Green Goals 2019

I am not a great one for New Year's Resolutions. For example I'd love to lose a bit of weight but I have been pretty much the same weight for the last 30 years so I accept it isn't going to happen however many times I add it to a list of Resolutions. I don't really drink that much alcohol and there's no way I'm giving up dark chocolate!!  However I do like the idea of having some green goals for the year to come so am happy to promote those.

Poultry in the polytunnel? A Bird Flu post

You may have seen in the news that there have been outbreaks of bird or avian flu in France and other European countries and that all poultry owners in the UK have been ordered to keep their birds (chickens, ducks, turkeys etc) inside or in covered runs as a means to protect them from infection by wild birds.  The same edict has now also been announced in Normandy.

Luckily for me, my poultry numbers are at a minimum in winter.  The turkeys headed to the freezer on Monday and my meat birds went the same way several weeks ago.  I had no ducklings this year so just have 3 adult ducks plus my 14 laying hens.

I have put my thinking cap on and hope to have come up with a solution.  I thought about putting the chickens in the polytunnel as there is very little in there at the moment and I would be happy to sacrifice my few little leeks, scraggy chard and oriental greens if it meant I cold save my birds .... but I then decided it would not be fox-proof and as I have seen fox poop in the veg garden I know M. Renard is around.  However, I could put the ducks in there and at night, as there is just 3 of them, I can shut them in a fox-proof dog cage.  Quite how I will get them in there remains to be worked out, though!

New duck home aka my polytunnel

Bees in the Polytunnel - Part 2

Last week I found my polytunnel full of about 300 bees and had no idea why they were there.  It was a mystery but now I do have a little more information.

I posted questions about the bees on Twitter and a Downsizer, a forum I am on.  Several bee keepers came back to me and 2 thought that the bees may well have been attracted to the warmth which makes sense as we were having lovely sunny weather at the time with daytime temperatures in the tunnel in the mid twenties.  They also thought they might be coming in to feed on the honeydew produced by aphids - but there are no aphids in there.  A third thought was they were coming to drink the condensation on the plastic but again this did not seem likely as none were drinking, just bashing into the plastic.  In fact the only thing I saw a few of them do (other than fly into the plastic) was to feed on the French Marigolds I have on there.

I then received some ideas about the species and I now believe the bees to be Ivy Bees.  This species was only identified as a separate species - Colletes hederae in 1993 and has been in the UK since 2001 (longer in France).  It is a mining bee that lives in the soil as a solitary bee but there may often be many hundreds or thousands of them in the same place.  They are on the wing between September and mid November when their main food source IVY is in flower, hence their name.

Male Ivy Bee By Charlesjsharp (Own work, from Sharp Photography, sharpphotography) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Bees in the Polytunnel - Part 1

I know with Halloween approaching "Bats in the Belfry" might be a more topical post title but to be honest, I don't have a belfry, although I did see a couple of bats when I went to collect older boy from athletics last night ... and one was huge!  But I digress as this is a post about weird goings on in the polytunnel at Eco-Gites of Lenault.

Coming out of hibernation

I have never really been one to succeed with New Year Resolutions because I believe that the dark month of January is not a good time to achieve much except hide inside.  BUT ... for me, once the winter solstice is passed and the day length slowly increases then my internal clock starts ticking away just that bit faster.  I know spring is on it's way and so I know I need to get going.  Some will already have sown their onion seeds and I have not even started to scour the seed catalogues.  I know it is just a touch too early for me to sow much yet ... but I have a polytunnel that needs working on and my inspiration to do it has returned.  I am coming out of hibernation.   I am gradually waking up - such is January for a gardener!

So - that polytunnel.  It's a mess and there is no denying it and I need to get on in there.  Hopefully by next week I can report back that I have done all these jobs:

• Clear dead plants
• Weed through onions and other crops
• Water sparingly as necessary
• Manure cleared areas, dig in and water
• Tidy up cold frame
• Tidy work station
• Set up my new min-max thermometer
• Clear the central path
• Wash the polytunnel plastic
• If the weather permits sow mangetout, spring lettuce, broad beans.
• Keep harvesting what's in there - calvolo nero, chard, parsley, oriental greens.

View from the main door

View from the far end - am lot of that green is weeds!

With the mild autumn/early winter we have had, weeds are still growing and mould has been a bit of a problem .. as have chard eating pests.  I can't see what's been eating my chard but it obviously liked it!   And there are some surprises in there that I would not expect in January.  In amongst my overwintering onions are baby nasturtiums and there are foot high potato plants behind my leeks.  For goodness sake, it's January.  I will have to weed out the nasturtiums (I'll save some to spice up a winter salad) and with frost forecast I doubt the potatoes will survive.  I will see if I can rig up some sort of cold protection but I really do not hold out too much hope for them at this time of year.

Potato plants - in JANUARY for goodness sake!

Nasturtium seedlings in with my onions

A touch of mould on my parsley

Who's been eating MY chard?

12ºC in the polytunnel in January - other days have been even warmer

Cavolo Nero

Two forlorn tomatoes on a very dead plant.

January can often throw its worst weather at a gardener but it is also a time on new beginnings, plans and hopes for the coming year.  How is your garden doing or are you still hibernating? 

Early Autumn Colour in our Normandy Garden

The boys are back at school.
There's a slight chill in the early morning air.
The spiders are busy making cobwebs that catch the dew
In the garden at Eco-Gites of Lenault the hot colours of summer are changing to the warm hues of autumn ...

Autumn hues - pumpkin, Tagetes (African Marigold) and yellow tomato

Harvested red onions

My colourful ornamental chillies

A basket of vegetables from the polytunnel

A multi headed sunflower in the polytunnel

We may be in September and summer may be slipping away from us but I do hope the warm weather continues a bit longer.  I found this colourful fellow on my carrots and whilst, normally, I am not happy to have caterpillars munching my vegetables, this is one instance where I'll let the diner be. 

Swallowtail butterfly caterpillar

Sorry about the quality (I have still not got round to buying a camera that can do a decent macro shot) but anyone who knows their caterpillars should easily recognise this one.  It is the caterpillar of the swallowtail butterfly, a rare find in the UK where it is limited to East Anglia but a touch more common here in Normandy ... although still not often seen.  In fact I have not seen an adult this year and only fleetingly saw one last year.  However back in 2011 I did succeed in catching and photographing an adult swallowtail in a glass!

Thank you for everyone who sent me good wishes about my back, last week.  "Touch wood" it seems to be fine at the moment even after getting back to some serious weeding!

For more gardening blog gems head over to Mammasarus and the How Does Your Garden Grow linky. 

Early August in our Normandy garden

How on earth did it get to be August?  It seems only yesterday I was sowing tomato seeds and the polytunnel was looking somewhat forlorn and rather empty.  Now look at it!

The polytunnel is fit to burst

Tomatoes looking good

Outside there is very much a look of the second half of summer.  After last year's almost non-existent apple harvest, this year the trees as positively groaning under the weight of the growing fruit.  There will be apple crumble this year!

Ripening apples

You may remember that last winter I decided to not dig up my gladioli corms but left them in the ground covered by a thick layer of protective straw.  I am pleased to say that they all survived (but then we didn't have any really hard frosts) but there has led to one "disadvantage":  This year year they have all grown and flowered at the same time where-as normally you can space the corm planting out to give blooms for longer.  Oh well - you can't win them all and they do look stunning all together.

Gorgeous gladioli

What is summer without a sunflower and this year I sowed some smaller, orange ones?  My veg patch where I sow them can get battered by winds and I have lost many a tall sunflower to strong gusts so this year I've gone small.  I think I actually prefer their petite size and unusual colour.  What do you think of them?

Sunflower and friend

Finally, my runner beans are showing why in France you find the seeds in the flower section, not the veg section ... but we Brits know they taste good too!

Runner bean flowers

After an absence of 2 weeks with both camera and internet woes I am once again joining in with How Does Your Garden Grow over at Mammasaurus.  Why not grab a cuppa and head on over for a read too.

How to Protect Broad Beans from Blackfly

Hopefully within the next couple of days I'll be harvesting the first of the broad beans.  I would usually already have had a crop from the polytunnel but regular readers will know that the mice put paid to that idea this year.  Mice are not the only pesky pest trying to get to my beans before me and I noticed, yesterday, that some of the beans had some blackfly on them.

Blackfly or black bean aphid (Aphis fabae) are a species of aphid that love to feed on the tender tips of broad beans and can increase rapidly to the point of even killing a young plant and certainly weakening all plants they infest.  They can quickly spread from one plant to another helped by ants.  The ants feed on the sticky honeydew that blackfly secrete and they have "learnt" to move aphids to new plants in what can only be described as a form of farming.

Broad bean tip infested with blackfly

Young pods infected with blackfly

Because blackfly can be so damaging to a crop of broad beans it is vital that they are quickly controlled.  The simplest method is to be vigilant checking daily for an infestations.  Infested bean tips should be nipped off, together with any offending pests.  If you are not squeamish you can also squash off any blackfly that are further down the plant or that have infected the pods, their second favourite haunt.

Tip removed to show blackfly

Ultimately prevention is better than cure and there are various methods you can employ to keep blackfly numbers down:

7 tips to prevent blackfly infecting broad beans

1. Ensure you have a well manured soil to allow healthy plants to grow that are better able to withstand an attack.
2. Encourage insects and minibeasts in your garden that feed on blackfly including ladybirds, lacewings and hoverflies.
3.  Keep down the number of ant nests in the garden.
4.  Remove the tender bean growing tip before an attack takes place.
5. Be vigilant and check your beans daily.
6.  Blackfly also infest other plants such as nasturtium and weed species such as dock and fat hen.  Keep other susceptible plants away from your beans and keep on top of weeding.
7.  Grow your beans as early as possible (mice permitting!) so that the plants are bigger when the blackfly first attack and better able to survive an attack.

Fingers crossed then I have saved my broad beans from death by blackfly and will soon be eating these delicious veggies ... although my friend JT is no doubt shaking her head in disbelief that anyone can actually LIKE broad beans!!  However look, JT ..... I have actually managed to harvest cucumbers from the plants you and Mr JT gave me.  They may not be huge but they are really tasty.  I have always struggled to grow cucumbers well and was not even going to bother this year until Mr JT gave me 2 plants.  Glad I didn't give up on them and fingers crossed there are more plenty cucumbers to come.

MY cucumbers!!

Are you a vegetable grower?  Have you any tips for growing great broad beans or cucumbers?  

Water-wise Tomato Watering

After the rain (and gales) we have had this week - we lost our power for 6 hours on Tuesday probably due to a tree falling on an electricity line somewhere - it might seem that a post about watering is not best timed.  Ah well you see, it may be soaking wet outside at the moment but if you have a polytunnel or greenhouse you have in effect your own desert where no rain will ever fall and the survival of your plants is entirely dependent on you watering them. 

Outside, my plants not be galloping forwards at great speed as they wonder whole stole the May sunshine and warmth but in the polytunnel it's a very different story.  My tomato plants have shot up and I am in the process of planting them out, together with a plastic bottle each.  Don't worry, I have not gone mad but it is an ingenious way to help with watering.

A question for you first though.  Do you think it is better to water plants a little and often or a lot but less often?

How best to water?

Have you decided?

The correct answer is a lot but less often*.  And this is the reason why.  If you water your plants with just a bit of water it will only wet the surface of the soil where in fact in hot weather it will quickly evaporate before the plant can use it.  It also encourages plants to have shallow roots near the surface, making them more susceptible to drought.  In contrast, if you give your plants a good soaking, but less often, the water will soak down deep to where it is less likely to be lost to evaporation and to where the plants will grow deep, healthy roots.  The one big difficulty with this method though, is that you can lose a considerable amount of water to surface run-off and so this is where the bottles comes in.

Plastic tomato watering bottles

Water-wise Tomato Watering

Besides each tomato plant I have sunk a plastic bottle which has 4 holes drilled in the base.  I can then water directly into the bottle and the water drains out of the bottom some 15cm below the surface.  The tomato will send down deep roots to use this water and far less will be wasted.  I can also easily add liquid tomato feed this way and it should also have the added advantage of reducing weeds with much less water on the surface that is needed for their seeds to germinate.  Anything that reduces waste is good in my book.  Most of the year I use "free" well water (although I need electricity to run the pump so not totally free) but in a dry summer the well will dry up and I will have to switch to tap water, which here in France is all metered. 

Tomato plants with their water bottles

I shall let you know how I get on with this method.  It's taken a bit of extra time to set up but I think it should greatly benefit my tomato plants.  I also intend doing the same with all similar plants in the polytunnel such as cucumbers, pumpkins etc.

* Exceptions to the Lots and Often watering rule

As ever there are always a few exceptions to the water rule.  Succulents, cacti and very drought tolerant plants will not appreciate a deep soaking every few days and plants in pots will need watering both well and often as they dry out so quickly. Seedlings will also need water little and often.

Do you have any crafty ways to make watering your plants more effective.  Please do let me know.

Mouse Wars!

Posted by Rosie

Right, that's it - I am officially fed up with the mice stealing my seeds and war has been waged.  I had a long chat with a friend last week and a plan was hatched.  I need to get seeds sown but I need them to not just be mouse fodder so I have come up with what is hopefully a mouse-proof container.  I already had a cold frame in the polytunnel but the mouse could dig in to it through the soil underneath.  I have now put some boards under the frame and because they were not a perfect fit I have also lined the inside with fabric.  Oh yes and that is 2 mouse traps inside as well.

Mouse proof cold frame?

Today I sowed beetroot/sweet peas and placed the chard and summer cabbages that I had previously sown under a propagator in there.  The leaves are some lettuce seedlings I have bought that I am hardening off a bit before planting them in the polytunnel. I am also worried the mice will eat them so since taking this photo I have moved the mouse traps to where I hear mice squeaking, under the shelving and when I plant out the lettuces I will place the traps nearby.

As a back up plan I also have an old fridge I could use, turned on it's side, the door removed and a plastic lid fitted. At the moment my still slightly dodgy back isn't up to transporting the fridge to the polytunnel so that particular plan in on hold just for now ... however old, clear, lidded storage boxes may well also be bought into mouse-proofing duty.

I will report back next week as to the success of this mouse proofing.  Also if the temperature creeps up just a bit and the sun comes out I will try sowing some tender seeds such as tomato, pumpkin, courgette etc.  In fact, thinking as I type, I could start these inside and once germinated move them to the polytunnel.  As the cat is no longer allowed upstairs and he was , in previous years, responsible for upending and/or weeing in seed trays, I could start seeds under my bedroom window and move them once germinated.  I suspect it is a bit chilly in the loft.

Speaking of the loft, the mangetout I sowed up there last week have already germinated and the beans are almost there.  Yay, let the veg growing begin!

Germinated mange-tout seeds

In other news I have taken delivery of more seed potatoes.  Many of the varieties I used to grow in the UK are not available in France so as a friend was popping to England recently I asked if she could get some seed potatoes for me. I now have a total of 6 varieties chitting in the left room:

King Edwards and Kestrel from England
BF15, Desiree and Charlotte that I bought here - I've never grown BF15 before but another friend recommended them.
A variety called Reine de something which was a freebie from my local agricultural supplier/garden centre.

Chitting potatoes

I do now feel that things are moving in the right direction in the garden and this despite the pretty much horrible weather we have had all week.  There were moments of sunshine, like when I was showing Annie (from Mammasaurus, who stayed in the gite last week) round the veg garden but they were brief and we were soon sheltering in the polytunnel as rain turned to sleet turned to snow!  It was wonderful to meet Annie, in person, having corresponded through the medium of social media for what I have just realised is exactly a year.  This is my 53rd HDYGG post and I have not missed a single week. I love the record it is building of the garden here at Eco-Gites of Lenault from one week to the next and over the changing seasons and I love reading the exploits of other gardeners.  Thank you Annie for running the link up and thank you for coming and staying here.

From one February to the next in the garden

Posted by Rosie

I had hoped that with Simon and the boys away this week I would get absolutely loads done in the garden in their absence. Not so and house cleaning, gite preparation, rain and friends have all rather got in the way!  It's not all been a disaster though and I have managed a few things:

• Potatoes planted in polytunnel
• Other potatoes set to chit
• Mangetout and broad beans sown and the seed trays put up in our airy loft room where hopefully they will be free from the ravages of thieving mice.
• Fruit bushes pruned
• Cuttings taken off blackcurrants and jostaberries ... only about 4 months later than I should have done this but they may take (fingers crossed).

I was having a look through my photos for something and stumbled across a picture of what the polytunnel looked like last February. The word productive springs to mind.  I had mangetout over a foot high, flowers on broad beans and I was harvesting turnips.

Feb 2104

In comparison there is much less going on in there this February.  

Feb 2105

So why is that?  In short - the weather which in turn has affected mice numbers.  Last winter was very windy, wet and mild so plants in the polytunnel were totally protected from the worst of the wind and the rain and with relatively warm temperatures could steadily grow through all through the year.  This autumn that followed was long and warm which meant I was still harvesting summer veg such as peppers and tomatoes into November when in most years they are finished and the ground is free to get the beans etc sown.  When I did have spare soil it was late in the season so germination was slow.  Enter hungry mice, whose population has risen dramatically after the mild winter and they saw a buffet service of bean and pea seeds. Yum, yum, they scoffed or hived away the lot!!

Hence there is very little going on this February.  Am I worried?  Well no, not really.  With the early and late crops I got last year I still have plenty of vegetables in the freezer and in store, so don't worry, we won't starve.  I have also had the time to add extra manure into the soil and as I am still waiting for the farmer to deliver a load of well rotted manure I have had to use fresh stuff from chickens and ducks, which needs time to rot down in the soil before you plant anything.  Now though, I really must get my gardening backside into gear.  Expect great things over the coming weeks!


How is your garden doing this February?  Have you lots happening or are you like me expecting great things over the next few weeks?  If you head over to Annie's How Does Your garden Grow linky you'll be able to see what some other gardeners have been up to. 

December gardening and thieving mice.

Posted by Rosie

This has not been a week for getting out in the garden ... or rather when it was good weather I was otherwise occupied and when I had the time it was chucking it down.  That said I have managed to get a few more things knocked off my December To Do List:

The corner of the polytunnel with the cold frame in it is now looking all nice and tidy and ready for sowing in next year.  I have a plan on how to get on extra early but that will have to wait for another post.  However that is parsley you can see there in the bottom left of the picture rather than where it should be i.e. in the freezer.  On the plus side you may remember I bought a peanut plant back in the spring and this week I harvested our crop and blogged about it here.

I also got on and sorted my seeds out and discovered that it was not actually necessary to have searched round half of Normandy to find onion sets as I had already bought them in England and but had completely forgotten doing so.  Oh well, I've planted most of them now and all things being well, we should have plenty of early onions next year.

I've also sown four short rows of broad beans and have put the seeds twice as close as normal. At this time of year germination can be a little sporadic and some seeds can rot in the soil. Mice can also be a problem, stealing seeds, so I have hedged my bets and sown extra seeds.  If they do all germinate I'll take out every other one and transplant that into further rows but if they don't all grow hopefully I won't have gappy rows of beans.

The mice had also been busy in the house and back in late October had stolen a whole tray of my drying bean seeds.  I was furious!  However all is not last and today, whilst having a mega sort out in the loft room, I found 3 stashes of my stolen seeds including this one on a shelf behind a box I moved! 

I did manage to get one or two things done outside (mainly because I was so embarrassed how little I had done) - I added a bit more manure to an empty bed and cut back and covered the gladioli and dahlias before adding a generous mulch of old hay which I am hoping will be enough to protect them from any hard frosts we have. The sticks mark where the dahlias are so I will know where to look for new growth next spring. I may need reminding to remove the mulch though.

Have you managed to get anything done in your garden this week?  If not, see who has over at Annie's gardening linky, How Does Your Garden Grow.

Our peanut harvest

Posted by Rosie

Back in May I bought myself a new plant to try in the polytunnel - a peanut.  I had never grown one before and as I like to try something new each year this looked like a good choice ... and it was only a couple of euros so would be no great loss if it died in the first week!

Peanut Plant

I can now reveal that we have harvested the peanuts and are busy planning what to do with them.

• Shall we make a batch of peanut butter?
• A satay sauce might be tasty
• Personally I like peanut cookies.

Hmmmmm?

On second thoughts we may have to put all these recipes on hold as the entire peanut harvest amounted to this ....

Peanut harvest at Eco-Gites of Lenault - 2014

I can't eat raw peanuts as even one will give me sinusitis (cooked are fine) but Simon and Tom had a taste.  Simon said they were OK but Tom didn't like them, although I don't think he has ever had the raw before so they were probably not what he was expecting.

Am I disappointed with my peanut harvest?  No, I am actually impressed that in Normandy I have managed to crop at least some nuts.  But do you know where on the plant peanuts grow?  It may not be where you expect!