Look how they’re growing!

I can hardly believe how much our tomato and pepper seedlings have grown in just over a week since I last posted photos of them.  In the daytime they’re out on the balcony in the mini-greenhouses (where the temperature can reach over 30 degrees C in the sunshine), but we bring them in at night.

tomato and ……

pepper seedlings today.

and a flashback to eight days ago:

They’ll need potting in bigger containers in the next day or so and we’re not sure where we’re going to put them all!  But it’s a nice problem to have.

Sunday lunch

We treated ourselves to a pigeon for lunch, cooked with figs which we preserved in Armagnac last autumn, and a sausage meat and cep (boletus/porcini) stuffing.  It was delicious, with the last of this winter’s leeks from the garden.  The recipe is on the Mediterranean cuisine blog.

No swimming, but plenty of water

The reservoir at the spring above the gardens is full for the first time for a year, and the stream running down from it is rushing with water for the gardens ….

The old building under the wall of the reservoir.
One of the mills half way down the hill.

The apricot blossom is opening at last, and it was 20 degrees C when we had lunch in the garden today.  Dare I say that spring is here?

Garden bloggers’ bloom day

Apart from lichen and rust which I think look lovely in the spring sunlight …

….. we have apricot blossom just about to come out (several weeks late this year) …

…..one lone daffodil and one rather battered-looking anemone (also very late, although one anemone made the mistake of flowering in November!) …..

…. our neighbour’s almond blossom (cheating a bit, but we can see it over the fence) and the rosemary which has been flowering all winter, even when it was very cold….

That’s it for the flowers, but we’re still harvesting cabbages, salad leaves (lettuce, lamb’s lettuce and sorrel), as well as herbs (thyme, sage, rosemary, bay).

Garden bloggers’ bloom day is hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens.

Saturday sun and mussels

The shell fish producer from Bouziques comes to the village on Thursday afternoons and Saturday mornings, so each week on at least one of those days we usually eat mussels.

We can never decide which is our favourite mussel dish – it’s usually the one we’re eating now!  Today we grilled them with blue cheese (we used Bleu d’Auvergne, but other blue cheeses would work just as well), white wine, bread crumbs and olive oil.  Now this is another favourite!

The snow has all gone and the weather is warming up a bit again – last night was the first night for over a week when the temperature didn’t drop below freezing.  After lunch it was warm enough to sit outside in the sun with our coffee.  I daren’t say that spring has come because last time I said that we had snow a few days later, but there’s hope of spring.

Tomatoes and peppers update

All the varieties of tomatoes have germinated and all the peppers except the Longue d’Espagne (these last were seeds from an old packet belonging to our neighbour).  The two bright green plants in the centre at the top of the right-hand picture are lemon seedlings.  When the sun is on our balconies in the afteroons we put them out in the mini-greenhouses, where the temperature reaches up to 30 degrees C, even when there’s a chilly north wind.

Once in thirty years

There was more snow than this yesterday, but this is what was left this morning between the vines near the Chateau de Cassan on the way to Roujan.  It shouldn’t affect the vines as the spring growth hasn’t started yet.  It’s almost unheard of for there to be snow at all here, let alone in March, and it was heavy snow that settled and stayed for more than twenty-four hours.  Friends in the village say that it hasn’t snowed properly like this for thirty years.  Just when we thought spring was finally arriving, we now have freezing temperatures at night again, sunny days but still only about 3 or 4 degrees above freezing.  I don’t know how it’s going to affect the plants in the garden, especially the broad beans which were just starting to recover from the winter.

vineyards near the Chateau de Cassan …..
	and the view towards the hills, from near the garden.

 

It is still March, though, and the almond blossom on our neighbour’s tree is coming out, better late than never.  I was glad to see that the blossom on our apricot tree hadn’t come out yet – it’s better for it to wait a few more days for warmer weather, I think.

A late St David’s day and a return to the Mediterranean

Last night we invited our Occitan friends in the village to a meal to celebrate (a few days late) St David’s day, as we usually do around 1st March.

We served toast with laver bread and bacon with apéritifs (laver bread is seaweed boiled for hours into a sort of purée, a south Wales delicacy which you either love or you hate – fortunately our friends here love it).  For the first course we had leeks (from our garden) with salmon baked in the oven with white sauce and grated cheese.  The main course was a lamb stew (which I couldn’t resist putting some very Mediterranean thyme into) with stiwnts (mashed carrots and parsnips).   Parsnips have only recently appeared in the shops here and it was the first time our friends had tasted them.  We grew a few tiny ones last year, but it wasn’t a success as it’s too dry for them.  For dessert we had apple tart and cream.  And then a wonderful Italian cake which one of our friends had brought as a contribution to the meal.  So it was a variation on a Welsh meal and we left Wales altogether with the coffee (Italian) and digestifs from Catalunya (Ratafia, a wonderful liqueur made with herbs from the garrigue) and Navarra (Pacharan, sloe liqueur, also wonderful).  Everyone enjoyed it all very much.

Today, though, I had a strong craving for our more usual Mediterranean style of food, so for lunch we had mussels with aioli (garlic mayonnaise –my recipe is here).  The mussels in the Bassin de Thau aren’t at their best at this time of the year – after the winter (when we usually have very little rain and this year have had even less than usual) they need the spring rains to dilute the salinity of the lagoon so they can fatten up a bit.  So we bought some of the larger size (sold for cooking moules farcies).  While I made the aioli Lo Jardinièr cooked the mussels in a little white wine then removed the mussels from their shells, dipped them in beaten egg white and then in breadcrumbs and fried them in olive oil.  They were really good with a squeeze of lemon and the aioli.

We’ve had some more cold nights, although not freezing, but the days are sunny and warm.  Walking around the village this afternoon we spotted this beautiful mimosa still in flower.

More rain

At last, after a dry winter, we’re getting plenty of rain and the stream from the spring at the top of the hill above the garden is rushing with water and the garden full of water droplets.