Rural Life

The fruits of my labours

Not the picture of pigs' ears but rather nasty weather has enabled better photographs to become available finally - could normal service be being resumed?  But then what is normal?

We have now picked the 9 fruits that we let mature on the young medlar tree, partly as all the leaves fell off and it looked rather odd.  We have the fruits bletting now in the entrance hall in an egg box, and one would appear to be right for eating - well it is mushy anyway, so later on I will find a sliver of Wensleydale and try it out.  However, as you can see, before the leaves fell off, it looked rather splendid.

As we are now at the middle of November, I thought it was about time to put away the more delicate potted trees and plants - two olive trees (neither very large), an agave (again very small) and a prickly pear.  They spend the winter in the unheated greenhouse, along with the brugmantia and the lemon tree and a pot of avocado saplings.  While I am not too worried about the cold for the olives, I am concerned at them getting water-logged, which is what they really hate.  This year I got one full sized and ripe olive - not enough to bother with either making oil or curing to eat I fear!

And finally sorting through the 400 odd photos on the camera, I came across this lovely picture of the two types of chillis we had growing this year - the smaller ones are hot, while the large ones are totally mild but add a lovely rich flavour to chillis and stews.  Previously I have grown Cayenne chillis which are very hot, but don't do much on flavour so this year has been quite a change.  I picked the last mild chillis yesterday - they are still green but should turn red in the kitchen over the next few weeks.

 
  

Apricot Time

After all that lovely blossom in the Spring, we were hoping for a good apricot crop this year, and it is exceeding our expectations at the moment.  If you have any good apricot recipies let me know, particularly things that can be preserved (frozen, bottled, put in alcohol, etc) as we will soon be swamped.

The first weekend in July I was in the middle of a tour of England (partly explaining the lack of blogs recently) and up in the North East.  Now I love Tyneside and I had had a fabulous day with my friends at Howick Hall, but I really didn't need to be reminded of what I was missing at home when Much Beloved sent me the photo below.

I got back home finally on Thursday and we had a go at picking some ripe fruit - well we got enough for a good scoff of fresh apricots for ourselves, but it was on Saturday, on a really hot day, that we had a go at doing a proper pick.  They still aren't quite ripe in general yet, but we got an easy 5 kilos, some of which are now in alchohol, some were stewed and are very nice on porridge, some were turned into apricot fromage blanc pudding (too good) and some are being eaten.  Tomorrow I think we will have to have a major jamming session and give some away.

It's a lovely problem to have - so I'm not complaining, but do send me any recipies you come across!

Medlar Blossom

Honestly - this will be the last picture of fruit blossom this year, mainly as the medlar is the last of the fruit trees in the garden to blossom.  Other colder areas might have other blossom still to come, but the only things that will flower from now on are strawberries, raspberries and tayberries.

The blossom has been extraordinary this year, and I think it is a combination of a cold winter, as the flowering shrubs and wisterias have been amazing too, and a later Easter, which as Easter is linked to moon phases, and moon phases often govern gardening activity, is another reason why the blossom has been later this year, and therefore less affected by poor weather.

We have also been lucky to avoid late frosts.

But while blossom is lovely, how about the fruit set?  I know there is wide concern about the lack of bees, and I do think that the reduction in orchards affects this, but our apricot tree was buzzing with them at the right time and now the tree is starting to look uncomfortable with the number of developing fruits (I just stand under it doing my best Homer Simpson impersonation and drooling at the thought of all that yummy fruit).  The same can be said for the cherry, thepear, the Worcesterberries, the black currants and the peach.  It is still too early to say for the quince and the medlar.

So anyway, enjoy this lovely picture of a medlar blossom - isn't it pretty?

Peach Blossom

Last month I published a blog with a picture of apricot blossom - I can now happily report that the tree is totally covered in tiny fruits about the size of a small broad bean.  Assuming no more frosts - which should be the case now, last year's late and disastrous frost was in the second week of April - we will have to think about thinning the fruit as it develops.  In 2003, we didn't do that, and a large chunk of tree got over-loaded with fruit and broke off.  It was a waste of fruit and damaged the tree.

Since then the peach has been covered in blossom, and this morning I lost count of small set fruits at about 40 on the one branch.  As the peach tree isn't very big, I will also have to keep an eye and thin fruit if necessary.  Fortunately Rob the Pig Man reckons that his free range pigs will be very grateful for any fruit thinnings.  It could be necessary with the pear as well.

The final two trees to break into blossom are the quince and the medlar.  Quince blossom should be at its height in a few days time, while the medlar could be a little bit later.  I don't want to second guess the medlar - it is the first year we will have blossom on it - but to my mind the quince is the prettiest of all fruit blossom.

Until I can get a photo of the quince, you will have to make do with peach blossom!

Apricot Blossom

The fine run of weather in England and Northern France has brought things on nicely after the cold and snows of February.  Actually the cold and snows of January and February have done good things for the fruit trees.  Things like fruit trees, black currant bushes and similar actually need a defined period of cold and frost in order to get the real rest they need for the next season.

It looks like all our fruit trees needed that cold spell and have benefited from it.  I have never seen the apricot so covered in flowers, nor the peach for that matter.  The apricot was a good two weeks later flowering than last year, which is no bad thing, and may mean we get some fruit this year - last year we got 2.  Given that the tree is HUGE, 2 is not a result.  In 2006 we had over 200 of the most delicious, succulent and scented fruit you can imagine - memories of that keep us trying, rather than turning the tree into firewood.

The peach tree is a feral, but when it fruits, they are lovely white fleshed peaches with tremendous flavour.  In 2007 we had 35 of the most fabulous fruits, but last year we had none.  The peach tree is currently covered in deep pink blossom, so we are again hopeful.

The pear, cherry, quince and medlar trees are all holding fire for the moment, but look like there will be a lot of blossom, while the Worcesterberries and Black Currants are also looking promising.  The fig looks like a collection of dead branches, but it is still a relative baby.

So let's hope for a good fruit year, so that home grown goodies help us through this boring credit crunch and depression.  Apricot curd is like potted sunshine and is fab on a warm croissant or a slice of brioche.  Here is some of the blossom with a busy bee to help matters along.

A late spring

There is no doubt that this has been a hard winter, and for my chums in the UK, the problems are still very much with them as more snow falls today.  Here in the Baugeios, it is a blustery early spring day, with sunshine, clouds, quite a stiff breeze and temperatures up around 10 degrees C.

With it being so nice, I have spent odd moments today walking round the garden, in between frantic bouts of e-mailing to sort out next week's business trip.  The first of the broad beans are finally starting to push through over two months after they were sown - that felt like a real victory as I was convinced that even with the killer fiends (cats and chickens) that we give garden space to, that the mice would have had a feast!  But they are late - and I fear we won't be able to stir fry baby broad beans and asparagus tips fresh from the garden together this year.

Round the quince tree, there are the first snow drops coming out - probably about 8 flowers in all, and on Monday they were living up to their french name - Perceneige or "breaking through the snow".  However looking through my photos of the quince tree last year, it was surrounded by lovely crocuses by mid to late February.  Today I noticed the very first signs that some crocuses might come though and don't expect to see flowers until March.

Last year, Easter was about as early as it could be - indeed the last time it was so early, the English and French had a major battle here in our village in 1422 and the English lost and the course of the Hundred Years War changed in favour of the French.  All the blossom was early too - hardly surprising as both Easter and fruit tree blossom are closely linked to the moon, and our pear tree always flowers at Easter.  Consequently when we had a sharp frost in the first week of April, we lost all the fruit - the only thing that seemed to do well last year were apples and they are always later.  Easter is later this year and I hope the fruit trees take heed and don't flower too early - with this recession, we will need all the fruit we can get!

Here is a pretty reminder of how nice a big block of crocuses can be from last year.

Growing Globe Artichokes

I have been particularly fond of eating globe artichokes since I tasted my first one at a restaurant at Cros de Cagnes in the Alpes Maritime back in 1975.  I have been trying to perfect growing them since we got our allotment in Worcester back in 1996.

For Worcester I bought a number of plants from Marshalls, having had a spectacular lack of success at trying to grow them from seed.  Of the 10 Marshalls plants, 5 survived the worst of Worcester weather and two in particular just took off, producing a number of heads each per year, plus loads of offsets, that we never got round to doing anything with.

With this house, the urge to get a few artichokes going came very quickly and in the first spring we had the house, I bought four from a guy in Bourgeuil market, all of which were particularly happy planted close to a south facing wall and in well drained soil.  They don't produce heads every year - they are probably too closely spaced.

This year we dug one up and and divided it into 8 plants which have been planted in another equally well appointed border - 6 of those plants have survived the tender ministrations of cat bottoms and seem to be doing fine.

Of the three that remain, one has taken advantage of the extra space to produce 2 totally perfect large heads and one smaller one.  The first of the large heads is shown in the photo, and I am told was lovely with melted butter (I was away on business when it got to its perfect ripeness).  The second and third were eaten a week ago, and very good they were too - this time with vinaigrette.

The remaining plants will be lifted and split at the right time to improve their productiveness and increase our stock of plants.

Wild French orchids

As June starts to crank up the temperatures here, the orchids are ending their spectacular flowering season and dying back.  They started quite early this year with loads of common purples at the Jarze wood, and in the One Acre Wood - which was sadly neglected through May due to rain and other projects - seemed to have had two fine examples of the genre, which are now just dessicated flower spikes.  Next year we hope to see them in bloom once again.

With John doing a lot of lawns currently and doing several of these by walk behind mower rather than ride on, he has been able to spot the rosettes of orchids and not mow over them but has given them a chance to flower.  A few people who didn't know they had orchids, or suspected but didn't know what they had got, have had pleasant surprises.

Perhaps the flashiest of the lawn based orchids, though not the most colourful, is the lizard orchid - this example is nearly 2 foot high!

Rather prettier but smaller and harder to spot is the bee orchid, shown here, and small at less than a foot high.

Eating broad beans

Finally after months of agony and hard work, the crop is ready to eat.

To remind you, I planted the seed in early November, intending on an early crop to reduce losses to black fly.  The beans were germinated and up in early December and in February I posted a picture of two elegant wide rows of young plants, despite some frost damage.  In late April they were covered in flowers and I was worrying about whether there were enough bees avoiding the best efforts of the cats to keep them away from the job of pollinating.

We need not have worried - once again we have a bumper crop and only have two plants with a bit of black fly (which the chickens think are totally the best thing ever - they are odd!).  We are currently enjoying young and tender beans so they just get boiled for a short while and then a little butter and mixed with whatever else we are eating.

Soon they will become a bit more coarse and then we will have to peel the beans as well as taking them out of their pods to make a lovely dip that rivals guacamole or cooking them gently for about 4 hours with smoked bacon to make a lovely rich and satisfying paste that goes well on French bread.

Naturally we will also be saving a number of prime pods to save the seed for the next crop - this strain is developing so well, we would be mad to lose it.

See how wonderful the fresh beans look, and 8 beans in one pod too!

Peach Leaf Curl

We have one main peach tree and a few ferals around the place.  When the main peach tree has fruit (and it is itself a feral grown from a mouse's winter food store), they are lovely white peaches and because they are fresh off the tree and not picked until they are ripe, have the most wonderful flavour.  One year we had 40 peaches!

Last year was a disaster for fruit like peaches as it never really got warm after April, and this year will be just as bad.  The blossom got frosted, there wasn't much of it anyway, and when there were flowers, there were no bees.  I think I have found 1 tiny fruit ready to develop on the tree, so will use this year as a year to do the formative pruning I have had in mind for a while.

With all the rain around this spring as well, all the local peach trees, not just ours, are suffering badly from peach leaf curl.  While there is a spray remedy, I don't like to use it because of the wild and not so wild life in the garden.  The British remedy of taking the plant into a green house or covering it with protective fleece doesn't work here, where the trees get big.  However we have found that after the first flush of nasty and distorted leaves fall off, you do get a nice flush of normal leaves to nourish the tree.

In case you have never seen it, the photo below shows the ravages of peach leaf curl - a rain borne virus.