We’ve just spent a wonderful week with my father and his sister (photo above in St. Emilion and below Dad on “the tractor”!) - the weather has been spectacular and thankfully, the weather looks like it’s going to continue to be spectacular for the next week which will give us the opportunity to catch up on all the laundry and more importantly to rotovate the veggie patch and prepare it for the winter.
This is fabulous and also quite sad as we’ll be rotovating the veggies we haven’t yet harvested, back into the ground - which will of course feed the ground but it’s quite sad that we won’t get to enjoy the bounty that the garden has consistently been offering up. We did try to offer the leftover veggies to the neighbours (over 100 leeks, 12 brussel sprout plants, 12 cabbage plants, 12 broccoli plants, 3 still producing aubergine plants, 6 still producing courgette plants & copious still producing tomato plants), but it seems that everyone is suffering from a glut and no-one is interested in harvesting our veggies so it was actually the neighbours who suggested we simply rotovate the plants back into the ground to feed it.
As happy as I am to feed the ground, I know when I’m sitting in Cayman without such easy access to go “shopping” in the garden, I will miss the veggies I’ve sacrificed (photo below of our latest aubergines and yellow courgettes just waiting to go on the bbq).
We’ve had the most phenomenal summer and have learnt so much about what it will take in order to maximise the bounty of the garden in order to survive a winter and so feel that we are that much better prepared when we do have the opportunity to return and perhaps we can return as real instead of pretend farmers!
We have 10 days left in which time we have to pack up and winterize the house, rotovate the veggie patch and do the rounds of aperitifs with the neighbours - now we’ve done the “vendange” and met so many more of the people in our little hamlet, we’ve got that many more aperitifs to have!
In the meantime, the piggery is progressing (photo above of the back wall with the solid oak lintel in place) and that gives us some impetus to get back here in the not too distant future in order to ensure the piggery is completed in time for the next visiting season!
Wishing everyone a happy week ahead and hoping the weather holds out for us at least so I can have a last session in the veggie patch in my bikini much to the amusement of the neighbours!
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