Fruit, Veg, Flowers & Feline

Fresh April green here and there has morphed into verdant lushness all over. The first fig crop is forming while the second and more substantial one will happen in autumn.

Little fuzzy olive-green eggs are dotting the peach tree.

The strawberry harvest at present is enough for making a strawberry banana smoothie every other day. Peak production will be reached in several weeks.

Rhubarb is being picked now, the peas will be in a few weeks, and the potatoes at end of July.

The soft green of fennel (the herb, not the bulb) cosies up to flowering sage.

Comfrey is putting out young leaves and buds. It's an amazing plant for other plants as it is used as a fertiliser tea and a compost accelerator.

The weigela's flower-laden branches are draping the front garden in crimson.

The peony is continuing to set just a few blooms as I suspect the last couple of winters were too mild to give it the cold required for abundant flowering.

Hardy miniature gladioli loves to self sow where I dare not to as in smack up to this ivy-covered pergola pillar.

The Ferdinand Pichard Bourbon rose is paying no attention to Dirac the Cat napping in the southwest sous sol window as all of its blooms are leaning directly towards the south to get as much sun exposure as possible.

À la prochaine!

Mid-Spring Garden & Potager 2018

Getting into the heart of spring, the garden is showing red and pink all over. In the front garden an Étoile de Hollande climbing rose greets us as we open the front door as it is entwined on the balcony railing. On a sunny day, its potent damask fragrance becomes an olfactory cloud upon which I descend down the stairs.

Taking a beauty bath in the rain makes the enormous blooms droop even more than they already do.

Below it is a weigela which finally got fertilised after many a year and is so happy. It is flushed, laden, festooned . . .

. . . but hardly burdened with tons of luscious deep-pink blooms. Though I fantasise about making the entrance steps all spiffy with tiles, I adore the pleasingly mottled design that moss and lichens have made on the cement. We inherited the heavy, bronze-coloured clay pot long ago when a neighbour in Grenoble hastily had to empty his apartment and said, Here. Have this. So I took it and eventually carted it to Angouleme. Besides being visually arresting—we refer to it as The Bell Jar—it has also helped to force rhubarb in the dark.

Rounding the east side of the house, leaving behind mini-gladioli, spikey iris foliage, and dusty-blue flowering sage, I can glimpse a part of the back garden with its wall of ivy, David Austin Flagstaff rose, wild area, raspberries, and lusty rhubarb.

Making a sharp turn around the house's corner, I come to the patio with its tubs of blueberries and bougainvillea. Calla lilies are thriving in a patio cut-out while mini-gladioli, Iris foliage, and abelia are just off the patio.

These smaller version of gladioli, unlike their larger brethren, need no staking, naturalise wherever their pink hearts desire, and are cold-hardy so digging up their bulbs for the winter and replanting in spring is not necessary.

Spring planting continues. Two green pea beds, one potato, one beet, and one carrot have been done.

Striped with white, the hybrid perpetual Ferninand Pichard has many blooms on one branch, is fragrant, and flourishes close to the patio.

Strawberry harvest has begun. The Strawberry Eater chez nous, aka The Calm One, has already polished off  two bowls of just picked, sliced, sugared berries, one topped with whipped cream and the other with coffee ice cream. He says they are GOOD, sweet and full of flavour.

À la prochaine!

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Fresh Garlic . . . and more May flowers

Our main garlic crop was planted just a few weeks ago, but there were some cloves sowed last autumn so the mellow sweetness of fresh garlic is available presently for the table. Very little skin and an undivided bulb makes for easy preparation.

The major planting will be harvested in July, then dry-cured for storage

Because The Calm One doesn't measure ingredients for his splendid Three-Cheese & Three-Pasta speciality, he sometimes has a surplus of cooked penne, shells, and corkscrews. The cleaned, trimmed, and roughly chopped garlic along with the cold pasta, thyme, and Parmesan got tossed with olive oil plus a good sprinkle of apple cider vinegar. A dusting with fleur de sel/freshly ground black pepper was the final touch for this easy dish boasting the health benefits of resistant starch (reheating would result in an even greater decrease of a spike in blood sugar).

Though its flavour is more delicate, fresh garlic's flesh is juicy and meaty

Our garden and potager continues to embrace spring. The ivy's new growth is brightening up the pergola.

Honeysuckle joins the ivy in another corner. Through the haze of the asparagus bed's feathery foliage, a neighbour's tall evergreen (not a church steeple!) can be seen.

Ferdinand Pichard, a fragrant, bi-coloured Bourbon rose

The wild area is not only good for biodiversity, but for beauty as it completely covers an old shed. If you look closely, you will see a neigbour's black and white, long-haired cat (Elmo is our nick for him) rolling in the sun between the raspberry patch and a dilapidated cold-frame overgrown with weeds. Perhaps this is the season I will mulch the frame with cardboard!

Iris foliage, glads, newly planted garlic & shallot bed, to-be weeded bed, pea & potato beds

Coming from the back of the garden, I always enjoy seeing this lovely melange of plants before my dipping inside the sous-sol to put back/get tools.

Creeping sedum, bee-loving abelia, perennial geraniums, bearded irises, calla lilies & roses

Along one side of our house, a path winding through flowering sage, yet-to-flower rosemary, already bloomed sweet violets, bearded irises, hardy mini-gladiolus, and roses leads to the front garden lit by the setting sun.

Our entrance includes a stairway leading up past the sous-sol to a balcony which affords a lofty view of the front garden.

Weigela, soapwort, yellow rose & lavender

Entwined with the balcony railing is the robust, velvety, deep-crimson, and potently perfumed climbing rose, Étoile de Hollande.

Dirac the Young cat left his sentinel position on the doormat to supervise my pruning.

À la prochaine!