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Suomi…….. we have just caught the end of the month - a month of mixed weather, some sunshine but quite a lot of wet and very windy days (it's the Autan). However, the temperature has been rising and there has been serious growth in the garden and the hedgerows. So, this Post is rather 'garden-centric', as there's been lots of work to do there and this year the colours and blossom continues to be spectacular - so, worth a 'focussed Post'!
Some jobs have not been exactly exciting … but necessary; one of these has been to 'refresh' the gravel that sits across the front side of the house. Quite a series of differently-shaped areas, so difficult to estimate how much was needed. We went for 10 tonnes …. which turned out to be remarkably accurate - but then the distribution was supervised by an expert, who calculated the number of shovel loads meticulously:
Because of the height we are here, around 500 metres, vegetable sowing is later than one would think in southern France. But usually we sow most of the vegetables into open ground in early to mid-May, and with tomatoes and more delicate plants, like peppers and varieties of basil, in late May. But the ground has to be prepared of course - but as we have said previously, April can be a wet month and on heavy clay preparation can be difficult. This year it has not been too bad - certainly not compared with the awful conditions last year, when we thought we would have to swim down the garden to the vegetable beds. So a good lot of organic material has been sitting on the vegetable area at the bottom of the garden and over the last couple of weeks we have been slowly rotavating this in, so we reckon with a couple more passes of the rotavator it will be ready for sowing:
Of course some vegetables are already in place, like the broad beans, sown last November and doing well; and the rhubarb is popping up now; and it looks like the strawberry crop this year will be very good - yum!
March's Post explained that we were making a small garden area for the new Garden Studio accommodation. We have got on well with this, finishing it off with some planting and a simple fence. When we took up the turf to make the rose bed and herb bed adjoining the barn wall, we made a raised rockery/bed … it does remind us a bit of a burial mound, but we have planted it out with Spring bulbs that are coming up very quickly - so at least it looks cheerful!
By the way, have you seen how a certain dog just seems to be in so many of the photos? It is not planned - he's just 'appears'!
Another job that needed doing was some renovation and protection work on the ancient cart that we have in the garden and that has appeared in various photos on the Blog. So at last we have got around to applying some wood hardener on the parts that were deteriorated and soaking the whole cart with wood preservative - it does look a lot better and now has a chance of lasting a good few years longer:
Another job that needed doing was some renovation and protection work on the ancient cart that we have in the garden and that has appeared in various photos on the Blog. So at last we have got around to applying some wood hardener on the parts that were deteriorated and soaking the whole cart with wood preservative - it does look a lot better and now has a chance of lasting a good few years longer:
It looks as if this year is going to be terrific for the roses that we planted three years ago. Some of these have now grown to over 15 - 20 metres along the oak pergola and fencing and there is a mass of buds forming - we will probably have a 'Rose Post' devoted to showing these off later in the year (if you can take the raw excitement of this ...). But in the meantime there was a wide gap between one stretch of the oak fencing and another and the roses were clambering to bridge the gap. But there was no 'bridge' as such - so, we decided to try making a very simple curved metal span, by drilling a deep hole into the oak fence posts each side and fitting a long (five metres) length of the steel rods used for strengthening concrete. The rod is 15 centimetres thick and getting it fixed into the hole on one side was fairly easy (although, being five metres long, it did wave around a lot and was surprisingly wayward) - but then capturing the other end and gently pulling it down into the curve so it fitted into the hole of the other post was far from easy and there were points at which we thought that one of us was going to catapulted into the direction of Lacapelle as the rod sprung free. Anyway, eventually it worked and it has formed a good, even arch and we have started to tie the roses to it and, given the rate at which they're growing, they may cover the whole span of the arch by the Autumn … we'll see!
Last Summer's near-drought did for some of our plants - notably the row of laurels the far side of the swimming pool. The 'soil' here is very poor - ultra-heavy clay, as when the pool was dug they upturned the deeper excavation and made it the 'top-soil' … so thick and glutinous that you could cast pots from straight off. So, it was a harsh environment for the laurels to survive in and having what amounted to three months with virtually no rain proved too much for them. So, they died and we have taken them up and have planted hardy grasses - they are a variety that spread, but 'benignly' and can easily be split and transplanted. The hornbeam saplings planted last year along a stretch of the pergola are doing well - the idea being to train them in an arch over the top of the pergola to mesh in with the roses ... and indeed with the honeysuckle that is growing alongside the roses. We have noticed this year that honeysuckle of all varieties and in both hedgerows and flowerbeds is doing particularly well, with strong growth:
Around the pond, after its late Winter pruning and clearing, the remaining trees look in good shape and in the water it looks as if the additional light is encouraging good growth of the water plants, like the bulrushes:
Wildlife on the Month
The bird are prolific this Spring and making good use of the bird feeders that are around, and we have two of the nesting boxes occupied. But it is the Great Tits this month that are the 'winners' - they have been particularly in evidence and have been very bold, continually flying to the windows and biffing the glass (which, we are told is because they think their reflection in the glass is a rival to be sent packing). They are so fast-moving that they are tricky to photograph:
The bird are prolific this Spring and making good use of the bird feeders that are around, and we have two of the nesting boxes occupied. But it is the Great Tits this month that are the 'winners' - they have been particularly in evidence and have been very bold, continually flying to the windows and biffing the glass (which, we are told is because they think their reflection in the glass is a rival to be sent packing). They are so fast-moving that they are tricky to photograph:
STOP PRESS!
This evening we looked out of the sitting room window to see a big hedgehog on the grass. She/he scuttled at a good pace and hid in the flowerbed. We see very few hedgehogs here, so a welcome sight and so becomes JOINT WINNER this month!!
This evening we looked out of the sitting room window to see a big hedgehog on the grass. She/he scuttled at a good pace and hid in the flowerbed. We see very few hedgehogs here, so a welcome sight and so becomes JOINT WINNER this month!!
So, that's it for this Post - we hope readers have time to enjoy the Spring and early Summer and we'll be in touch in May.
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