>Moving on (towards autumn) / On avance (vers l’automne)

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Maybe it’s because our last visitors of the summer have left, or because the nights are cooler and the days not too hot to think about working in the garden, with temperatures down from 37 to 32 degrees, but we’ve started to prepare for autumn.

Peut-être c’est parce que nos derniers visiteurs de l’été sont partis, ou parce que les nuits deviennent moins chaud et on peut penser de travailler un peu dans le jardin – les températures baissent de 37 à 32 dégrees – que nous avons commencé de préparer pour l’automne.

It was time to cut down the sunflowers and save the seeds to use in cooking and for next year’s plants. / C’était le moment pour couper les tournesols pour garder les semences pour cuisiner et pour les plants de l’année prochaine.

Lo Jardinièr began to prepare the ground where they were for sowing Cavalo Nero Kale and lettuces. / Lo Jardinièr a commencé de préparer la terre pour semer le chou frisé Cavalo Nero et les laitues.

Vendange (grape harvest)

The vendange began here a couple of weeks ago. The white grapes are picked first, at night to keep them cool. So every night at this time of year there is the constant sound of tractors going out to the vineyards in the early hours of the morning. Now the red grapes are starting to be ready for picking.

La vendange a commencé ici il y a deux semaines. Les raisins blancs d’abord, dans la nuit pour les garder frais. Maintenant les raisins rouges sont prêts.

Our grapes are ripe too. They’re bigger and sweeter than last year, but still quite small because the vine is young. / Nos raisins sont mûrs aussi. Ils sont plus gros et plus doux que l’année dernière, mais ils sont toujours assez petits parce que la vigne et jeune.

It’s good to pick the grapes growing above your table and eat them straight from the vine.

C’est bon ramasser les raisins qui poussent au-dessus de la table et les manger tout de suite.

Peppers / les poivrons

We haven’t had many red peppers this year – as soon as they begin to ripen the snails eat them. We’ve had some good green peppers though and yesterday we grilled a perfect red one on the barbecue and ate it with goats’ cheese. Today we added two green peppers to a chicken paella.

Aubergines – good news and bad news / Les aubergines – des mauvaises nouvelles et la bonne nouvelle

New flowers / nouvelles fleurs

new aubergines / nouvelles aubergines

and a locust eating the leaves – until we killed it / et un criquet qui mange les feuilles.

And a lizard / et un lézard

>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!

>Destruction

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Like many villages in southern France Gabian has avenues of plane trees lining the roads leading into the village.  They are beautiful and they provide much-needed shade in summer.  Some of the trees are also very old – many over a hundred years old.  Last week in Gabian we lost some of these plane trees to needless destruction.

Comme beaucoup de villages dans le Midi à Gabian il y a des platanes aux bords des routes qui mènent au village.  Cette semaine nous en avons perdu quelques uns à cause d’une destruction inutile.

At the public meeting when the plans for the new housing development were presented we were told that four or five trees would be felled to make room for a roundabout.  Last week workmen began to cut down healthy trees … and more trees … until a demonstration of inhabitants stopped them, for the moment.  Nineteen trees now lie at the side of the road as sad piles of logs.  The remaining trees now have posters stapled to them demanding a referendum and saying ‘Don’t touch my plane tree’ and ‘I am more than 100 years old – don’t cut me down’.  I hope that the protest will change the minds of the mayor and the municipal council, persuade them to keep their word and stop this massacre of our trees.

In the garden / dans le jardin

We’re harvesting aubergines, peppers, courgettes, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, Roma tomatoes and our neighbours’ plums which make wonderful jam.

On récolte les aubergines, les poivrons, les courgettes, les concombres, les tomates cerises et les tomates Roma.  Et on cueille les prunes de nos voisins qui sont très bon pour la confiture.

>Summer fruits / Les fruits d’été

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Our apricots are a late variety, the tree is a Rouge de Roussillon which produces small but very tasty fruits.  We picked this year’s crop a few days ago – 49 apricots, twice as many as last year!  They are so delicious that we just eat them as they are, straight from the tree if possible.

Notre abricotier est une varieté tardive, le Rouge de Roussillon.  Il y a quelques jours nous avons cueilli la recolte de cette année – 49 abricots, deux fois la recolte de l’année dernière!  Les petits fruits ont beaucoup de gout, donc nous les mangeons directement de l’arbre si c’est possible.

At the same time, a neighbour harvested peaches, so we have a box of them to eat fresh and to preserve.  I made peach granita with lemon juice, which is perfect in the hot weather we’re having.

Au mème temps un voisin a cueilli des pèches, donc nous en avons un plateau pour manger et pour conserver.  J’ai fait de granita de pèche au jus de citron – c’est parfait pour le temps chaud en ce moment.

 

Courgettes, peppers and aubergines are fruits too  /  Les courgettes, les poivrons et les aubergines sont aussi des fruits

We couldn’t get our pepper plants, sown from seed, to grow this cold spring.  But now everything is catching up quickly and the plants we bought are producing peppers much earlier than last year. 

Les poivrons que nous avons semé n’ont pas poussé ce printemps froid.  Mais maintenant tout poussent très bien et nous avons des poivrons plus tôt que l’année dernière.

The aubergines are growing well now too, if we can only stop the insects from eating them.  These striped beetles are a real pest. / Les aubergines poussent bien aussi, si on peut les proteger des insectes comme ces scarabés.

We’re eating a lot of courgettes – as fritters, grilled on the barbecue and in cold courgette soup.  This is very easy to make and delicious: Chop three large courgettes and two sweet onions, cover with water, add salt and cook until soft.  Liquidise and chill.  Serve with yoghurt and chopped mint, or just a swirl of olive oil.

And the tomatoes  /  Et les tomates

Apart from the Yellow Pear tomatoes, they’re not ripening yet, but some look close to it.  One of the earliest to ripen will probably be this Ananas, which we grew from seed we saved last year.

À part des tomates Yellow Pears, elles ne mourissent pas encore. Les plus précoces seront les Ananas que nous avons semé des semences que nous avons gardé l’année dernière.

>Fire, water and the earth / Le feu, l’eau et la terre

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Fire is part of the natural cycle of Mediterranean vegetation especially the garrigue, clearing the land of dead plants and making space for new growth. It is also very frightening and dangerous. On Monday we were on our way to Roquessels to buy wine and saw smoke on one of the hills near the road, just a couple of kilometres from Gabian. By the time we returned the fire had spread rapidly. We called the fire service as soon as we got home, but luckily they already knew about the fire. It took four hours for 80 fire fighters, 4 water-carrying planes and 2 small spotter planes to stop the fire, fortunately just before it reached the house in the photo below.

Le feu est une partie naturelle du cycle de la garrigue mediterranéenne. Mais c’est aussi dangereux et effrayant. Lundi nous avons vu de la fumée sur une colline près de la route de Gabian à Roquessels, à quelques kilometres du village . Sur notre retour le feu s’est étendu. 80 pompiers et 6 avions ont pris quatre heures pour l’éteindre. Heureusement le feu n’a pas atteint une maison dans la campagne.

Fortunately this house was saved.	The view from Gabian – a bit close for comfort.

The sea / La mer

The weather is hot but the sea hasn’t warmed up yet. It was only 16 degrees C at Le Grau d’Agde yesterday. Le temps fait chaud mais la mer n’a pas chauffé encore. Elle n‘était que 16 degrees C au Grau d’Agde hier.

In the garden / Au jardin

The tomatoes are growing well and one Yellow Pear is almost ripe. / Les tomates poussent bien et une Yellow Pear est presque mûre.

Peppers and apricots – we ate the first apricot this evening, the rest will be ready in a day or so.

A swallowtail butterfly on the lavender

and a dragonfly near the stream. It was bright blue, but the sun was so strong the colour doesn’t show in the photo.

>The garden in June / Le jardin en juin

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Today has been the hottest day of the year so far, over 30 degrees C at midday, so how is everything doing in the garden? / Aujourd’hui on a eu la journée la plus chaude de l’année jusqu’à ici. Donc, comment va le jardin?

The leek flower has finally come out / La fleur de poireau s’est finalement ouvert.

We hope it will provide us with a lot of seed / Nous éspèrons que cette fleur nous donnerons beaucoup de semences.

The olives are growing – these ones on our Lucque tree, the first year it has had olives on it.

Les olives poussent sur le Lucque. Ces sont son ses premiers olives.

We have beans on the haricots (Beurre and Purple King) and the Borlottis (left above). / Nous avons des haricots verts (Beurre et Purple King) et Borlotti (gauche).

The peppers and tomatoes are growing / Les poivrons et les tomates poussent ….

and the grapes /

et les raisins.

The garlic heads are small but better than last year / Les têtes d’ail sont petites, mais mieux que l’année dernière.

We’re eating courgettes every day and I stuffed some of the flowers with mint to cook on the barbecue. / On mange les courgettes tous les jours et j’ai fait des fleurs de courgette farcies à la menthe.

The stream from the spring is still running well, so we have plenty of water – we hope it continues. / Le ruisseau de la source coule bien toujours, donc on a beaucoup d’eau – on éspère que ça continuera.

Any failures? Well, yes. The pepper plants we grew from seed haven’t grown well at all and we’ve had to buy plants. Everyone here says the same. A lot of our bean plants, especially the climbing ones have been eaten by birds as they germinated. We’re protecting the new sowings with straw now and that seems to be working.

>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.

>Another gift of wild food / Encore un cadeau sauvage

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Today a friend brought us these wild leeks.  She says you can take the little ‘seed’ bulbs off them and plant them for next year’s crop. / Aujourd’hui une amie nous a apporté ces poireaux sauvages (porettes).  Elle dit qu’on peut enlever les petits pepins pour les planter dans le jardin.

We cooked them, let them cool and then dressed them with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper to make a salad.

Nous les avons cuits, et puis nous avons ajouté de l’huile d’olive, du jus de citron, sel et poivre pour faire une salade.

 

At this time of the year I begin to long for summer vegetables, weeks before we will have them in the garden.  Today in the market I couldn’t resist buying artichokes, aubergines, courgettes and a red pepper. / Je commence à avoir très envie des légumes d’été, et j’ai acheté sur le marché aujourd’hui des artichauts, des aubergines et courgettes et un poivron rouge.

I cooked the artichokes in olive oil and white wine and with the courgettes, aubergines and pepper I made chichoumeille, as ratatouille is called in the Languedoc.  Recipes will be on the Mediterranean cuisine blog.

J’ai cuit les artichauts à l’huile d’olive et au vin blanc, et j’ai fait le chichoumeille, comme on appelle le ratatouille dans le Languedoc.  Les recettes seront sur le blog Mediterranean cuisine

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>Potting and pottering / Repiquer et bricoler

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There seems to be so much to do in the garden at the moment … watering, because the weather is suddenly hot and we’ve had very little rain for weeks, planting out lettuce seedlings, sowing other salad plants, preparing the ground for the pepper and tomato plants, having lunch … and so on.

Il y a beaucoup de travail au jardin en ce moment … l’arrosage, parce qu’il a commencé de faire chaud et il n’a pas plu pour quelques semaines, repiquer les salads, semer les autres salades, préparer la terre pour les poivrons et les tomates, manger le déjeuner … etc.

I’ve repotted over 60 tomato plants (more than we’ll need, but they’re growing very slowly, so maybe they won’t all survive) and some of the courgettes which already have quite large root systems.

J’ai repiqué plus de 60 plantes de tomates et quelques uns de courgettes qui ont déjà des longues racines.

Over the past couple of weeks the garden has become a very noisy place as the bees buzz around the rosemary and the broad bean flowers. / Pendant les semaines dernières le jardin est devenu très bruyant avec les abeilles qui bourdonnent autour des fleurs du romarin et des fèves.

And on this broad bean flower there’s one of the big flying black beetles which are very common in our garden.

The second (February) sowing of broad beans are coming up well.  I’m specially pleased with these as they were seeds we saved a few years ago and had forgotten about!

Spring salad / salade du printemps

Rocket, wild rocket, oregano and sorrel leaves / les feuilles de la roquette, la roquette sauvage, oreganum et oseille.

Wild asparagus / les asperges sauvages

A friend had given us some spears of wild asparagus she had picked and we added some spears from plants growing wild in our garden.  Wild asparagus is thinner than the cultivated variety, with a herby, more concentrated flavour.  It grows in the garrigue, especially where there has recently been a fire so that it has less competition from other bigger plants.  Here the tradition, especially on Easter Monday, is to go for a walk in the garrigue and pick asparagus and then make omelette with it.  We did this in the garden today.

Les asperges sauvages poussent dans la garrigue.  Elles sont plus fines que la varieté cultivée et elles ont un gout concentré.  Il y a une tradition ici d’aller dans les garrigue le lundi de Paque pour ramasser les asperges et puis de faire une omelette aux asperges.  On l’a fait au jardin aujourd’hui.

Pepper germination / germination de poivrons

We’ve had very high germination rates for most of the varieties we’ve sown.  All these seeds came from Kokopelli except the Long d’Espagne which our neighbour gave us.

Corno di Toro: 100 %    Italian Red Marconi: 100%  

Lipstick: 100%             Kolaska: 100 %

Kandil Dolma: 60 %      Nardello:  100 %

Long d’Espagne: 10 % (but these seeds were a few years’old)

Yellow cornos (from Kate) and chilli peppers (our own saved seed) were sown later and have not yet germinated.

The problem with the peppers now is to keep them at a consistently high enough temperature and give them enough light.  Today we put some of them out on the balcony under polythene, but some of them got a bit too hot and dry.  I think they’ll be OK.

The apricot blossom is over now, and the cherry blossom is here … / Les fleurs d’abricotier sont finis maintenant, et les fleurs de cerisier arrivent …

Cherry blossom opening on a tree near our garden – the tree is on public ground, so we’ll keep an eye out for the fruit in May.

>Spraying Bordeaux mixture / La bouillie bordelaise

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Bordeaux mixture (copper sulphate) is a treatment against fungus and other diseases which is permitted in organic agriculture and horticulture. It is used on the vines here in the Languedoc and in other vine-growing areas and perhaps because it’s so commonly used in the vineyards gardeners in Gabian use it on a wide range of plants: fruit trees, olive trees, roses, potatoes.

La bouillie bordelaise est un traitement contre les maladies qui est permis dans l’agriculture biologique. Les viticulteurs du Languedoc et les autres régions vigneronnes la mettent sur les vignes et ici à Gabian les jardiniers la utilisent pour les arbres fruitiers, les oliviers, les pommes de terre, les rosiers etc.

It must be used at least 14 days before harvesting and for fruit trees the best time is in spring before the fruits form. I’ve been waiting for a calm day to spray our trees and although today wasn’t completely still there was less wind than there has been for the last couple of weeks.

Il faut traiter les plantes et les arbres au moins 14 jours avant la récolte et pour les arbres fruitiers le meilleur temps est le printemps. J’attendais une journée calme pour vaporiser la bouillie bordelaise sur nos arbres. Aujoud’hui il y avait moins de vent qu’on a eu les dernières deux semaines.

The powder and the liquid once it’s mixed with water are a lovely deep blue colour which makes the leaves and flowers look pretty ….

olive leaves / les feuilles d’olivier

and polka-dot apricot blossom / et les fleurs d’abricotier à pois.

Chorizo and chickpeas / Chorizo et pois chiches

After a hard morning’s work in the garden we were ready for lunch and I made a quick stew of tinned chickpeas and some little chorizo sausages which we’d bought in the market earlier, with garlic, thyme, tomato passata, a glass of red wine and a green sweet onion.

Après le travail du matin au jardin on était prêt pour le déjeuner. J’ai préparé un ragout express des pois chiches et des petits chorizos qu’on a acheté sur le marché ce matin, avec de l’ail, du thym, de la purée de tomates, un verre de vin rouge et un oignon doux.

Tomato and pepper sowings update / mise à jour des semences de tomates et de poivrons

The tomato seedlings enjoying the sun on the balcony – when they have two true leaves we’ll transplant them into individual pots. / Les petits plants de tomate au soleil au balcon – quand ils auront deux vraies feuilles nous les repiquerons en petits pots individuels.

The pepper seeds germinated very quickly on our heated seed-starter box. The Corno di toro, Nardello, Kolaska, Lipstick and Italian Red Marconi germinated in about 7-8 days. The Kandil dolma and the Spanish long pepper (seeds given to us by our neighbour) have been slower but are showing signs of germinating now. / Les semences de poivron ont germé très vite sur le boîte chauffée: 7-8 jours pour: Corno di toro, Nardello, Kolaska, Lipstick et Italian Red Marconi. Les semence de Kandil dolma et long d’Espagne (ce dernier de notre voisin) commencent a germer maintenant.