Turn off the lights and lock the door...

A monthly diary of activities in Susan’s Garden.

Photo heavy, text light, following a natural timeline.

A year plucked from the continuity of iife in Susan’s Garden, an arbitrary start and an end 366 days later (thanks for that extra day - it must have made a difference somewhere along the line). Inevitable though it was, its arrival seemed abrupt. Following the trail left by nature and its gentle improvement, wrought by Susan, time has been called on this year of exploration.

The Chicken Run

As in ‘Run, Chicken, Run!’

Free range chickens are good animal husbandry. When the chickens running free and eating your lettuce belong to your neighbour across the road they are a pest. Having lost most of her salad to such incursions last year, in the ever inventive, recycle and reuse, pitch in and help ethos that is Susan and her garden, she found a use for some so-far unused materials left over from a previous building project.

Enter the organisational genius of Lori, the well-equipped Mark (I’m talking about his tools here) and the sparks begin to fly.

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Two hours later, there’s a smile on Susan’s face and the problem has the appearance of being contained. Time will judge its success, when the salad days are here again.

Its Heart Beats On

In an earlier entry in this diary, I characterised ‘le mazet’ as the heart of the garden. It is only fitting that, on the last day of the project spent actively recording its life, I should spend a few reflective moments there, taking its pulse, and reporting back to our loyal reader(s) on its health.

The odd potato left in the ground reappears, ready to multiply, the carrots got rootworm, but in ‘le mazet’ and in the house, there is abundant evidence of the health of the garden and its mistress.

There remains only the pleasure of thanking Susan for her generous access, creative inspiration, patience and limitless energy. Take a moment, if you are so inclined, to step back to the first of these diary entries and revisit her progress through the year. From that first coffee round her kitchen table, to the final conversation as I asked her for a closing portrait (and yes, she kept talking to the end!), it has been a rewarding journey.

Short back and sides, please

A monthly diary of activities in Susan’s Garden.

Photo heavy, text light, following a natural timeline.

Before the sap has risen, as the days turn to spring, the buds are forming and it’s time to wake up the garden. In Susan’s garden, that means a visit from the tree man, Robert. These days, they come equipped with electric secateurs, drawn from the holster with more panache than Clint Eastwood, chain saws twirling on a thumb, used one-handed, shooting from the hip like the best of the Hollywood gun slingers. A quick look, a decisive cut, a few minutes pass by. Another tree is presentable: clean-cut and ready to attest to its virility.

The Mulberry Project

The process is more extreme for some than others. A tidy-up for the olive, a radical make-over for the mulberries. After discussion with Susan, a practiced eye is cast over the subject. It’s time has come: radical surgery is required.

And then , few days later, it’s life as usual, as the raspberry canes are attached to their more permanent and stable trellis.

The garden has almost come full circle since the story began in March last year- the odd leek, the mulberry standing guard in its stark new outline, the potager ready for a good cleanup and replant. All reminiscent of the first entry in this diary of botanical briefings, only now we’re a year older and wiser.

And what of Susan? Idle - not. She’s been plotting the plantings with her favourite ‘pépinièriste’ over on St Quentin market.

Kohl-rabi, lettuces, beetroot to follow, strawberrries already in.

In a few days, a year will have passed, our privileged time with Susan at an end. That’ll be the moment to mark the progress made, and to know that the progress will continue whether we are watching or not. Join me next month for the final installment of a Year in Susan’s Garden.

Lost in the mists - just in time

A monthly diary of activities in Susan’s Garden.

Photo heavy, text light, following a natural timeline.

In January the weather was. The garden was too. Susan wasn’t.

There’s veganuary, dry january, ohellitsjanuary and who knows what. Then there’s vegoutary. That’s what happened this month: the weather was, well, just there. No drama, no extremes, a bit of this and a bit of that. And the garden - sleeping off the excesses of the growing season. Susan, on the other hand, wasn’t in the garden much. Fetching the odd stalk of chard, hanging out the washing, contemplating tasks to follow, but busy as always with other things.

Nothing for your intrepid photographer to see here. Move on.

And then last Sunday night (or rather early Monday morning) there was a rather dramatic thunderstorm to greet the new week. And as the humidity rose and the temperature dropped in it’s aftermath, they collided softly around the dewpoint and a gentle mist descended on Susan’s Garden.

So take a seat and enjoy a panoramic tour in the mists which arrived just in time.

By the way, I should point out on Susan’s behalf that this panoramic tour does of course look outwards, and the glimpses you get of neat ranks of cherry and olive trees do not actually sit on her side of the boundary. This being a part of the EU, though, glancing affectionately at the progress your neighbours are making isn’t altogether a bad thing, even if they do take a different approach to their sovereign territory. We are all, in the end, breathing the same air.

December's descent into dormancy

A monthly diary of activities in Susan’s Garden.

Photo heavy, text light, following a natural timeline.

As in March, when the buds burst forth, nurtured by the soil and sun, whose light intensifies with each passing spring day, so in December, when the garden slides slowly into sleep, the leaves fallen, the remains of earlier harvests return to the earth, decaying. But not without cause, providing protection from whatever hardship the winter months might inflict and replenishing those nutrients for next year.

We leave Susan’s garden at the end of the year, le mazet dappled in gentle winter sunlight, a caulifower, unused, showing the signs of this decay; fallen tomatoes slowly sinking into the fabric of the land; the compost heap, still bright from the last trimmings, ready to produce next year’s mulch.

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There are no projects for now, no work calling out for attention. Oh, there are bees buzzing around the medlar and its late blossom. But Susan’s thoughts have rightly turned to family and friends and festivity. She will be back when the garden is fully at rest, trees to be trimmed, soil turned, the few remaining winter vegetables to be harvested.

I look forward to joining her then, for the final push that will take us to March, the cycle complete: a Year in Susan’s Garden.

Thoughts forward...

A monthly diary of activities in Susan’s Garden.

Photo heavy, text light, following a natural timeline.

It’s been a long passage from summer to winter this year. With Susan’s thoughts turning to next year’s plans as early as September, and October’s rather murky presence, it was up to November to offer the short sunny days that afforded her the opportunity to finish her winter preparations. It’s the month of trimming and clearing and planting, punctuated by wet days and a return to long evenings indoors and later starts in the morning.

Planting the wild flower garden (ironic)

With the weeds finally cleared, it was time to sow the seeds of future splendour. Mixed bulbs randomly dropped and dug in at their point of impact, gifts of nigella seed heads gently relieved of their progeny and spread, others shed of their wrapping, mixed and sown. Everything raked under to await the spring sunshine and the warming of the soil. The project will be over by then, but I’m feeling an inappropriately proprietorial tug for this wee patch and can see myself wheedling a return invitation to capture its inevitable splendour next year.

Trimming the lavender

Next the turn of the lavender, neatly returned to perfect circles, enough foliage left from which next year’s purple haze will appear. There’s a technique to keeping these spheres close to the ground, wvwn as the interior grows woody with age.

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And in the autumn sunlight, long shadows picking out the border of lavender, it’s ready for winter.

All peachy in the garden

There’s a community of gardeners that come together casually, without effort, swapping stories and seeds and cabbages and cuttings. Susan was the recipient of four one-year-old peach saplings, offspring of the trees from which she had received a crate of fruit in the summer. In they go!

Autumn housekeeping

And when the hard work is done, the leaves begin to fall and it’s an almost daily task to keep them out of the pool, off the deck and in the compost.

Stop her!

She can’t escape - there’s more work to do! The

project’s got another three months to run…

November diversions

Autumn gets dirty

A monthly diary of activities in Susan’s Garden.

Photo heavy, text light, following a natural timeline.

Going forward, you can now click on any of the still images in these posts to see them full size.

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When the rains arrive Susan does what any sensible gardener does: she goes inside. Being multi-talented, this doesn’t pose a problem. She simply transfers her energies to her stained glass work. She’s working on a commission for friends, wine merchants in Uzès, creating two doors, each with six panels, for their pied-a-terre. I had stolen a photo or two of the designs in progress earlier in the summer.

Now, with the panels traced onto paper, the glass cut, she moves on to the process of framing, leading and soldering the panels. As I catch up with her, she’s on to panel two, and in the course of a short hour, working at a speed that keeps your humble photographer’s fingers flailing, there emerges a picture of simple, graphic abstraction that captures the passion of her friends’ vinous interests and the rich palette afforded to the practitioner of this ancient art.

Take a few minutes to join Susan in her atelier as she brings her design to life.

Rainy Day Day

With apologies to Cream’s Sleepy Time Time.

If you came here via my monthly email, you’ll know what I think of autumn around these parts (and if not, why not? Subscribe!) Don’t believe it? Try these for a sense of autumnal colour in the Gard.

Ending on a brighter note…

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Slipping into Autumn

A monthly diary of activities in Susan’s Garden.

Photo heavy, text light, following a natural timeline.

So what next? After the virile displays of spring and summer, the garden, detumescing, slips into an autumnal reverie. And Susan? Well, I can’t speak for her, but I can observe her reaction: her thoughts have turned immediately to renewal, a sense of urgency about the need to repeat the adventure, only just half over, of a year in her garden. In short, she’s thinking of spring - next year. Without the photographer this time!

I catch her, pencil in hand once again, scheming to bring a bit of order to the wildflower garden in the back forty. And before the morning shadows have lifted she’s off, cutting canes from the conveniently-placed (but unruly) bamboo patch, digging out the nastiest of les mauvaises herbes (weeds to us), and laying a grid that creates a pattern of squares, each one separated by the precise width of the mower. Thus will there be both improved access and greater visual order. A month later, the work continues.

By the time the job is finished, each line cast with a fine eye, it’s time for coffee.

Shovelling Shit

And if the garden is to grow next year, then it must be fed. As the Yorkshire farmer might observe after a good harvest “aye, it was good, but think of the strain on the soil lad”.

So off Susan goes, remorque* in tow, destined for a field near the local centre equestre, or to be more exact, a large heap of horse ordure, which has been patiently cooking under a blanket of hay for a number of years. Fragrant stuff!

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*Remorque!

And on that note, Susan takes a holiday, confident that the garden will in time be ready for the travails of winter. Enjoy the slide show during the intermission - back in a month.

August delivers

A monthly diary of activities in Susan’s Garden.

Photo heavy, text light, following a natural timeline.

As summer progresses, we find Susan in the kitchen, pen in hand, pensively tapping her lip as she contemplates the bounty of the potager and orchard. With family and other visitors gone, her thoughts turn to local friends, to long, lazy lunches at her beautiful table while the heat outside continues to beat down.

Did I say lazy? Susan? never!

Her idea of a casual lunch begins a few days earlier, thoughts turning to a menu assembled from what is ready in the garden. The cookbooks come out, pencil meets paper. And while you’re at it, use that pumpkin, harvested in July and sitting in the mazet like a golden coin burning a hole in a teenager’s pocket. A batch of pumpkin and chestnut soup in the freezer sits well with her, waiting in anticipation of those cooler autumn evenings. Oh go on then: give your guests a taste too.

And so secateurs in hand, Susan joins battle.

Back in the kitchen, it’s time to turn up the heat. Cutting, chopping, grinding, seasoning, tasting, frowning, adjusting: always three things at once. Use the mazet, use the studio, cover every surface. Make coffee. Heat it, cool it, freeze it, cover it: over two days the tomatoes are transformed, the contents of the potager turned into a potage and so much more.

Suddenly it’s midday on Saturday: time for Susan to set the scene and add the finishing touches, before her guests arrive at one.

We assemble, aperos in hand, introductions made. The conversation begins, offering the promise of an interesting and leisurely afternoon.

Susan passes from table to kitchen, assembling her plates with as much care as she does her stained glass - the dishes communicate visually the same sense of colour, suspended in the lightest of frames. And then “lunch is ready!”.

Amuse-bouche

Pumpkin and chestnut soup

Entrée

Balsamic-marinated beetroot, goat’s cheese with parmesan crust, poached fig, fig syrup

Plat

Aubergine-wrapped lamb kebabs, spicy tomato salsa, roasted summer vegetables

Dessert

Peach sorbet, white peach, raspberry coulis, fougasse d’Aigues-morte.

As light on the tongue as it is easy on the eye, it’s all delicious.

August delivers.

And as August passes, the first hints of the end of summer make themselves known: a parched plant here, exhausted by the heat and the energy spent producing its marvels, a leaf falling there; a cooling evening breeze as dusk turns to night, earlier each day.

So it’s job done - or is it? Susan and I are only six months along the road to a year in her garden. What’s next? To find that out, dear reader, you will have to join us next month.

August diversions

Dog days

A monthly diary of activities in Susan’s Garden.

Photo heavy, text light, following a natural timeline.

July: in which the heat sets in and everything including the kitchen garden disappears under a shady leaf - except English women with swimming pools. Kicked out of June by the canicule, Susan and her garden arrive in July to temperatures no higher than 35 or 36. Blessed relief!

It is the month where the colours of spring retreat into the parched dry grasses of summer, the cicadas begin their plaintive song early, only to be silenced by the heat, returning again as the day descends slowly and ineffectually into evening. It is the month of afternoons spent indoors, shutters closed, windows shut, waiting for the moment where the relative temperatures achieve an almost bearable equilibrium, and a return outside can be tolerated with a glass of rosé and a bowl of olives.

For the gardener of course, work remains, so we find Susan up ladders, hands in fruit trees and the just desserts of her efforts being plucked from their shady comfort, ripened to perfection and destined for the dinner table.

Not that the pleasures are limited to stoned fruit. There are vegetables to harvest and store. When the pumpkins take over the potager and the melons take their flowers for a walk, the bees dance and do their symbiotic best. Fruit follows.

So Susan builds her autumn stores and the mazet finds itself once more at the heart of things.

And in which Susan gets her pool!

Pool: the prequel

A monthly diary of activities in Susan’s Garden.

Photo heavy, text light, following a natural timeline.

When May left us, spring fruit in hands still on occasion emerging from long sleeves, the work had begun on Susan’s swimming pool. Family were expected, summer temperatures on the horizon and all was well (or if not a well, at least a hole in the ground).

The arrival of M. Santos and his cast of several was keenly anticipated each day. And on occasion the next day. And so on.

Eventually, the forms were set,

The filter installed,

and the garden snake was released into the grass.

The concrete arrived,

and the concrete was poured,

Family arrived from Australia. Waited. And returned to a wetter climate.

By the end of June, the canicule had vented its 43.5c wrath on St Quentin La Poterie - and the pool was still just a painted hole in the ground.

But as with all stories of hellish anticipation and heavenly reward, as I write this, Susan has taken to water as a bee does to lavender.

Andrew fills the pool…

And all is well in Susan’s garden..

June 3 - Watching it Grow

June 15 - The Daily Harvest

June 22 - Arrosage, watering.

June Details and Diversions

Playing the long game

A monthly diary of activities in Susan’s Garden.

Photo heavy, text light, following a natural timeline.

The heart of a poppy, host to a tiny traveller.

The teams are ready, the whistle has blown: kick-off! It’s game on. After the end of season clear-out in March, the new team has been selected, positions confirmed in April. The crowd starts to arrive for the game: snails (occupying the best seats in the stands, of course), slugs, good insects, bad fungus. It’s not all roses you know.

And the opposition appears with alarming speed! Suddenly the field is full of threats and the gardener’s instincts for survival kick in.

Now it’s a question of attack and defence: attack the fungus with Bouillie Bordelaise; defend against the interlopers with ash and other deterrents; protect your stars so they can build the plays; admire the dazzling but brief displays of natural talent, applaud the promising but slim early-season pickings and - always - have an eye for the future.

This game of gardening is played long: it takes stamina and patience and imagination and one eye cast over the shoulder to progress to the holy grail. The gardener’s eye never rests.

In Susan’s garden, in May, she met with all these elements. Apart from the never-ending mistral rendering the cypress horizontal, drying everything in sight and making the task of painting the house nigh on impossible, Susan brought her best game. The reward was, at the end of the month a bijou score: a basket of beautiful ruby red cherries.

In training! May 9: Permaculture - something new

Attack! May 25: Orchard blues - fighting off fungus

Half time show! May 25: The wild crowd.

Defend!

May 25: Ashes to ashes - first defence against

molluscs

It’s a goal! May 30: Cherry picking - sweet reward

April shows its teeth

A monthly diary of activities in Susan’s Garden.

Photo heavy, text light, following a natural timeline.

Green strawberries and red lettuce

April wandered in on the promise of March’s beautiful spring sunshine. It didn’t take long to show its teeth: wind from the north, temperatures plummeting; rain. Rain!! At last!!! First one spring garden party date washed out, then another pushed back. Poor Susan - 35 of her closest friends now had to wait until May for the ginguette.

The fig tree bursts out

Then the wind turned to the south, bearing Saharan sand and turning every surface yellow. And finally, during the night of April 25, it hit: Flash! Kaboom! Flash!kaboom! Cats! Dogs! Driven into the ground by the relentless wind, lights flickering, then off.

Marigolds, the garden’s natural protectors

But the garden soaked up the moisture thirstily and the gardener took her chances when they were presented. Finally, between showers, in some glorious evening sun, the potager shimmered and strutted and showed off its rapid progress.

April 5th: Caned!

Raspberries, beans, peas brought in line

April 9: She went to mow a meadow

April 18: A burning desire

Marching into spring

A monthly diary of activities in Susan’s Garden.

Photo heavy, text light, following a natural timeline.

The warming spring sun is beginning to work its magic. The roses are stretching, the tools ready and the seed trays are being introduced to the gentle light of lengthening days. The shadows are still long, but the work must begin.

There's a winter’s worth of ground cover to be cleared, reclaiming the fertile soil of the potager from its natural tendency to return home to mother nature.

The remains of winter linger: a last kick at the slow-cooked can as it were. So the last of the leeks and chard come out and the first of the summer crops are planted.

And there’s always a lemon to add a bit of zing…

March 20: the potatoes are in!

March 25: Feeding the roses

In Susan’s Garden, its all natural.

Compost is home-grown of course.

A brief tour

To be known henceforth as Susan’s Garden.

Bathed in early spring sunshine, as the sap begins to rise and the first hint of blossom appears; when the tiny wild iris and daffodils are almost spent. The gardener stretches, drinks the last of her tea, and emerges into the sunlight to renew her acquaintance with the soil and its potential.

The porch already boasts a pot of tulips, the house a fresh coat of paint. To the right, the potager yields the last of the winter crops - a couple of leeks, some chard - and the first of the spring plantings, lettuce perhaps. The perennials, the herbs, strawberries are showing signs of new life.

It is here, in March, that we break in to the cycle, witnesses to the round of activities that make up the gardener’s year, with timing forced by nature and the need to keep ahead, with the bugs and fungi to be controlled and compost turned, the seedlings to be nurtured and the soil rejuvenated; the grass to be cut (but not, heaven forbid, the patch given over to wild flowers) and the detritus occasionally burned, bylaws permitting of course!

Meet the Neighbours.

Susan’s Garden sits between an orchard to the left, filled with apricot trees, and an olive grove to the right, all this on land designated as farmland. The neighbours are both commercial producers.

The Noble Oak Tree

In the centre of the garden, providing shade in the summer and shelter in winter, sits an ancient and dignified oak, with an orchard ladder perched on one side, waiting for its moment of glory.

It is from here that the garden spreads its charm: the large terrace abutting the house, with the site of the pool marked out alongside; the pavilion behind (in reality this is the shed where Susan’s brother Andrew likes to sleep when he visits in the summer); the pumphouse and tractor shed beyond that. To the right, just down from the potager, the mazet. Fruit trees are to the left, stretching down to the limit of the property. A windbreak, climbing rose and wisteria growing over a frame, shelters the young trees to the left of the house.

Canes are to the ready, propped against a sculptural tree, destined for the potager and a supporting role for the legumes, tomatoes and raspberries.

The scene is set.

And lo, before March is over and this tour even conceived, with all the urgency that nature brings to life, the oak is shrouded in the lightest green mist of bursting leaves, signalling that it is time to get to work.