Walking to the garden on Buy Nothing Day again

Last year on this day we walked to the garden, having bought nothing but bread that morning. Today we did the same, although we also bought some ham for our lunch before we went. This day isn’t about essential food shopping, though, but about refusing the desperate celebration of consumerism that can happen at this time of the year. There are more details on the Buy Nothing Day website. The main aim of this day is to encourage us think about what we consume and spend, as the website explains:

Buy Nothing Day highlights the environmental and ethical consequences of shopping. The developed countries - only 20% of the world population - are consuming over 80% of the earth's natural resources, causing a disproportionate level of environmental damage and an unfair distribution of wealth.

Our garden is about ten minutes’ walk from our house, on a hillside above the village in a group of gardens which have been there for centuries. In the centre of the village where we live the houses are too close together for there to be room for gardens. The oldest parts of the village date back a thousand years and it was built on the defensive circulade pattern with very narrow streets. The distance from the village means that the garden is very peaceful (until they start building the new houses nearby next year) and we benefit from two groups of neighbours – those at the garden and those near our house.

The main road looks bare now that the plane trees on one side have been cut down, but the remaining trees look beautiful against the blue sky and the old walls are still there, although tumbling slowly.

The path to the garden …

the garden at the end of November.

A picnic lunch and a coffee with a long shadow at this time of year.

Wintry light and ripening olives

Harvesting and clearing

While Lo Jardinièr cleared the aubergine plants, I picked the last of the green chillies. There may be a few more green peppers, so long as the nights aren’t too cold over the next couple of weeks. But we’re preparing the ground where we grew this years tomatoes, peppers and aubergines so that it is ready to put manure on in January.

Broad beans and peas

Broad beans, Spanish habas, mangetout peas and a second sowing of broad beans

The way home

past some of the other gardens

and back through the narrow old streets of the village.

Sunday lunch in the garden / le diner de dimanche au jardin

For the past few weeks it’s been too hot to do much work in the garden, just watering (a lot), tying up the tomato plants and harvesting the produce. In a couple of weeks’ time we’ll have to start sowing the autumn and winter vegetables – lettuce, turnips, carrots – but it’s too hot now.

Depuis quelques semaines il fait trop chaud pour faire beaucoup de travail au jardin – on ne fait que l’arrosage (beaucoup) et la récolte de légumes. Dans deux ou trois semaines on commencera à semer les légumes d'automne et d'hiver – les salades, les carrots, les navets – mais en ce moment il fait trop chaud.

The garden is still a good place to entertain friends for a meal, though, as we did yesterday. / Le jardin est toujours un bon endroit pour inviter des amis pour manger, comme on a fait hier.

plenty of shade and a paddling pool borrowed from a neighbour / beaucoup d’ombre et une piscine qu’un voisin nous a preté.

We started the meal with prawns and aioli (I posted the recipe for this when I made it last summer – here). The only difference is that now I make it with an electric whisk – much easier!

Nous avons commencé par des crevettes accompagnées d’un aioli – voir la recette ici.

Grilled quail / les cailles grillées

For the main course we cooked something I’ve wanted to try for a long time: quails wrapped in vine leaves and cooked on the barbecue.

I put a garlic clove and a sprig of time inside each one, rolled them in olive oil, salt and pepper, wrapped them in vine leaves and tied the parcels with thread. Lo Jardinièr cooked them for about 20 minutes over a wood and charcoal fire. The vine leaves blackened, as you can see, but inside the quail were tender and delicious.

With the quail we had baked vegetables – aubergines, courgettes, peppers, onions and tomatoes – garnished with basil and a squeeze of lemon juice and served cold, and Marseillette rice with coriander, cumin, onion, raisins and pine nuts.

We had a Roquefort and St Nectaire cheese and then a mirabelle (small plum) tart made with our neighbours’ fruit and recipe. The recipe will be on the Mediterranean cuisine blog.

At the end of the afternoon, after a long lunch, we visited our friends’ garden where there is a beautiful old mill building which has been converted into a garden shed. And back in our garden to clear up, I noticed this butterfly on the dahlia. Another perfect Sunday!

Taking shape / Prendre forme

The summer garden is taking shape as we've done a lot of planting during the past week or so.  We've planted out 62 tomato plants (20 Roma, 19 St Pierre, 8 Ananas, 8 Coeur de Boeuf and 7 Yellow pear).  Yes, we know that's probably too many, but the seedlings were too good to throw away!  We've planted out 4 melons, 4 cucumbers, 16 peppers, 3 chilli peppers and 5 aubergines.  Now we only need the sun and a lot of water!

Le jardin d'été prend forme.  On a fait beaucoup de plantation pendant la dernière semaine.  On a planté 62 tomates (20 Roma, 19 St Pierre, 8 Ananas, 8 Coeur de Boeuf et 7 Yellow pear).  Nous savons que c'est probablement trop, mais les plantes ont été trop bons pour jeter!  On a planté 4 melons, 4 concombres, 16 poirvrons, trois piments et 5 aubergines.  On n'a besoin que de soleil et beacoup d'eau!

aubergines

and peppers

We added manure and compost to the ground for the peppers and aubergines and made irrigation channels alongside the rows.  Three of the pepper plants and all the aubergines are grafted onto tomato roots.  This makes larger more productive plants.  We've grown grafted aubergines before but this is the first time we've tried the peppers.

On a ajouté de fumier et de compost à la terre pour les poivrons et les aubergines, et on a fait des gouttières d'irrigation près des rangs.  Trois poivrons et tous les aubergines sont des plants greffés sur les racines de tomate.  Ça fait les plants plus grands et plus productifs.  Nous avons cultiver les aubergines greffés l'année dernière, mais c'est la première fois que nous cultivons les poivrons greffés.

A view of one side of the garden: aubergines, climbing beans, courgettes, lettuces, peppers, tomatoes.

Une vue d'un côté du jardin: aubergines, haricots grimpants, courgettes, salades, poivrons, tomates.

It's so exciting to see all the plants in place - I love this time of year!

In the rest of the garden / dans le reste du jardin

	The cistus are flowering, inspite of the rain today. / Les cistes fleurissent, malgré la pluie aujourd'hui.

The olive trees are about to flower / Les oliviers sont à la pointe de fleurir.

The vine leaves are growing - nearly time to make dolmas! / Les feuilles de vigne poussent - c'est presque le temps pour faire les dolmas!

We're picking lots of broad beans - the longest was 31 cm.

And this evening we're going to eat our first potatoes of the year. / Et ce soir on mangera les premières pommes de terre de l'an.

Luckily the stream from the Resclauze spring is running well, so there is plenty of water for all our plants.  /  Heureusement le ruisseau de la Resclauze coule bien, donc il y a assez de l'eau pour tous les plants.

Lemons, courgettes and morcilla / Citrons, courgettes et morcilla

Our own lemon tree has produced only three fruits, but lemons are cheap at the moment - 4 for 1 € in the market on Wednesday - so I bought eight to preserve, using two recipes from Catalan gardener's blog. So it's not my recipe, but I couldn't resist putting the pictures on this blog - such a lovely colour!

Notre citronier n'a produit que trois fruits, mais les citrons sont moins chers en ce moment - 4 pour 1 € sur le marché mercredi - donc, j'en ai acheté huit pour faire les citrons confits selon les deux recettes de Catalan gardener.

I sliced five of the lemons, salted them and left them to drain overnight in a colander (left, below) / j'ai coupé en tranches cinq citrons, j'ai ajouté du sel et les ai laissé pour la nuit dans une passoire (à gauche).

I quartered the other three lemons and rubbed salt into the cut surfaces, put them in jars and used Tomás Graves's trick with the olives, a couple of bay leaves and a bay twig to keep them under the boiling water which I added to the jars. / J'ai coupé en tranches les trois autres citrons, j'ai mis du sel sur les surfaces coupées et des feuilles et brins de laurier sauce pour les garder au dessous de l'eau bouillante que j'ai ajouté aux bocaux.

This morning I put the slices of lemon in jars and topped them up with olive oil - the two recipes produced four colourful jars for the preserves shelf. In a month's time we'll be able to start adding them to tagines. / Ce matin j'ai mis les tranches de citron dans les bocaux et j'ai ajouté de l'huile d'olive - et voilà, quatre bocaux aux couleurs vives. Dans un mois on pourra les ajouter aux tajines.

Sowing courgettes / Semer les courgettes

Lo Jardinièr came up with another great recycling idea for the courgette seeds. The seeds are in compost in card centres from toilet rolls, held upright by plastic pots and then the pots are put inside 5 litre water bottles which have been cut in half to make a mini cloche for each pot, which can be put outside on the balcony when the seeds germinate.

Un autre truc de recyclage de Lo Jardinièr pour les semences de courgette. Les semence sont dans le terreau dans des centres des rouleaux de papièr hygiénique, et puis dans des pots que nous avons mis dans des bouteilles d'eau 5 litre, coupé en moitiés pour faire une petite serre individuelle.

And morcilla for lunch ... / Et la morcilla pour déjeuner

It was a nice surprise to find Spanish morcilla with pine nuts in the village shop this morning, so I made a warm salad of potatoes, sweet onions, spring onions, pickled garlic and sun dried tomatoes, with slices of fried morcilla, for a very good lunch with a glass of rosé from Domaine des Pascales in Gabian.

Une bonne surprise à l'épicier du village ce matin - la morcilla espagnole aux pignons. Donc j'ai fait une salade tiède de pommes de terre, oignons doux, oignons verts, ail confit aux tomates séchées, avec des tranches de morcilla poelées - un très bon déjeuner, avec un verre de rosé du Domaine des Pascales à Gabian.

Garden panorama / panorama du jardin

Some signs of spring / quelques signes du printemps

A few signs of spring in the garden today / quelques signes du printemps au jardin aujourd'hui:

the first daffodil / la première narcisse

a bee on the rosemary flowers / une abeille au fleurs de romarin

apricot flower buds / des boutons d'abricotier

red squid from the market, barbecued to eat in the sun / encornet rouge du marché, grillé pour manger au soleil

. . . . and not so good / . . . . et moins bon

the sounds and sights of building work over the garden wall / le bruit des machines du travaux à l'autre coté du mur

And, at home, the tomatoes are germinating / Et chez nous les tomates germent

a small beginning to the gardening year!