July - Potager Update

Here's a quick update on how my garden grows.......................
This morning in between rain showers I spent some quiet time hoeing, weeding and generally tidying up the potager.

Dwarf runner bean"Hestia"
The seeds were a gift from Gay

Getting my hands in the dirt is my idea of fun, no gardening gloves for me, which is why I recently joined Sharon Lovejoy's Grimy Hands Girls Club.
Thanks to Pondside for pointing me in that direction.

Dwarf Haricot beans

Lynn @ Happier Than A Pig in Mud recently shared her recipe for Pickled String Beans, in a week or so I think these guys will be ready to be picked and pickled!

Top: second sowing dwarf haricot seedlings.
Middle: Spicy, peppery rocket..
Bottom left, just visible: Red oak leaf salad.

I think that this is my favourite time of the year, when all the hard work starts to pay off.

It is one of my life's joys, each evening, to carefully step between the rows and pick mesclun leaves for the salad bowl or a small handful of yellow and green dwarf haricot beans to go with a simple steak and frites.

Courgettes; round, green or yellow, (zucchini) get a quick egg wash and breadcrumb coating, before frying gently in butter, they go well with steak too.
Or I could make zucchini bread.
I came across a great recipe on Becky's blog " Not Your Ordinary Agent" earlier this week.

As well as cauliflower and cabbages I planted Chinese leaf a type of crunchy oriental cabbage, for the first time this year.

It has a very mild flavour and can be eaten raw in salads, steamed to serve as a side vegetable, or added to a vegetable stir fry for a quick and easy supper dish.

Today's potager produce; yellow and green courgettes; a handful of beans; chinese leaf for steaming
and
a pretty blue hibiscus flower.

Joining The Tablescaper for Seasonal Sundays

and

 Mary @ the little red house for Mosaic Monday.

Click on the links above

or on the sidebar

 to visit their wonderful blogs.

Back on line, did you miss me?

For about a week now our ISP has been playing fast and loose with our internet connection.
For many hours each day, and during the night too for all I know, we have been incommunicado.
You never know what you've got 'till it's gone!

The cows came home to the field next door.

So, whilst the internet gods are smiling down on me here are some of the things that have been happening around the Presbytère this week.

Fleurs first trip to the beach.

Flowers and trees blossomed.

Retail therapy at the garden centre

I've already begun to plant out some of the above seedlings in the kitchen garden at the back of the house.

This year I'm trying my hand at brassicas, (cauliflower, cabbage and broccoli) for the first time, also shallots, chinese leaf and kale.

Watch this space for updates on how they all work out.

Joining the following gracious hostesses this weekend

 Laurie @ Bargain Hunting (and chatting) for

A Few Of My Favourite Things Saturday

The Tablescaper for Seasonal Sundays

and

Mary @ the little red house for Mosaic Monday.

Click on the above links or the buttons on my sidebar to join these great gatherings too.

Bon weekend à tous......

Farmer Maggie, c'est moi!

My mini bragfest about the potager last week harvested me some very kind comments.
Mary @ A Breath Of Fresh Air has even taken to calling me Farmer Maggie because of the abundance.
Connie @Living Beautifully, a keen gardener too, wanted to know a little more about the plot so here are some more pix and a few facts.

Two years ago I revamped the vegetable beds which were in place when we bought the property and created 3 long raised beds.
My new BFF is asleep on the bench, not doing her job at all!
Guess I'll have to stand in.
In the bed behind me potatoes waiting to be picked, in the bed in front from the left lavender, rosemary, rocket & sage somewhere in the pumpkin patch, tomato plants and a second crop of haricot bean seedlings just coming through.

They are roughly 22 feet in length and 6 feet wide.

The beds are plenty big enough for our needs and I can manage them myself, calling upon Sean the G only once in Spring to rotivate them and again in the autumn to put the potager to sleep for the winter.

Picking courgettes, with help from Mr Ben.

I usually grow the same things each year, salad leaves, spinach, beans, tomatoes, courgettes, pumpkins, potatoes and a few herbs. This year I added salad onions to the mix and they did quite well.

Courgettes (zucchini) a favourite of mine.

Transformed into one of my favourite summer dishes to make: courgette fritters (delicious) adapted from the summer squash recipe found in Fannie Flagg's great cookbook "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe".

Gardening and cooking, how good is that?

When life gives you lettuces??

I'm sure you've all heard the old saying:

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!"?

Well, here at NL when the potager gives me way too many lettuces, I make lettuce soup.

Mine is a classic, but very simple recipe:

lettuce leaves (500g); 2 medium sized onions, chopped; 2 medium sized potatoes, diced.

butter (50g); full cream milk (900 ml, I know! but it's worth it for the great taste).

chicken or vegetable stock, either home made or from a cube (600ml), s & p.

I always add a good dash of Cavender's All Purpose Greek Seasoning for extra kick.

It's so quick and easy to make simply shred the lettuce, reserving some to garnish the bowls.

In a large saucepan, fry the lettuce, onion & potato in the butter for five minutes, being careful not to brown the ingredients.

Add the milk and stock, keep stirring and bring to the boil.

Cover and simmer for 2o - 25 minutes until the potatoes are soft.

Liquidise and return to the pan, and quickly bring the soup back up to temperature without boiling.

Serve in warm bowls, (add a cream swirl if you want more calories!) garnish with the reserved lettuce shreds and serve with warm crusty bread.Makes a delicious lunch; for 4 if they like it and 6 if they don't.

(thanks to Kate @ Serendipity for that great quote)

Anyone for salad?

Here's the latest from the potager..................................the salad leaves are amazing I am serving my version of a mesclun salad every evening.
The name mesclun comes from Southern French mescla "to mix", I pick a variety of baby salad leaves red and green to which I add add baby spinach leaves & parsley.
However, I fear we may soon be unable to keep on top of them!!

The early and main crop potatoes are also doing well, I spent some time yesterday earthing them up to encourage growth.

There's a very old English proverb that says:
"ne'er cast a clout til May be out"

Wikipedia explains the proverb like this:

Advice not to change from winter clothes to summer clothes until June, as there is often a sudden cold snap in May. May here refers to the common name of the hawthorn bush, whose blossom indicates the arrival of summer, or warmer weather.
I recently listened to a gardening programme on the radio and the expert obviously agrees with the proverb because he said he would not be planting out his courgettes (zucchini) until June 1st.

Our hawthorn bushes are covered in beautiful white blossom and smell heavenly, but even though my cougettes and pumpkins look ready to go in now I think the folklore and the expert probably know best and I'll wait until 1st June too.

Woo Hoo it's Outdoor Wednesday in the potager.

Last week Marla @Always Nesting launched a new meme which she is calling Woo Hoo Wednesday. It's another great place where we can all get together to celebrate home & life, something that I am always in favour of doing.

When I discovered this new meme I was tempted to link back to last Sunday when I blogged about the baby calves I'd seen, but after spending some time in my potager this morning I decided that as it was looking so Woo Hoo that I would show you what's going on there instead.
Pumpkin seedlings:
Runner bean, beetroots and courgette seedlings:

BTW for those who were puzzled about a vegetable that I mentioned in the last potager update: a courgette is what you call zucchini!

A potato plant:
Assorted lettuces and seedlings already planted out:

Another great weekly meme not to be missed is Susan's Outdoor Wednesday @ A Southern Daydreamer.Why not take a few minutes with your coffee this morning and spend it with Marla & Susan, tell them I said "Hi".
Tomato, chives and coriander seedlings:

Click here to see more of the baby calves and doting mothers if you missed them at the weekend.

Sunday Favourites, more news from the potager.

I had so many nice comments on my Alphabe-Thursday "K is for Kitchen Garden" post last week that for Chari's Sunday Favourites Rerun @Happy to Design today I thought I'd show some more of what goes on around the potager during the year.
Below is a post that originally went up last June and if you'd like to see even more home grown veggies click here for a post from the year before!

Some of you may remember from a post last year that a few years ago a pair of moorhens decided to make their home on the small pond next to the potager.
This year they produced just the one chick but it is growing well thanks to non stop feeding from the doting parent.
I feed them stale bread every morning, papa moorhen comes to the door & squawks until I go out.
Today I watched as he & the chick walked along the top of the garden wall, a first for the youngster.
6 times papa brought bread to the chick and 6 times the little beggar dropped it over the side into the field.
What a patient parent!

The vegetable garden is coming along well this year, the potatoes are great and may well take over the plot!
Thanks Sean!


We should be having blueberries with everything quite soon and the haricot beans are just beginning to flower which bodes well for later next month.

Courgettes are looking sickly (no idea why) but the bettraves (beets) are doing well after a shaky start.
We need rain!Please do go over and join Chari for her Sunday Favourites rerun meme, there's always a lot of fun going on there.

Alphabe-Thursday....K is for Kitchen Garden.

Is it me or is Thursday coming around quicker every week for you too? I almost forgot to prepare my homework for Mrs Matlock's Alphabet Thursday "K" assignment but luckily I didn't have too far to look for inspiration.

One of my very favourite things to do is to grow organic vegetables in a small patch of ground outside my back door, my very own Kitchen garden or potager as we call it here in France.

It was in a very sorry state when I inherited it from the previous owners and for the first few years that we lived here it was rather neglected by me also since there was so much work to be done on the house first.

Almost two years ago I decided to completely rehaul the design and wrote about it in my very first blog. (Note to self: NL 2nd Blog Anniversary coming soon!).

You can read about it here and over the following months I blogged regularly about my progress.

With the onset of fine weather a few weeks ago (I say that tongue in cheek as today we have had hail & rain interspersed with blue skies & sunshine) the weed suppressing covers came off. S the G (Sean the Gardener) rotivated and composted the raised beds and it was time to plant!

Last weekend I planted 4 sorts of "pick and come again" lettuce, and scallion/salad onions. In this bed I already have some early and maincrop potatoes, with the blueberry bushes at the end.

I also love to cook, a pastime that goes hand in hand with growing my own produce. Two excellent books which have inspired me with both of these interests are The Ornamental Kitchen Garden by Janet Macdonald for planting plans and gorgeous photography and The Gardeners' Community Cookbook which was a gift from a dear friend, Fayne, several years ago.
These words from Victoria Wise, author of the cookbook, say it all:

Good cooking comes from good growing

Good growing comes from loving the earth

Good dishes come from tending your pot

as you do your plot.

Happy Gardening.

News from the potager

Some of you may remember from a post last year that a few years ago a pair of moorhens decided to make their home on the small pond next to the potager.

This year they produced just the one chick but it is growing well thanks to non stop feeding from the doting parent.

I feed them stale bread every morning, papa moorhen comes to the door & squawks until I go out.

Today I watched as he & the chick walked along the top of the garden wall, a first for the youngster.

6 times papa brought bread to the chick and 6 times the little beggar dropped it over the side into the field.

What a patient parent!

The vegetable garden is coming along well this year, the potatoes are great and may well take over the plot!

Thanks Sean!

We should be having blueberries with everything quite soon and the haricot beans are just beginning to flower which bodes well for later next month.

Courgettes are looking sickly (no idea why) but the bettraves (beets) are doing well after a shaky start.

We need rain!

Bucolic Normandy

Spring has finally sprung here in Normandy with all sorts of countryside happenings this week.
Firstly, the bats, which are an endangered species and so must be left in peace, arrived back to take up residence in the loft over the garage.
They are sharing roof space with the house martins who got here earlier this month. They seem to have recovered from their long trip up from Africa and are busy building nests up in the beams and pooping over everything beneath!
Yesterday afternoon the cows came home! Yes, the heifers are back in the field next door and are relishing the open spaces and deep lush grass to eat.
News from the potager..................the blueberry bushes have forgiven me for transplanting them from the large pots they were in last year and are thriving. I added 4 new plants alongside for variety.
Potatoes & onions are already showing green leaves & shoots above ground and I have planted 2 rows of green haricot beans and one row of yellow.
The ornamental pink cherry tree in the front garden is out in full glory and the purple wisteria is about to pop. Speaking of blossom all our fruit trees have masses this year so I'm hoping for a good harvest of plums, damsons, apples and pears.
Watch this space.
This month I have also been busy creating scrap book lay outs and entering them into the various challenges over at YMBD. The design team always come up with such great ideas and I love interpreting the sketches & LO's and incorporating my own pix and ideas.
Too many photos to include in this post so I've created a slideshow, look over to the right hand side of the page and check out Normandy Living for yourself.

Putting the potager to sleep

Well, it's almost Christmas and one of the last chores to do before the holidays begin was to batten down the hatches so to speak in the potager. All that is left in there growing are some herbs and 4 celeriac plants which we will surely finish off soon.
S the G has done a great job of covering the beds with thick black plastic sheeting to keep the soil warmish and keep the weeds to a minimum.
Fingers crossed, when the weather starts to warm up next Spring, we will have a good start for the new plantings.
I have enjoyed working in and eating from the potager so much more this year than ever before, due mostly to the new layout and the fact that S the G has been around to do the nasty heavy stuff.

Harvest time

I can't believe how quickly August has flown by.

We have been enjoying the fruits of my labour (o.k. S the G did some too!!) all month long, here are a few pix to show off our produce!

The potatoes have been a resounding success, we're eating fresh tomatoes & salad everyday and the courgette casserole is on the menu every week.

The beans just keep on coming so there's been plenty of activity in the blanching & freezing departments too.