>Walking to the garden on Buy Nothing Day again

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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!

>Old walls and spring growth / Vieux murs et la croissance de printemps

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Archaeologists have found the remains of medieval walls on ground near the gardens where building work is scheduled to start soon.  The walls are part of the system of water mills and streams on the hillside.  Maybe the find will delay the building work … who knows?

Les archéologues ont trouvé des vestiges des vieux murs mediévaux près des jardins où le lotissement va être construit bientôt.  Peut-être cette découverte retardera les travaux …?

Sowing tomatoes / Semer les tomates

Even when we’re away from home Lo Jardinièr can’t stop picking up recyclable materials.  In Uzès after the market on Saturday, he found on the pavement some polystyrene cases which had been used to carry shellfish.  He couldn’t resist picking them up and bringing them home – they’ll be very useful for sowing our tomato and pepper seeds in.

Toujours le recyclage.  Après le marché à Uzès, Lo Jardinièr a trouvé des cartons de polystyrène sur le trottoir.  Il les a apporté chez nous pour semer les tomates et les poivrons.

We divided one of these into four sections with thin strips of  wood(recycled, of course!) and sowed Roma, Coeur de Boeuf, St Pierre and Ananas tomatoes.  The Ananas seeds were from our own tomatoes last summer.

Next we’re going to make a heated seed starter box, using instructions from Mother Earth News – more on this soon.

Allotments in the UK / Les potagers en Grande Bretagne

Good news from the National Trust in Britain in today’s Guardian newspaper online.  The National Trust, the body which looks after historic buildings and land in the UK, is campaigning for an increase in vegetable growing and will be offering some of its land for the creation of 1,000 new plots.  I know that the effects of the global financial crisis can be tragic for some, but perhaps it will lead people back to their gardens and to valuing home grown vegetables, not just for economic reasons but for simple enjoyment of gardening and for the future of the planet.

More truffles / encore de truffes

 

pommes de terres gratinées au truffe

Gratin of potatoes – pommes de terres gratinées – is one of our favourite dishes and last night I made one of the most delicious ever, using some of the truffle we brought back from Uzès.  I only wish I could include the scent of truffle in this photo!  Potatoes, butter, crème fraîche and truffle … it was wonderful!  The recipe will be on the Mediterranean cuisine blog..

>A weekend away and some rare treats / Un weekend de petits plaisirs

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We spent the weekend in Uzès, near Nîmes, a beautiful old town of narrow streets and turreted buildings. One of the highlights of our stay there was the Saturday market in the arcaded place aux Herbes.

Nous avons passé le weekend à Uzès, près de Nîmes, une belle vielle ville de ruelles étroites et de tourelles. Un des points forts de notre séjour était le marché à la place aux Herbes.

Under the arcade in one corner of the place we found La Maison de la Truffe – Uzès is a centre for the sale of truffles which grow under oak trees in the surrounding hills. I was shocked when I asked the price – over 700 € a kilo – but they are very light, so we were able to afford a couple of small ones as a treat.

Au coin de la place nous avons trouvé La Maison de la Truffe – Uzès est un centre de la production de la truffe. J’ai été étonnée quand j’ai demandé le prix – plus de 700 € le kilo – mais les truffes sont très légère, donc on en a pu acheter deux petites.

more truffles than we could afford	…. and one that we could
thinly sliced (beautiful patterns)	and added to pasta with melted butter, a treat when we got home.

And there’s still one small truffle left which I’m going to use in other dishes, and I’ll add a small piece to some olive oil to make truffle oil.

Vegetables stuffed with artichoke purée /

Les légumes farcis à la purée d’artichaut

We had some excellent meals in Uzès and one of the vegetable accompaniments which inspired me to experiment at home was a yellow pepper stuffed with a purée of artichoke hearts. In the summer I’ll make this with our own vegetables from the garden, but when I found a stall in the market selling ready-made artichoke purée – caviare d’artichaut – I couldn’t resist trying it with some courgettes and serving them today with olive bread from an organic bread stall.

Trying to think positively about building development / En essayant d’être optimiste quant au lotissement

I was upset to see that the building work on land around the gardens has now started. Trenches dug ready for foundations and services. We’ve known this has been planned for several years, but seeing it happening was a shock today. I’m trying to be positive about it. We should still have the same uninterrupted view from the garden and we’re sheltered by old stone walls and bamboo. I tell myself I shouldn’t be selfish – people need houses and why shouldn’t they live on the hill next to our garden. I like having people around me, that’s why I live in the village rather than in an isolated rural house ….. but I find it hard to accept that a small village like Gabian with 700 inhabitants, can absorb the increase in population which an extra 100 houses will bring without changing its character. We’ll see.

Les travaux ont commencé sur le terrain autour des jardins. Vers 100 maisons. J’essaye d’être optimiste, mais c’est difficile d’accepter qu’un petit village de 700 habitants peut se developper sans changer son caractère. On vera.

Organic local food – the only hope for the planet / la nourriture bio et locale – le seul espoir pour la planète

If you haven’t already read it, you should read Kate’s recent post on Hills and Plains Seedsavers about the cost to the environment, to the planet and to all of us of industrialised agriculture. As Kate reports, it takes 10 calories of energy to produce 1 calorie of food using ‘conventional’ agriculture, whereas Producing food naturally, in your own backyard or close to home actually produces 10 calories of food for every 1 calorie put in to its production. How can we afford not to eat organic local food? There need to be huge changes in the way societies agree to produce food. Organic local food should no longer be seen as elitist and expensive – it has this reputation in developed countries, although it is considered normal in many other parts of the world. I can only hope that the global economic crisis can help to put a stop to the progress of large-scale food production and GM crops and begin a return to more rational methods.

L’agriculture globalisée et industrialisée prend 10 calories d’énergie pour produire 1 calorie de nourriture. La production naturelle, locale et biologique prend 1 calorie pour 10 calories de nourriture. Comment peut-on refuser la nourriture bio?

>First anniversary / Premier anniversaire

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It’s a year since I began the Olives and Artichokes blog at the start of the last gardening year.  One of my earliest posts was about planting our potatoes on the day after the full moon in February 2008.  Yesterday we did just that, again … the cycle of the seasons and the gardening year.

In my first post I hoped that the blog would be ‘a diary of what we learn’.  Well, it has become that, and a lot more too.  Writing the blog has been more involving – and taken more time – than I’d thought, but it has also brought unexpected rewards.  I’ve become part of a worldwide community of gardeners and like-minded people.  I’ve made friends, some of whom I’ve met, some of whom are still ‘virtual’ friends but no less real when it comes to exchanging ideas and advice.

Perhaps most importantly, writing the blog has encouraged me to think more about gardening, food and the environment.  Lo Jardinièr and I are still gardening for the same reasons as we always have done – because we enjoy it, because we like good food and because we believe that local, organic food is better for us and better for the planet.  But now we think through the issues and arguments more and we’re part of a ‘conversation’ that circles the world.

We’re looking forward to the next year of Olives and Artichokes and we hope that all our new and old friends around the world will continue to enjoy reading about our garden and food adventures as much as we enjoy learning about yours.

C’est le premier anniversaire du blog Olives and Artichokes et nous espérons que nos amis et nos lecteurs autour du monde continuent de apprécier l’histoire de notre jardin et notre cuisne autant que nous appécions les vôtres.

PS  Looking back at last February’s posts shows how comparatively cold this year has been and how late this spring is.  On 17 February I posted photos of almond blossom and apricot buds which were about to flower – there’s nothing like that yet this year.

>After the storm / après la tempête

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The storm which rushed across southern France and northern Spain, from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, yesterday was the worst for ten years, with winds of up to 150 kilometres per hour. We were warned to stay indoors and high-sided vehicles were forbidden from using the roads. Sadly, at least 15 people were killed during the storm, by falling trees and buildings, including four children in the Catalan town of Sant Boi Llobregat.

La tempête qui a fait rage à travers le sud de la France et le nord de l’Espagne, de l’Atlantique à la Mediterrannée. hier éatit la plus forte pour dix ans, avec des rafales de vent de 150 kilometre par heure. On nous a conseillé de rester chez nous et les grands camions étaient interdits sur les routes. Malheureusement, au moins 15 personnes ont étés tuées pendant la tempête, y compris quatre enfants à Sant Boi Llobregat en Catalogne.

Although Gabian was only just outside the red alert zone, we were lucky here and suffered little damage. When we went to the garden this morning we were surprised to find it just as we left it before the storm. It was a beautiful, calm, clear day – hard to believe what the weather had been like only 24 hours earlier!

Bien que Gabian soit juste dehors du zone d’alerte rouge, on avait de la chance ici, et il y avait peu de dommage. Quand nous sommes allées au jardin ce matin, nous étions étonnés de trouver tous comme avant la tempête.

The passion fruits were still ripening on our shelter. We had worried that this shelter might have been damaged by the wind, but luckily the whole garden is sheltered from the north and north-west (the direction of the storm) by trees and 4-metre high bamboo.

Some of the palm leaf fronds had been woven together by the wind:

The rosemary was flowering and we sat in the sun making plans for the coming seasons in the garden.

Le romarin fleurait et nous avons passé du temps assis au soleil en faisant des projets pour les saisons qui viennent.

>Feeding the land / Nourrir la terre

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Our garden needs a lot of organic material to improve the soil and to help it retain water during the dry summer. This morning we went a few kilometres into the hills to the Mas Rolland goat farm to collect manure. It’s a beautiful drive, around hairpin bend after bend climbing between slopes covered with garrigue and holm oak trees (the Mediterranean evergreen oak) and rocky limestone outcrops.

Notre jardin a besoin de beaucoup de matière organique pour améliorer la terre et pour aider la retention de l’eau pendant la secheresse de l’été. Ce matin nous sommes allées quelques kilometres à la ferme de chèvres de Mas Rolland pour chercher de fumier. C’est une belle route – des virages en épingle à cheveux montent entre les collines couvertes de garrigue et de chênes verts et les affleurements de calcaire.

We took a trailer full of manure back to the garden and spread it on some of the beds we’ve cleared. / On a apporté une ramorque pleine de fumier au jardin et l’a mis sur la terre qu’on a nettoyé.

The garden after our morning’s work / le jardin après notre travail

Good peasant food / un bon repas paysan

This was hungry work so we went home to eat a hearty peasant lunch of haricot beans cooked with salted belly pork which I’d prepared yesterday. / On est rentré chez nous pour manger un bon repas paysan – des haricots cuits avec de la poitrine salée que j’ai préparé hier.

The recipe will be on the Mediterranean food blog.

La recette sera sur le blog de la cuisine mediterranéenne.