I think I'm going mad

We're well into March and it feels like I'm stuck in a vat of treacle. Can't move in any direction. There are household troubles, emotional impediments and now for the last week I've been ill with some sort of noxious virus that stops me from doing anything but coughing and crying in my bed. I would say I can't bear it but of course that's not true, most things will pass and neither ranting nor passivity makes any difference at all. So it is with this situation but the numbers of tasks that are on hold are now assuming massive proportions while the time available to make a success of them dwindles. There is real despair here.

What little progress can be made is being attempted, I've not given up and can still envisage a couple of solid weeks work getting everything back on track but not yet. Some other things have to finish first. I wonder if either of us will survive that long.

Anyway, today as part of my plan to reclaim my direction I planted some more seeds. Whacky seeds for the most part that are reliant on hope and good fortune to get anywhere. They were:

Padron peppers - not so whacky but they couldn't wait any longer. Now I'll have to transport them as seedlings which is another issue but not as difficult as not getting them to fruiting size at all.

Tamarillo tree tomatoes -  having some poly tunnel space will make these more plausible and they have always amused me.

Tomatoes Scotland Yellow and Indigo Kumquat. The yellow one is one I've had from HSL before and is a very useful sort of tom, easy to grow. The indigo I have no idea about, it was a bonus pack from a supplier and I've never heard of it (goes to look...). Seems it's a F1 variety not particularly blue but orange with an indigo blush. Sounds attractive althought I don't do F1 as a rule. All my other tomato seeds are the other side of the channel. Hugely frustrating and I can only hope that a late sowing will catch up in time for harvest.

Pomegranate seeds that I saved from a Xmas fruit. Pomegranates are very nearly hardy enough to grow and fruit in Normandy so I'm going to give these a go on the same regime as citrus, outside during the summer and frost free in winter. If they germinate of course.

And finally in this round the least likely to achieve maturity some Baobabs - Adansonia digitata. Don't ask me why, it's a great tree and all that but totally impractical for my situation. Maybe it'll make a bonsai.

I've also got some lychee and tamarind seeds from bought fruit to sow as soon as there's room in the propagator. Madness indeed.

Hmmphf

 
Cheeky girl cat enjoys a spot of sunshine.

This is the internet so here is a cat. I've noticed something odd happening to my blogging habits. At the moment blogging seems like a self indulgence when there are more and better things to be doing elsewhere.

This isn't really true, this blog is where I hold onto a shred of personal awareness and autonomy. But I'm not doing it, or anything else much. So. What has been happening? Seeds came up.

 
Purple basil and the old favourite, sensitive plant. Just kids at heart.

There's been a bit of self indulgence in seed buying at least. I've obtained seeds for two sorts of Armenian cucumber. I'm not sure how they'll do in Normandy but I've wanted to try them for a long time and also some Queen Anne's pocket melon. This small melon which ripens to reddish brown with yellow stripes is not particularly nice to eat but allegedly has a lovely fragrance, the sort of thing to keep in your pocket for when the nosegay has wilted and the orange pomander seems too wintery. If I can get it to set fruit at all it will be interesting to see what it smells like.

Plans to get on with the new plantings at the farm are progressing. Something that has come out of my efforts for ocabreeders is that we may be getting a polytunnel at last. This is to make the nurture of over 700 new seedling varieties of oca just a little bit easier in the short term but of course it will quickly be turned into a useful area for our other crops as the season progresses. Also planned a new deer proofed area. It's all good stuff which helps to offset some of the other life impediments we're experiencing at the moment to do with jobs and family.

Next week I'm taking a trip to Devon to meet up with Incredible Vegetables. Mandy has been generously growing out some of ocabreeder's babies and will grow more for us this year. She's got skirret too and I'm hoping to buy some to bring back for a new bed in the vegetable garden as several attempts to start it from seed have been unsuccessful.

Exercises in hope

I've often said how difficult I find it to start writing without a relevant picture to hang my words beneath. Finally something turned up although I'd rather the cats hadn't done it (and thank goodness they couldn't get it through the cat flap).

The winter is horrible, no matter this is one of the mildest I've ever known and that on most counts my life is pretty good, there's something about grey skies and my life style choices that don't mesh and the sooner it's over the better.

On a moment of slightly more manic exuberance I did buy a lot of seeds from Thompson and Morgan, even though I despise them, who had a whole load of cheap packets. Just 99p each made it worth my while to pick up various exotics and ornamentals that would ordinarily be left behind to allow for more odd vegetables to be collected. There was a list on the site of these bargains but I can't find it now. Somewhere under special offers I think, you may be more lucky than me. At any rate some of the cheap things I bought are still listed at that price so just search for your favourites and you may get lucky.

I'm now waiting on three types of banana, some sensitive plants and lithops to come up. All things I've grown before that have been lost by the wayside of too many relocations and unexpected cold snaps.

Also in this first batch of seed sowing some oca seeds, bought from Cultivariable and from their out crossing project, seed type OC-14-2x08x05 x OP ( whatever that resolves to and written here because I always lose these things). These along with some others yet to start will, I hope, form part of my contribution to the Ocabreeders project this year. The seedlings, if they come up, are only part of my commitment as I've promised to create, tend and protect a bed of many of the Guild's germplasm, something which is nagging at me more and more urgently as the year trundles on and getting started never seems to happen. I'm hoping that some volunteers will appear to help me look after these valuable babies, so if you fancy a week in Normandy doing a bit of light hoeing (ha!) please contact me so we can make arrangements.

So, now the blogging baton has been picked up again perhaps it will keep running for another season. Happy growing, everyone.

Medlars

Medlar time of year again. Unlike some years when I've picked the fruit in a snowstorm the very mild weather this year has kept the fruit maturing on the tree only to be brought down with a bump in recent gusty winds.

Luckily they're pretty hard and landed softly on a bed of leaves from the beech and mulberry tree losing their lovely coloured foliage at the same time.

Rather than give you a repeat recipe - we'll probably make these into jelly again - here are the links to previous years and how we used the crop then.

From

2006: Medlar jelly
2007: Medlar and Quince jam
2008: Medlar butter or cheese

bit of a test....

testing testing, one, two, three.

Oddities

Yet another picture heavy, content short, post.



October swept in with barely a ripple and as usual for the time of year I'm fighting the traditional plunge into the salty seas of blackest depression. Better aware than usual of the triggers it's a more equal battle this time but strength sapping. Only the really rather excellent weather is keeping my head above the water.



I grew a couple of the 'giant' achocha from Realseeds this year. One poor plant was subjected to stress tests in the form of being pot bound and neglected, the other was popped in outside on the end of the bean row and has, after a slow start, finally found its feet. It's growing beautifully but only just beginning to form pods.

It could be argued that the larger immature fruits are a good thing with achocha since mature ones strike me as insipid and unappetising but although they're easy to prepare the taste is much the same as the smaller sort. As a crop I can only see them as subsistence food but will keep growing them for the extravagant attractive vines and the benefit to insects.

It seems unlikely I'll get good seeds before the frosts so it's never likely to become a pest in the garden.



The same cannot be said of the exploding cucumber achocha. The plants in the garden this year are all volunteers from a couple I had last year. It's almost impossible to save the seed casually and touching the pods scatters them everywhere. It looks like we'll have them for several years to come.



A testament to persistence are these Jerusalem artichokes which have managed to come through several years of abandonment in a stony waterlogged corner of the garden. The intention is to rescue them this winter and start a new bed, better tended, but we'll see. The flowers are on a selection of the old Fuseau variety and there is another more knobbly red-skinned sort that never flowers.



On mature reflection I've decided the vila-vila (morelle de balbis) are something else that I'd rather didn't become established as a weed. They are so very beautiful but seem very hardy and able to tolerate poor conditions. The fruit are pleasant but fragile and prone to splitting when ripe and picking them is painful and fairly unrewarding. Although I was going to try to be active in a project to grow out and select for less thorny specimens it's probably not something I have the energy to carry out effectively. They'll be planted as deer scarers and ornaments until they start to be a problem and then probably not at all.



Like their cousins the courgettes the ridge cucumbers finally overwhelmed me. I now have a plot covered in melon sized cukes, looking like yellow torpedoes of doom. At least there'll be plenty of seed to harvest from these.

Still a few butterflies about even now. There was a Wall a couple of days ago and it was really good to see a couple of Small Coppers sunning themselves on the nettles yesterday.

Salmagundi

I seem to have lost the ability for coherent thought. So here are a few photos with captions.



The equinox has come and gone, hardly a surprise but it signifies the end of the season for France. Soon the hunters will be out in force, the mushroom gatherers are already an army, the deer are in rut and I need to light a fire every day. The swallows slipped away in the last couple of days and I hardly noticed tied up in the twisted convolutions of my own brain.



The melon is harvested and will be consumed for breakfast tomorrow when the master of the house arrives. It smells delightful and I wish there were more of them.



The viciously spiky Morelle de Balbis or Solanum sisymbriifolium which is almost impossible to pick fruit from has revealed a useful trait. When the fruit is fully ripe and the horribly prickly husk has retracted then the berries fall to the ground. Put a clean piece of plastic or, in my case, corrugated iron beneath the plant for easy retrieval and vila-vila is your salad.



The cats, well, one of them brought in this poor squirrel. I'm not sure how they caught it or killed it, it was unmarked and apparently without any illness. A great mystery and a worse pity.



The pumpkins were harvested and are now curing in a quiet back bedroom. A few Sweet Dumplings and  Muscade if it matures in time to come.

And there are still butterflies, I saw five Peacock, a Small Tortoiseshell and a Copper on the sedums today, with several varieties of Whites about the place. There's still hope.