Rural Life

Hints of Autumn - finally

Here in France, Autumn is late, very late.  I am happy to be indoors with my computer as the temperature in the garden is over 30ºC at the moment.  Earlier, I was digging up potatoes - hard work in temperatures nearing 25ºC in the shade and the soil is pretty solid clay.  I can't totally complain, as look what just one seed potato produced!  They are huge and unblemished, and will take some baking later in the year.

But other, more autumnal signs are there - including my first bright orange, evil, jelly slug of the season, spotted mooching around between the raspberries and the wood store.  They are deeply unpleasant to my eye, but also seem to be harbingers of mushrooms.

I saw this fellow yesterday, plus there was a giveaway headline in the local paper this morning that mushrooms were appearing, so we just had to go for a walk in the One Acre Wood before doing any work at the Garden.  For once they were not wrong - there were mushrooms a plenty, but many had gone over or had bad slug or fly damage.  We found three nice ones for lunch - a delicious cèpe and comté omelette, made with free range eggs from the garden.

It goes without saying that if you aren't confident about identifying mushrooms, don't pick and eat!  We only eat what we know.

We also need to prepare to pay our rent for the Garden, Orchard and Meadow.  The payment is in a number of forms - obviously providing all the necessary luxuries for Donald, Spooky and Monsieur Clause the cats is part of it, keeping the Meadow under control with an annual mow as per legislation is another part of it, and then there is the tribute of a shoebox of walnuts too.  Knowing that the boar like the good nuts best, well they aren't totally stupid, we have to gather them as soon as they fall, before drying them so the inner skin isn't unpleasant and bitter.  We think we have the required tribute spread out in the sun!

The Meadow got mowed finally this weekend too.  Between Wildlife Trusts, the RSPB and the LPO, it is difficult to spot at time when you can do this without being berated for being a vandal and putting life at risk.  Seed heads, chrysalids, eggs, nesting time, flowering cycles, shelter etc. are all cited as reasons to not mow.  The reasons to mow include seed heads (some things aren't supposed to be allowed to spread, including ragwort and thistle), brambles, old man's beard, not required saplings, improving conditions for low growing wildflowers and those that need a short sward to flourish (including cyclamen and wild orchids), and a legal requirement not to cause a nuisance. 

I prefer to mow in September, but we didn't have a working mower available until now.  It should also be noted that some bits of the Meadow didn't get done last year for no good reason.  Anyway, it was jolly hard work in the hot sun, and at the end I was half human, half wild carrot seed, and it doesn't look good as the saplings didn't get properly trashed, so I will have to do some of it again during the week, but finally we can see across the Meadow again!  There are large banks of scrub for shelter for my friends the hares and for any pheasants that the fox  hasn't had too.

There are no new wildlife photos to share this week as last Sunday the hunt went through our land and the valley.  They don't come into the Garden, as it is well fenced off but do treat the Orchard and Meadow as their own.  While I recognise very clearly the need to control the number of boar, as there really are too many, what annoys me about the hunters is their sheer arrogance as they stalk through other people's property.  Plus I don't trust them not to fire towards us in the Garden if they spot something interesting.  We sang and whistled very loudly while they were close by.  Once they have done a sweep through, we see very little large wildlife for at least a couple of weeks, until they find their way back to us.

I leave you with the flowers of autumn, the cyclamen that pop up everywhere it seems and spread gloriously through our gardens and the Wood.  They always make me smile.

Have a good week!

 

Dangerous beasts

For a few days last week, we had a ferocious door keeper - actually it was quite tricky at times to close the door as we didn't want to squash him or her!  While last year we saw practically no mantis, this year there have been quite a lot and this one has decided our front door area is their stalking point.  If I am in the way, then I too am a stalking point.  Either mating or cold will eventually kill them off, but until then, I enjoy the company.

Rather less fun was the hornet sting last Sunday, which is still a bit painful and blew up overnight on Sunday to rather unpleasant proportions, and made yoga moves a bit challenging.  My experience, if it helps anyone else, is as follows: the pain of the sting is like a searing hot needle into the arm.  Get the hornet off you, as they can sting more than once - to be sure, have a large person jump up and down on the blasted creature as well in retribution.  If you know you have sting allergies, get yourself to a chemist or doctor asap or use the EpiPen you carry or take the antihistamines you have been given.  There is a rumour that a cider vinegar compress as soon as you can will also be helpful - I didn't spot that advice until a bit too late.  Hydrocortisone cream will sooth, but needs fairly frequent application, and an anti-inflammatory such as ibuprofen will help with the swelling, but count on pain for four to six days.  All in all I don't recommend the experience.

The trail camera has been in to have its batteries recharged - the new camera is heavier on batteries than the old one, and seems to use up the rechargeable batteries in three weeks.  It is back now keeping an eye out for boar, and indeed the boar are about a bit, keeping an eye out for walnuts.

More interestingly, when I was going through what was on the memory card, were a series of short videos of a fox with something - frequent reviews of the set of 6 videos tells me that it was probably a blackbird.  I've loaded up a few of the videos for those who don't mind watching nature red in tooth and claw.   For me the interesting aspect of this, other than that foxes don't like feathers in their teeth, is that foxes, like cats, play with their prey.  Now TypePad and YouTube don't seem to be playing ball anymore so I am hoping that if you follow this link, you can see video number 1 - but do press any back arrow to come back to this post, same for the other two links, if you can spot a back arrow or back function that is (I really hate technology at times).  Then if you follow this link, you can see video number 2.  And finally, if you follow this one, you can see video number 3.

The cristophine vine goes from strength to strength as this unseasonably hot autumn continues.  We have harvested off 8 fruits now, and counting today, it looked to me like there were a further 23 that might do something if we don't get a frost, including 6 that actually need to be eaten in the next week as they are fully ripe.  One tendril has disappeared 15 foot up into a birch tree, and the canopy the leaves provide over the structure we made for it are fairly waterproof.  It is a thing of wonder - well, to us at least, as other British gardeners over here in France seem to be singularly uninterested.  French people with relatives in the overseas departments are fascinated.

I'm not sure whether the recent full moon was the Harvest Moon or the Hunter's Moon, but it has been spectacular.  Here it is rising between houses.

We are still working our way through the quince harvest.  I have poached more and of course we do have some eau de vie de quince from a successful year about 3 years ago, so I have come up with Cocktail Maison - two small measures (a 2cl shot glass) of eau de vie, three good small measures of quince and spice syrup, and full to the top with fizzy water.  It slips down very nicely!!

Cheers! Until next week.

 

 

 

 

Cooking and looking around

September continues it's mellow decent into Autumn and the vegetable plots keep giving, as do the fruit trees.  The quantity of fruit this year is truly breath taking and means a lot of sugar, a lot of peeling and a lot of finding new recipes.  One I was particularly pleased with was for slow poached quince, which could actually be done in the slow cooker, thus keeping surveillance to a minimum while it did its thing.  From solid and unpalatable to meltingly soft, spiced and delicious in 9 hours, while the house was filled with tantalising aromas.  There is a batch in the freezer, another third became the most luxurious crumble we have ever had, and a third we just scoffed as we could with ice cream.

Many more quince were chopped up into small pieces, boiled a long time and strained, to be made into 11 pots of ruby amber quince jelly - quite the prettiest of the jams and jellies I make!

Tomatoes are also having a good year, a very good year.  You can't really give them away at the moment, so have to do something with them.  I've made hot tomato gloop, I've made tomato sauce, now I am making tomato purée which takes up less space in the freezer.  I think there are about 2 kilos of chopped tomatoes of various varieties in this pot, being cooked down.

During the week I also cooked up a delicious cristophine gratin for supper - we have now had 5 individual fruits off the vine and there are another 10 that look like they will make it to edible size before the frosts, which is pretty amazing.

But it's not all cooking and preserving - every September there is a massive brocante or antiques fair at a local down called Durtal.  Obviously it stopped for Covid but before then it was the biggest such event of the year around us, and an absolute "must visit".  The roads and squares of the town would be stuffed with people and stalls with all sorts of tat; as well as the established restaurants and bars, there would be extra drinks and food stalls, including an oyster bar; and in my memory, every year it was hot and sunny.  

Covid has made a difference, as has Brexit.  For a couple of years there were camera crews from the BBC and Channel 4 doing shows, but no longer.  There were no British traders with stalls, and few British voices to be heard around the town.  There were fewer stalls and no oyster bar, and not all the restaurants were open.  The weather was good - sunny and not too hot, but on the other hand I got stung by a hornet, so wasn't too impressed.  There was still a fair amount of tat of course!

Durtal itself is a beautiful but forgotten little town on the River Loir (the small boy version, not la Loire), with a massive chateau in the centre of town, dominating the river crossing.  There are handsome old buildings wherever you look, and also the occasional heron...

Well I had better go and finish making that tomato purée now, but then I need to copy off all the photos from the trail camera, so next week there should be fox, deer, badger and perhaps boar action to entertain you.  Have a good week.

 

Preserving the crops

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness?  We've had a couple of early morning mists, so far, but they burnt off very quickly once the sun came up.  Mellow fruitfulness?  More like aggressive ripening and rotting to be honest!  We are currently in the middle of a burst of preserving such as I don't remember having to cope with before.

The peaches have been ripening and plopping off the tree for a while now - anything that hits the ground is immediately pounced on by ants and wasps and bees and their friends and relations.  What is still on the tree has a slight miasma of dark mould from the aphids that lived on the leaves during the summer, so eating from the tree is not entirely pleasant and the fruit still on the tree is only partially ripe.  That didn't stop me yesterday and I picked and peeled some two kilos giving me enough for 4 and a half pots of white peach and rum jam - very tasty!

So that's the jar on the right.  On the left is a slightly more sinister jar of spiced fig sauce, which is good with meat dishes.  That was the result of a raiding party on the fig tree at the bottom of the garden that has declared war on me.  We had a first crop of figs in June - they were tasty, particularly baked with sweet mincemeat and a bit of honey.  The second crop has gone slightly mad, with exploding figs everywhere.  The blackbirds that normally get half the fruit can't keep up.  The chickens are eating what they can and feeling the effects too I think.  The fig sauce was an attempt to cope and also to deal with some of the many, many chillies we are also getting from the Cayenne chilli plants (the jalapeños aren't ripe yet).

While the peach jam was gently simmering away, I picked a further kilo and a half of figs, chopped them up and made another four jars of fig jam (no surprising additives in that).  They are a nice ruby colour.  The major jamming session will be during the week when I attack the quince problem.  Normally our tree has about a dozen fruit - enough for a liqueur and perhaps 10 jars of jelly.  This year we stopped counting at 50.  They are turning quickly now, so I need to get moving and preserving.  I am also trying new recipies for other things to do with quince - watch this space.

But it's not all jams and jellies, because everything else is going nuts too!  During the week i froze a dozen sweetcorn, and once this blog is done, I have this lot to work through.

To be clear, that is a dozen tomatoes, three courgettes, 2 cristophines and 31 cayenne chillies, from a half hour foray of picking.  There is going to be a very big pot of hot tomato and courgette gunge on the go shortly.  The rest of the chillies will be frozen for later.

One of the cristophines was eaten last night as an accompaniment to fish kebabs.  I split it into quarters, boiled it, then peeled it (the skin isn't edible and has an annoying latex when raw), chopped it up and sautéed it with a home grown red onion, before adding cream to be glutton-ish.  Delicious!  I will do a similar thing with two more tomorrow, but adding in lardons to make a main meal.

But now I can hear the rumbling of yet another thunderstorm, so I need to go and round up a couple of quince for tonight's pork and quince tagine - I'll let you know how that goes.

 

September is social

September is the Rentrée - the return to work, to school, to sports groups and to the serious job of earning enough money to pay for Christmas and two months off in July and August next year. 

People are more into good resolutions at this time of year, and it is no coincidence that it is the month when every area has its Forum des Associations or the period when they drum up membership for their club or group.  If you go to these sessions, it is a fairly testosterone fuelled and aggressive event. 

The Yummy Mummies need to get young Florence signed up for gymnastics, baton twirling, extra reading and creative arts, while the boy Paul needs to be kept occupied with football, judo, table tennis and perhaps a bit of music.  Then the clubs themselves want to sign up young Florence for football, basketball, judo and (if she looks lithe enough) baton twirling, and are eyeing up Paul in case he looks like trouble.  The four different yoga groups are vying for numbers, while the sewing group that supports the Chateau and the Opera need people with nimble fingers and an ability to make clothes with dodgy pieces of discarded bed linen and curtains.

It is also a time to reconnect with people after focussing on family and travel for two months.  A group I belong to holds a quiz and wine tasting each September so that people can restock their dwindling wine supplies while catching up, and trying to prove who has the best general knowledge.  This was our first time taking part, and we can confirm we have the best general knowledge, with only 7 wrong answers out of 60.  I was let down by an imperfect knowledge of the 10 Commandments and the jewels attached to specific wedding anniversaries.

Friday night was the dishing out of Comice tombola prizes and the donation of a large cheque to a breast cancer charity.  I was there to collect a prize on someone's behalf.

Saturday was our favourite event of the year - the Societé de la Paix's annual mechoui or pig roast.  About a hundred of us get together for a lot of sangria, a lot of food and wine, a lot of laughs and a fabulous atmosphere.  This year we were a little concerned as the forecast was 35ºC in the shade, and it certainly hit that, but interspersing the wine with a lot of cold water meant we were OK.

Then yesterday, friends were passing through the area on their way south, so we had to meet for lunch in Saumur and catch up after not seeing each other for years.  As well as being CEO of a large company, one of our friends is also a very accomplished potter, so we were delighted to receive a couple of his works.  They are both functional and beautiful.

The new trail camera is up and running.  I'm still getting used to it and the question of batteries is a big aspect of that.  Currently it is up in the orchard, waiting for the walnut and boar season, but is catching a few images of a fox that has appeared in the zone.  It also got attacked by a greattit - I know that word shouldn't run together but the profanity checkers on many systems are stupid and stupidly sensitive too.

Well that's it for today - I'm now going to recover from all that sociable activity and deal with the current glut of figs and quince.

 

Let's talk cristophine

Or chayote if you prefer.

We first came across them when we were in Guadeloupe in 2019 and were over on Grande Terre visiting a sugar factory.  As it was the major festival for the islands (Mardi Gras - why did we not spot that?), we were evicted from the factory museum so went for a meal at a restaurant by the sea, as you do.  The starter, the proprietor was very proud to tell us, was cristophine gratin, and it was delicious.  So we looked around for cristophines to buy to try cooking ourselves, which we found.  Then how to deal with them?  A Florida cooking and gardening website was our friend and talked us through the process - easy and tasty, what more could you ask for?

Once home of course, you forget, but then a few months later, I spotted them on a local market stall in January, and asked the chap about them.  He had a few and had planted them in one of their polytunnels to use the space during the summer and was now selling off the crop.  So each winter, we have profited and bought from him.  Last year, we spotted a strange plant along a chum's fence and asked about it, and he said he had been growing a cristophine as someone gave him a sprouted one - that set us thinking!

We let a couple we bought at la Flèche sprout, and while one had the growing tip knocked off in one of those gravity related accidents, the other kept going.  it was in a pot on a south facing window sill for two and a half months, getting stupidly large, until mid-May and all danger of frosts were gone - then we planted it out at The Shack.

We also planted a couple of runt tomatoes next to it, because, well, you never know do you?  During the summer, it reflected on things then decided to grow.  So we had to start to provide supports.

The plant kept growing and so the support structure had to get bigger and bigger.

In early August, we spotted the first flowers, which got a lot of interest from the local insect population.

That was very exciting, but what we didn't realise was that there are two types of flower - male and female.  The males appear first and while not impressive, are pretty, yellow and numerous.  The female flowers appear singly and, as with courgettes and squashes, with a tiny potential fruit attached.

We only spotted the female flowers last weekend, along with a couple of fruit.  We now think there are at least a dozen fertilised fruit on there, and perhaps more to come.  Some are also getting towards an interesting size!

The main plant is huge and still growing in all directions.

And what about those two runt tomato plants?  Well it would appear that planting tomatoes and cristophine together is a match made in heaven and they too have turned into triffids.

"Feed me, Seymour!"

Until next week, assuming we survive!!

 

 

Comice Day 2 - the important stuff!

While Day 1 is seriously agricultural, Day 2 is more about community, or communities.  The morning is marked by the ploughing competition between the mayors of each of the villages in the commune, not made easier by the fact that they aren't all farmers, they have to use old tractors (I think there is an option to use a horse, but never taken up), and they have to wear period costume.  For some reason not totally clear to me, this year actually seemed to turn into the festival of the old tractor, and the parade, while led out by the mayor of Vieil Baugé, in a fetching land girl costume, numbered some 75 old tractors, which takes a long time to go past!  We got an early preview as most went past our house to get to the staging area.  The exhaust does stink rather.

Anyway, here are several old tractors, to give you an idea.

There were a few oddities - this one I found puzzling, including wondering what it was for and whether there was really enough demand to make a run of them!

While this one is not allowed on the road, so had to be brought in by trailer!  You can see why.  This one had a staring role as it had been restored specifically for this Comice by the mayor's husband, Yves.

So many old tractors, all wanting to take part in a ploughing match, meant that went on way longer than normal.  But some tractors had to hurry away as they had a second role - pulling the decorated float for their village. 

In the past I have been involved in floats, I've designed them, I've made flowers for them, I've made papier maché bits and bobs, I made a fake organ once, and I've been on them too.  They take an immense amount of team work and hours of volunteer labour to get ready for their moment of glory on the Comice Sunday afternoon parade.  Thankfully it was dry - wet weather and crèpe paper don't mix!

Anyway, to give them their due, here they all are - led out by Vieil Baugé as the hosts.

Vaulandry followed up - they will be the hosts next year.

Fougeré should be the year after - their idea of a stop me and buy one ice cream seller was interesting.  

Baugé will host after them - this is always a challenge as there is no farm land in Baugé any more and you need 27 hectares for a ploughing competition!

Next up le Guedenieu - the more mature ladies of my acquaintance say that there used to be good parties there in the sixites but they always ended up with a fight...

Cheviré le Rouge always manage to get a musical theme and a song going on their float - this year, that wasn't a challenge.

We had lots of fun at the Bocé Comice, I hope they had fun at ours.

Most tractors pull their floats - Cuon pushes theirs.  I have no idea why that is at all, apart from it must be to do with the design of the underlying trailer.

St Martin d'Arcé were accompanied by musicians.

Then came Echimiré, who bravely hosted the first post-Covid Comice.

Finally Pontigné brought up the rear - they hosted last year.

The afternoon and early evening entertainment was provided by Mademoiselle Orchestra - a six piece cabaret band, who are very good and very amusing.  Sadly the heat and the excitement took its toll on us and we went home for a nap, but did catch the end of their second set, before joining the queue for the pig roast dinner.  14 locally born and raised pigs had been turning on spits over fires since 9am, and by 8pm we needed our portions!  The guy on the next table (British) complained there wasn't any crackling, so his French chums went off to find some for him, and came back with a whole head.  Lucky so and so!  The small boy next to him was astounded.

The final band of the weekend was a boisterous group mixing rap, hip-hop, French pop and a sleazy horn section.  The energy was amazing.

All good French events end with a firework display.  By this time we had gone home, but popped out to the field opposite our house to enjoy the spectacle.  It was very loud!

Now all that was left to do, was to tidy up!

 

So much to do, so little time!

It's the final straight before the Comice.  Most days this week have been taken up doing "stuff", but unless that stuff is already out in the streets and fields, it is embargoed.  The weather has meant less progress has been made on some aspects than we would have liked - the wind and rain made working on straw bales nearly impossible.  It was possible to progress items that will be installed on the fields in due course, as we are working on them in a disused piggery, so we have shelter, power, space and quiet (unless we have a bluetooth speaker with us to blast out radio).  And when I say we, it isn't just John and I, it is all sorts of other people, including my next door neighbour's granddaughter, getting involved.

Next week I will find links to blogs I have written on previous Comices (Comici?) to show what the fuss is all about.

When not working on decorations, I have been keeping an eye on the new trail camera.  The boar are still around and a deer or two have passed by - they look rather odd from a higher angle!

On Thursday, I caught a different strange animal on the camera - one that I would not expect to see on our land before September.  I wasn't delighted, but I think I remember seeing a couple around this time last year too.

We think that the cristophine might be contemplating flowers - today there was a slightly different growth on a couple of the main stems.  It has grown another three feet or so in a number of directions so there is certainly enough oomph in it to think about flowering and fruiting I would suggest.

The sweetcorn got a real battering in the winds during the week - two named storms at this time of year and this side of the Atlantic is a bit odd.  While we were not near the strongest gusts, the gaps in hedges and trees funnel the wind in weird ways.  The big fields of maize are closely planted and dense, while our wee area of sweetcorn is only three rows deep, but it has all survived and the silks are out and starting to turn brown, which is good!

Digging up the week's potatoes, I met one of my garden helpers.  From the size and shape of her, I think she has been doing very well on slugs, and certainly none of the potatoes have slug damage, so I think she is rather effective, if not the prettiest person on the plot.

Anyway, I must now go and deal with a rather pleasing problem.  Back in the days before Brexit was even considered, my mother in law bought us a Victoria Plum tree, to take the place of the medlar tree that didn't seem to like our garden (shame as the flowers were gorgeous).  It wasn't cheap and we had to source it in the UK, as they aren't a thing in France.  Since then we have nurtured it and protected it and been rewarded with at best a dozen fruit in a season, and only if we can get to them before the chickens.  This year is different.  This year it is loaded and we have supports under many branches to help it cope.  This afternoon I have promised myself I will make a batch of plum crumbles for the freezer, as well as one for tonight, so I'd better go and pick and stone some fruit and get baking.

Have a good week!

 

Being a good peasant

Apologies for not posting yesterday - I was indeed being a good peasant, and had just got my hands on 4 kilos of very ripe yellow plums - if I didn't jam them yesterday, they would have gone in the new burping barrel, and that would have been a waste.  I had also turned down a tray of apricots in favour of free plums for jam making, so had to get cracking.  But taking the stones out and chopping up 4 kilos of plums takes time, then you have to gently cook them, before adding the sugar and pushing to setting temperature.  Still, we started the half jar today at breakfast, and it was jolly yum, so definitely worth it and you will have to believe me!

And once that was done, I thought I was on a roll, so I spent an hour peeling the tiny shallots for pickling (no photo), at which point it was time to do all the bits for crab and comté soufflé for dinner.

At the start of the week, I was able to enjoy this wonderful vista over a vast field of sunflowers - in general they are nearly over but I was able to catch this field near its best.

Close to, some of the flower heads were huge, and while still flowering at the centre. birds had already started to peck away at the ripening seeds.  I picked out a few myself for sowing next year (just 8) and they were slightly sticky to the touch but fat and well filled.

Midweek I was able to spend a bit of time working in the potager and was able, after doing a bit of watering, to thin out the carrots a bit, particularly those that were quite close to the nicely developing parsnips.  I sowed a sort of heritage variety of multicoloured carrots - apparently all shades between white and black, via yellow, orange and red.  So far those I have thinned have been firmly in the white to orange spectrum, which is a shame as black carrots are so dramatic!

The woodstore by the potager is very useful for drying off crops once lifted, such as shallots, onions and potatoes, before they go to storage or are used.  It has the standard tin roof, ventilated wooden walls and a sandy floor.  This seems to be an ideal home for antlion larvae.  I've not dug down to see what they look like, but we have a lot of depressions which are very characteristic and very intriguing.  If I were 50 years younger, I would probably dig one up, now I am more live and let live.

The week has also been about Comice preparations.  I spent Thursday afternoon in a disused piggery with a laptop, projector and a load of paints, trying to trace the logo onto part of a giant panel.  It all went well until the scaffolding holding the projector shifted just a smidge!!

Saturday was Bunting Day - I helped on the morning shift, stringing up bunting down the main drag of the village to get people in the mood for fun.  It's amazing how lots of small triangles of fabric on a piece of bailing twine can make everything seem so much more festive!  In the afternoon our house got bunting on its façade too, which I can see a small bit of when in the back garden - it's the small things that can give so much pleasure!

Next week I'll try to be more timely, but there is a lot more Comice preparation to do!

 

Starting the gardening season

I don't know why, but we haven't really been inspired to get this year's gardening underway so far.  We have planted shallots and onions, which are now sprouting, and of course in the last weeks of 2022 we sowed our broad beans, but other than that we've not done much.

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Over winter, we have been able to enjoy fresh parsley, parsnips, chard, leeks and the stored potatoes (now all gone), but yesterday we had a few spears of feral asparagus which acted as a reminder that if we want to feed ourselves, we need to get ourselves into gear!  After all, we do have 53 seed potatoes chitting away, which will need to be planted soon.

The chard will keep going for a while and there is a hint of cauliflower on the six plants that are still also providing ample food for caterpillars.  There is also corn salad hiding away among the weeds that have grown back, which I hope to rescue soon.

The state of the rhubarb reminds us that we need to care for the soil, adding organic matter back where we can, while at the same time continuing to fight the good fight against the rampant scrub that wants to reclaim the gardens.  These tulips were planted in a vegetable bed only 3 years ago, but are now fighting their way out of a bramble patch.

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Those plants that fight on through the weeds and scrub come out stronger - this calendular made it through the winter and is now developing many more flower buds for more blazing orange.

One reason for our lassitude to date is that for once things are a bit delayed in nature.  The daffodils would have been finished by now last year and the year before, while the cowslips are just going from strength to strength.  But blossom is late - the countryside is white with wild plum and blackthorn much later than normal, while the pear may not be in full bloom for Easter, as it usually would be (irrespective of date, as Easter is determined by moon phases).  There is a slow green veil taking over but that has been apparent in late March for the last few years, not early April.

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The birds are out in force, but there were few insects around, despite the blossom and the highly pungent laurel flowers.  The hornet trap is set at The Shack but not at home, but there is no sign of any interest in it so far.  There are a few heavy bumblebees around, but without insects, there will not be much fruit, so I hope they appear soon.

The extremely clear sign of a late spring was at the One Acre Wood however.  For the past few years, by the start of April, the lily of the valley would be perhaps an inch or two tall and showing whether there would be any flowers to come.  We walked through the spot today, and could see nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  They will sprout in due course, but they confirm we are right not to be plunging into too much gardening activity before Nature is ready to give us a helping hand.

Many the Easter Bunny bring you more chocolate than you can eat in one sitting!