Even though we bought the house in February 2017, we did spend our first Christmas here in France in 2016.
So ya, 6 years ago. Time flies when you are having fun !!
The gardens in November and December
Making use of the upper gardens, I have been preparing the ground to sow wheat. Ya ya, wheat, the cereal! This will be my new experiment this year. Since we do not use all the planting beds constantly, I would like to learn more about "cover crops", a way to protect the soil when bare, a way to keep the soil a living space for bacterias/mycelium and worms, a way to feed the soil with organic material once harvested, a way to harvest more food (when seeding cereals) using the grain to feed the chickens or eventually make our own flour. Lots of reasons to start sowing any cover crop, cereals being just one example.
I have covered the ground with a layer of black compost and sowed the wheat in rows. On that day, we had the pleasure to be with Nadine and Christian and they helped me with the task. Thanks guys!
I went up this week to look at the result and I saw little soldiers are starting to come up, standing straight and getting taller! The best would have been to sow peas between the rows but since I do not have them, this will be for next time, right?
In another bed, I planted more than 100 garlic cloves. But first, I had to select the best cloves to plant.
I go through the garlic heads I have harvested this year and I selected the ones with the largest outside cloves because those ones will be the ones to plant. I need at least 100.
And those too are well under way!
Broad Beans
I also sowed our famous broad beans, a thing I do every year at this period because when sowed in the fall, the harvest comes earlier in the spring and the chance of aphids invasion is smaller.
Like you can see, I seed first in pots because the chance of success is increased. When seeded directly in the ground, it is more likely that mice eat some of them before they germinate.
Prior to seeding, I soak the beans for a full night. They swell right up and I sow them in wet soil. No extra water is needed until they get transferred in the garden, otherwise the beans would rot. The weather is mild and the soil keeps its dampness.
I will probably plant them end December along the wheat so the wheat will act as a "support". Once again, this is a new experiment.
Two new products from our garden this year
Late in the season, I seeded turnips and they end up being great little vegetables. They grow slowly, they support cold nights and I just harvest what I need. The leaves are edible and are great in soups and in mashed potatoes giving a little kick to the regular mash.
Another great surprise are the "butter beans".
All through the summer the plants were amazing, growing well on the trellis with lots of nice white flowers. But I could not see any beans..... and right at the end of the season, there they were, nice pods filled with huge white beans.
Those beans have a creamy texture , just gorgeous!
I think the really dry summer slowed down the growth of the pods and I did not water enough to produce beans through the summer. The beans came in the fall when there was a bit more rainfall. Another lesson for next year. Now I have to find new seeds for next year because we ate them all fresh.
And there are the Jerusalem Artichoke (reddish) which grow without any help and we can harvest all winter round. They are from the sunflower family, beautiful in the garden. Their high content in inulin, a complex starch, can make them hard to digest but this is great food for the healthy gut. The tubers persist for years after being planted, good food with no work at all!
The Helianti, are the white ones, from the same family.
And the sweet potatoes (purple) which have been harvested in one day because they do not tolerate frost. This year, the sweet potatoes were really small, a bit the same problem as last year I think.... not enough water!
Mike has been busy with automotive problems, finding solutions to all of them. But in between, he did manage to get our small garage stucco'ed. Friends of ours needed a scaffolding for a few weeks. Since Mike had one, they agreed on an exchange: the scaffolding in exchange of work hours. And now the garage has a new "cleaner" outside look.
this is the garage when we bought it ....
Mike has added a window at the back, a door up front and repaired the roof. The back of the garage will be our "bee house"
Starting to look like something.
Entering the Holiday Season, we would like to wish you all nice moments with family and friends. I will continue the blog next year but if, for any reasons, you would like to stop receiving our posts, please let me know and I will remove your mail
address from our mailing list.
Hope to find you all in 2023 healthy and happy.
much Love,
Mike, Nancy, Kira, Toshi, Honcho, the 25 chickens and the bees ;)
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2023
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