have started to transplant the Mammouth leaf basil plants. I have had a colorado beetle free day and I am hoping it is going to stay that way.
   The cherry trees have been a disappoinment this year. Many have split and of course the birds have had their share. 
   Sheep are being sheep and chickens are being chickens. Still laying five or six a day. 
By the next blog I should have some news of the hatching of the second batch of eggs.

Chick hitches a ride on mum...

Too hot ?

   Just as one thinks that the weather is against one either too hot, too cold or too wet it changes. The last week has been warm to hot and dry. I was about to get my concerned hat on and the weather has gone cooler and it has rained. Excellent. Most things are growing well and now with the bit of rain the transplanted plants and newly sown seeds ought to get moving!
   Spotted the first colorado beetle on the 17th and have now started to patrol the potato patches to try to catch any. So far I have caught and squished a good number.  First volunteer (that is potatoes that have grown from spuds not harvested last year) potatoes dug up. These were purple ones, variety Violet. I have also dug up some Volunteer Desiree potatoes too. All in all several free kilos of spuds! The squash bed is now fully poputated with varieties American Tonda and Kuri added to the Sibley and Waltham butternut. The second sowing of broad beans has now been picked and cleared. Over two kilos of shelled beans harvested and froze!  I have created a small seed bed at the back of my poly tunnel where is it shaded most of the day. It is getting too hot in the poly tunnel for seeds. I have sown Great Lakes lettuce and some 18Jour radish in this bed. In the place of the broad beans (once forked and weeded!) I have put my first lot of cucumbers, variety Tamra. New one to me. Hopefully they will do ok outside. Last years cucumbers in the poly tunnel were a disappointment. Winter vegetables have been now been transplanted into my winter vegetable bed. This bed has been prepared with manure over winter and then lime added when planting out. Found this worked well last year with my Early purple sprouting. So, two varieties of Brussels sprouts and Early Purple Sprouting have populted this bed. One variety of Brussel Sprout is a dutch variety. My early sowing of haricot vert and buerre has been very disappointing. I have resown with a hope they do better in the warmer soil. The borlotti beans have not done much better and I will resow in the gaps.
  On the chicken front Mrs Brahma sits tight although she has been seen off the nest (quite normal). I had to put one chicken down who was suffering from some respiratory ailment and she had lost a lot of condition. We have also swapped our plastic coop and the old duck coop and moved the flock that has been using it. This is to allow us to move Mrs Brahma and her chicks (and maybe before) to a more safe environment. 
   So onwards I go! Lots to do and not enough time to do it all in. Oh well one can only do what one can do and I try hard not to over do things.

Shelled broad beans

Pumpkins on top of the Hugelkultur bed

Desiree potatoes 

First lot of Brussels sprouts planted out. That white stuff is lime.

   

Cool and damp but ....

   The weather has entered the cool and cold middle of May. In France the ice saints dates are the 11th, 12th and 13th May when there could be frost. No frost in my neck of the woods this year and local lore is do not plant anything out until the 15th May. Over recent years I have taken a chance and planted out tomatoes and cabbages during the first two weeks of May and have got away with it. Climate change? Who knows but when I first moved here ten years ago and started planting veg I would not have dreamed of planting out until after the 15th May although I have always chanced my potatoes and mostly got away with it.
   Lots of weeding and grass mowing. It is the time of year where everything just grows very fast. I am already thinking of autumn and winter. Champion Red Top swede sown in modules in the poly tunnel (which by the time I publish this blog have germinated), more 18Jour radish and a french cabbage variety whose name translates to Hope. More tomatoes transplanted to pots and the count of those transplanted or waiting to go out stands at sixty one! I think it will be unlikely that I will bother to transplant more seedling to pots as the total tomato count stands around one hundred. The pea/mangetout bed has been weeded and where there were gaps seeds have been sown. In my mind is the idea that I need to sow another lot somewhere! More tomatoes transplanted. In this tomato bed I have made an effort to allow two feet between plants, horizontally and vertically. This will allow plenty of space for airation and reduce the spread of blight. Least that is the theory! My squash patch is all but ready and I had started to transplant Sibley and American Tonda squash. Much to my alarm I had forgot to sow butternut squash in the poly tunnel. Hey ho! I have sown swom seed in the squash bed. They should be ok.
   As always lots to still to do and the weeds and grass do not let up!

AGATA second early potatoes

Cabbage patch

Busy busy busy.....

  

     New arrivals at Watermeadows! Nine chicks have been hatched either by our hen Mrs Buffycross or in the incubator. Mum and chicks doing fine!

     It has been a busy week. I am usually wary of planting out until the middle of May which is when the last frost date is for the area I live, however, it has been mild and sunny with showers and the forecast for the next week is for it to continue to do so. A little risk maybe but I think only a very very small one that there might be a frost. 
    So what has been planted out? A old favourite of mine - Greyhound cabbage. This is a pointy summer cabbage that I have grown successfully over the years and have decided to give it a go here in France. I have transplanted tomatoes to an outside (the poly tunnel) beds. Varieties (all Champeau seed!) Jens Orange, Gardeners Delight, Crimea Noiree, Potiron Ecarlate, Noire Crimee). In the poly tunnel a couple of unkown tomatoes types and Great Lakes lettuce. Seedlings are coming along nicely. A number of sweet corn seedlings have been move outside in a sweet corn bed. Half of it is sown seed and the other half will be seed germinated and grown in the poly tunnel. In theory the sown seed should catch up with the transplanted plants! I have noticed the early potatoes in the poly tunnel are very close to flowering. I am still harvesting lettuce and radish from the poly tunnel and broad beans outside although they are starting to come to an end now.
  Other jobs? Well, weeding, mowing grass and I have finally lit my bonfire! Plenty to do and lots of plants to set out.

 

Transplanted tomatoes

Preparing to transplant tomatoes