Potager potterings and other meanderings

I am so enjoying having a potager again! I just love seeing those tiny, insignificant seeds that I sowed eventually emerge from the heavy soil and go on to become the tastiest, freshest veg that I have ever grown! I am currently able to make a mixed leaf salad with baby spinach, lollo rosso lettuce and winter lettuce leaves. Yum! A quick tally, for my own records as much as anything else, of what I currently have in my plot;
- broccoli, cauliflower and red cabbage, grown from bought modules, all doing fantastically well
- spinach, lambs lettuce, rocket, winter lettuce, cavallo nero, spring greens, purple kale all sown from seed and all doing well
- the dozens of leeks that I planted out from bought-in pencils are growing well
- red onion and shallot sets were planted last week and are already starting to come through
- pink/rose garlic planted
- the 'green manure' of field/fava beans that I sowed a week ago is coming through nicely thanks to the good rain that we have had in the past few days

Autumn  is well and truly here now and the nights are definitely colder. We even had a sprinkling of snow above 1800m on Sunday night but fortunately it didn't last. A much warmer spell of weather has moved in and is set to stay until the weekend. Good job, as we are still working on getting the woodburning central heating system installed. It is a complex job that has to be done right and has caused Andy some sleepless nights. Using a metre long drill bit (yes, a metre long!) to get through the thick stone walls to lay copper piping has also been challenging. But the radiators are now affixed in their new positions awaiting their pipe connections and then the woodburner can be put into position and fixed to the chimney conduit. We should finally have heating before the end of the month..... which will be nice!

On Saturday, our commune held its annual 'Fete de la Pomme', also another signal that Autumn is here! Everybody brings along the apples from their orchards which are sorted, cleaned and then put through a scratter to break them down to a pulp....

...which is then put into layers on a wonderful old traditional press ....

 .... to extract the juice...

...which is then put through a very simple filtering and sterilising system before being bottled

Bring your own bottles and you pay just €1.00 a bottle for the most delicious, fresh, untainted apple juice.... fantastic! Polly and Bruce, Suzanne, John and Kate and I all also enjoyed a delicious, convivial lunch which was put on by the commune. A great afternoon was had by all.

I have also been making the most of the end of season produce that is available at this time of year. The fig trees here have produced a great quantity of fruit so I have made fig marmalade and fig chutney which are both delicious. Friends have also give me a load of green tomatoes which I have also made into chutney. The store cupboard is now bursting at the seams.... I love this time of year.

Weather change

We have been enjoying proper autumnal weather for the past week, with cold overnight/early morning temperatures but lovely blue skies and warm sun during the day. However, some Atlantic weather is now moving in with heavy skies and temperatures today some 10 degrees higher than yesterday (up to 20 degrees) and rain forecast. I needed to get out for some form of exercise today having been laid low with the cold and cattarrh over the weekend. So we headed down to Massat and took circuit no. 3 along the old mule track to le Port and then up to Urtrier and then a steep descent back down through the woodland to Massat. It was a brief 7km circuit with 300m of ascent but anything more at this moment in time would have been foolhardy until the cold has gone.

This afternoon, I dug over more of the potager and added some manure before planting more red onion and shallot sets which will hopefully survive any vole attack this winter. I lifted a couple of parsnips for dinner this evening and was quite stunned by the size of the veg that appeared (after some effort, it has to be said!)Excellent, fertile soil and good conditions this summer - perfect!

Capsicum rescue

We have been experiencing low nighttime temperatures over the past few days, including a frost night before last which threatened to destroy the last of my capsicum fruit. There is little chance of them ripening further at this time of year, so today, I collected the remaining green capsicum, some ripe chillis and some ripening chilli peppers and now have to decide what to do with them!I have already frozen quite a quantity of the small hot chillis and will probably preserve the remaining ones in oil for the winter. The green capsicum and very tasty chilli peppers will probably be roasted to bring out their full flavour and then preserved.

I have spent some time clearing the top section of the potager this week, weeding and preparing the soil for the addition of some horse manure which will hopefully replenish the ground ready for next year's produce.

The forecast is excellent with clear blue skies and sun through until Tuesday afternoon but then we are likely to see some rain again.

Boozey

I have had a kg of autumn fruiting raspberries and 3 or 4 kgs of sloes in the freezer for the past month and today I have finally got round to doing something with them. I have made two bottles of raspberry gin using a recipe from the Cottage Smallholder blog which looks really pretty and will hopefully taste delicious by Christmas. I have also made sloe vodka as a change from the sloe gin that I made last year. Hopefully it will be just as scrummy!

Last year, Jean-Claude from up the hill lopped a fruit tree that stands alongside where we park our car. This year, the branches are heavy with a fruit that appears to be a cross between an apple and a pear. The fruit is still very green but tastes sweet and is the texture of a very firm conference pear. Whatever they are, they will make a damn fine crumble!

Projet 'rez de chaussée' - ça commence!

It has been into the 30s again today. Too hot for doing anything much outside. So we finally made a start on the rather over-whelming task of sorting out the ground floor of the house. We haven't touched it since we moved in over 2 years ago and I would very much like to have transformed it into a cosier, cleaner space before the darker months are upon us. It is where we spend the majority of our time in winter, after all! The ground floor is made up of 3 separate 'spaces' which are the kitchen area, the 'sitting' area and the 'eating area'. We are starting with the eating area which we will probably use as the sitting area in the future.

So here is the obligatory 'before' shot
Looks superficially OK, but the stained pine wall pannelling makes the already dark room even darker, the lighting needs o be re-done and some damp-proofing work also needs tackling. Plus, underneath the ceiling plasterboard and the wall pannelling we discovered a mess of dangerous wiring (earth wires hanging loose, live wires not properly attached etc) ......held up by clumps of plaster filler and chunks of plasterboard. Very much the work of somebody who clearly didn't have a clue about the electrical standards that apply in France! So today, we pulled off the pannelling and removed a chunk of plasterboard and a load of filler from the ceiling and made plans for the next step. Clearly some rewiring will need to be done before we can apply a waterproof membrane/plastic sheeting up against the current air brick wall onto which we will fix a wooden frame which will then support plasterboard. The end result will be a moisture-tight, more even surface with wiring that will conform to current standards and improved lighting that will make a dark room much lighter. Watch that space!

After those efforts this morning, we pressed on with more preserving this afternoon. The Agen prunes in Armagnac are now jarred, I have made two jars of mulled pearsand Andy made some jars of lime marmalade
I really do need a bigger cupboard now!

Productivity

I was chatting with somebody earlier today who is of the opinion that I must have been born with the genes of a squirrel as I appear to have an obsession with preserving produce at the moment. However, I am not consciously thinking of the winter ahead and am not particularly concerned about 'stocking up the larder' in preparation for lean times which is how, I am sure, a squirrel's mind would work! I am simply wanting to make the most out of the fantastic produce that we have available down in these parts and to experiment with different recipes and ideas. For instance, yesterday, we picked a pound of blackberries from down our chemin. We also have some nice windfall apples that I don't want to see go to waste. I then found an interesting recipe for 'blackberry and apple leather' in the River Cottage preserves book which I just had to try. Such an easy recipe ......blackberries and apples stewed down in just a small amount of lemon juice then passed through a sieve, the resultant puree then spread out thinly on greaseproof paper on baking trays and 'cooked' at approx 80 deg C for 12-18 hours until it just peels away .... a great, tasty snack for out on the hill! I have also used up a glut of courgettes to make courgette and ginger jam which is 'interesting' and also some fresh apricots to make apricot and nut jam which is to die for!

The Gardener's Delight cherry tomatoes are now ripening rapidly and I have a selection that I am in the process of drying in the hot sun on trays on the terrasse, ready to jar with olive oil for use in dishes during the winter. We will be making passata and homemde tomato sauce with any surplus over the coming weeks. Also, I am in the process of making 'Agen prunes in Armagnac' which will be a wonderful boozy treat during the winter. The pears that we collected the other day are ripening well and I have a 'mulled pears' and also a 'pickled pears' recipe earmarked for them! Love this time of year but I need a bigger larder/store cupboard!

Andy is pregnant!

Well, how else can you explain his present obsession with cornichons (pickled gherkins)! It has got so bad that we came back from Saint-Girons market yesterday with 2.5 kgs of fresh cornichons which, after the essential drawing out of the water content over the past 24 hours, he has now jarred in vinegar and pickling spices. He somehow has to resist opening the jars for at least 2 months and then the cornichons will be ready for winter enjoyment! He's a happy chappy!

Damson and marrow jam

Yes, I know, it does sound like an unlikely combination but it has turned out to be a match made in heaven!It was a tedious job preparing the damsons, as, despite their external appearance, many had been infiltrated by maggots which was not particularly pleasant! But the healthier fruit and the homegrown marrow have gone together to produce a lush, deep red-coloured jam with the most wonderful plummy flavour that you only get from damsons. So if anybody wants the recipe ......?!

Produce

While I was away, the damsons on the trees around Pissou ripened enough to warrant a full on assault with some loppers and a collecting bag this morning! We quickly collected 3 kgs of fruit with more damsons set to ripen over the coming week or two.Tomorrow, I will be making marrow and damson jam which will be a first! However, this afternoon was chutney time. I made what seems to be a delicious River Cottage recipe for seasonal chutney in which I used half of the marrow that we took from the potager at the weekend, some windfall apples and some of the not yet ripe green cherry tomatoes also from the potager. The addition of some chilli flakes, ginger and a muslin bag spice mix of peppercorns, coriander seeds and cloves has given the mixture a warming 'zing'. I can't wait until it is ready to eat in a couple of months time.

Our neighbour Christine gave us one of her cucumbers and some tomatoes this afternoon. Andy chopped up the cucumber and pickled it in a jar with cider vinegar, a drop of sugar and a mixture of coriander seeds, black peppercorns, some dill and some brown mustard seeds. Should be nice in a week or two.

Shrooms

We popped up to the woodland around Peguere this afternoon and collected enough chanterelle/girolle mushrooms for a contribution to dinner this evening.....plus a gigantic parasol mushroom....
....that Andy cut into segments and lightly fried in tempura batter this evening. Mmm, yummy!

Dinner on the new terrasse this evening was a salad (homegrown lettuce, raw carrot, chives plus other bought in stuff) with manchons de confit de canard, gesiers and chanterelle mushrooms.

Reet scrummy it was! Then evening fell...and a magnificent sunset followed...It's OK in these parts - I 'spose ;-)