French organic vegetable Garden
Preparing the garden
When we came out in March the first
thing we wanted to do was rush into the garden. We
wanted a self sufficient organic garden not a posh Paris garden
style, for our new home. We really hadn't done much up to that point in the vegetable garden as we hadn't been there to follow anything through. Just laid down some tarp to start suppressing weeds and cut back the ivy and the hedges.
We
thought we would not only get organic vegetables growing in the garden but start making use of the bottom of the orchard. Well not this year we won't!
The war on the ivy had been conducted in fits and starts by finding and cutting through the roots and seeing if any had died off the next time we visited and pulling the dead bits off.
Me plum's have had it!
This has been too late to save the plum tree which had been completely overwhelmed and was threatening to drop on the well. That sadly had to be cut down but it did get it's revenge by bringing Lawrence to his knees when it dropped a branch on his head. Martin got the blame for pulling the rope at the wrong time he hotly denies this but Lawrence's head always seems to get in the way when they are working together so be warned!
The garden hedge has finally been trimmed back last September when our visit met the criteria of not being in the nesting season, having the right tools and a loan of ladders, and a helping hand from Bob.
Planning a vegetable garden
The plan was to have ten raised vegetable beds each 6m by 1.5m and plant them up with all the vegetable seeds plus some potatoes.
T
his led to endless internet browsing and the RHS web site has been invaluable on the grow your own vegetables bit, it even has video clips of what to do with the common groups of vegetables.
So we made a start by planning where we were going to put all the plants.
The main stumbling block is knowing how much of any given thing we'll use and how much space to give it. Lawrence has never been keen on leaves
organic or not, but can imagine eating salads sitting under the lean-to on a summers' day and he does really like beans in tomato sauce the way that Greeks cook it with a glass of red wine. So there is hope that the food will be consumed as more and more vegetables loose their school dinner associations. By the way the plot size is 20m by 15m so the beds are not taking up as much space as in the drawing.
Seeds and Plants
We've collected at least 60 packets of seeds so far if you want detailed information there is the full
list of seeds or check the monthly
gardening diaries
Well finally we can make a start. The
organic vegetable plot that we covered with cardboard then a
tarp about 18 months ago was a dream to dig over, the cardboard and weeds had completely disappeared and the soil was light and deep. This is the area on the left of the picture with the two cloches. The other side of the path has had a tarp on it for six months. This had killed off the grass but not given it time to rot down consequently it was quite tough to turn over. The moral of this story is if you have a plot of land that you want to cultivate but not immediately then cover it over with something to exclude the light and give it a good leaving alone.
Oh yes the raised beds and the cunning crop rotation, for the vegetable plants. That has fallen by the wayside a bit. Having dug over the earth it seemed such a shame to cover any of it with paths and we were so eager to get going and get plants in there that we couldn't really wait to build the raised beds. Checking with
The Vegetable Expert it seemed that raised beds were good for heavy or shallow soils but flat beds were fine for light deep soils like ours so we had the perfect excuse not to bother. What we did instead was divide the areas up with pine planks so we could cultivate without walking on the soil. Time will tell as they say. We have so far stuck with groups of vegetables in the planting. The square between the cloches is carrots (D'Eyesines and Nantes), onions (Stutgart and Red Baron), garlic (bought in supermarket divided into cloves and planted) and shalots. The cloche running parallel with the path has a sowing of salad leaves (Rockett, Oriental Salad, Lettuce) and radishes to give us some quick encouragement, the other cloche has seeds in pots and the third and fourth bed on the far side of the path is early potatoes the variety Charlotte.
The garden is surprisingly weed free. The neighbours tell us that the previous owner
worked it many times and that the land is very good and clean. The light soil may cause problems in the heat of summer but we have a well for irrigation and we intend to mulch and enrich the soil as soon as we find something to mulch with.
A couple of yards in front of the first cloche we've planted half a dozen raspberry canes donated by Cheryl and Bob these are growing away furiously.
Chicken,mmm gravy boat I mean ark of course
We planned on building a
chicken ark the same size as the vegetable beds when
we got some chickens. This idea is based on the theory that the chickens can also be moved around the beds as part of the rotations clearing the ground of weed seeds and insect pests as well as doing a bit of manuring. Also, because we love the sound of chickens gossiping as they putter about investigating so we don't want them too far away from where we are working in the garden.
The plot will be fenced across the front ( maybe in the fullness of time) because our dogs know even less about gardening than we do, with a lavender hedge in front of the fence.
