Sep/090
Last of the summer veg
The vegetable garden has been looking a total mess for the past few weeks and I finally sorted it out today.
I've cropped all the rest of the lettuce, onions & potatoes and generally removed a load of the overgrown weeds and overgrown veg.
There was enough produce to make up 3 pretty hefty boxes. One box for me, and 1 each for the other two families who live in my chalet. I left the boxes on their porches for when they get home from work.
Hopefully they'll remember that when I ask them if they would mind if I dig up more garden and do some raised beds next year.
Last of the summer veg
Still left is a row of Berlotti beans at the back, which I'm waiting to crop till my girlfriend's back home.
There's quite a few cabbages which might or might not grow into a solid head (I think they're too close together).
The pak choi has long since bolted, but because it's a variety my Dad brought from the UK and you don't find it here in France, I'm waiting to collect the seeds.
There's also quite a mad looking pumpkin plant with 4 or 5 fruits starting to grow. If they get their arses into gear, they might get quite big in time for halloween. If we don't get a frost which kills them before that.
I've loved growing veg this summer. I've learned a lot of lessons and I can't wait to expand the garden next year and put all those lessons to good use.
Jun/091
Life marches on
Spring inter-season is finally over here in Chamonix. Over the past few months I've been both resting after skiing all winter and working very hard to develop my business in the down time. I haven't written much about business recently, but that will all change soon enough.
I judge summer season to have started properly because the lifts are running again this week. I bought my summer pass and took my new bike up on Le Tour lift for the first time. Brilliant. I know it's dangerous and I'm probably going to break my collar bone before the summer is out, but downhill mountain biking is such a buzz.
I'm wearing full body armor: shin guards, gloves, helmet & full upper body protection with a back plate. I've got a decent bike with suspension and most importantly I've got a lift pass and live right at the bottom of the the Le Tour lift system which access not only the Domain De Balme, but also Vallorcine, the Col Des Montets and there are even tracks right down to Trient in Switzerland. I've found my sport for the summer. It's not quite as much fun as skiing, but it'll keep my adrenaline levels up until the snow comes back.
The vegetable garden is going great guns and I've even started to eat the first produce. The radishes are amazing little buggers - from seed to table in about 3 weeks. The radishes and some beautiful baby spinach leaves have been the first food I've grown and eaten. All from seed. I'm actually quite proud of my veg patch. I'm always banging on about it in the pub and anyone who comes round the chalet is immediately given the tour.
First produce from my kitchen garden
In other news: I blew up my van. Bugger. It's not as bad as it sounds (or looks) I hope. I think I just ruptured a coolant hose and all the horrible, corrosive, nasty cooling water spewed out at 100 degrees C all over myself and the van's paintwork. It's in the garage in Les Houches getting sorted and I'll probably pick it up in a day or two. I'm quite looking forward to the 20km bike ride (almost all down hill) to go and pick it up.
May/091
Time to earth up the potatoes?
I'm loving taking short breaks from working, sitting out in the sun watching the garden grow. I like that with gardening you don't need to do everything as soon as you think of it. You can just kind of gestate the ideas for a few days before getting round to actually doing it. If the pak choi seedlings look like they're getting a bit pot-bound and need planting out, then they won't change much over the couple of days it takes me to get round to it.
It's all growing so fast now that the temperature has gone up. Plenty of rain has helped too. The potatoes are going so well I think they need earthing up. I'm assuming that out of the people who read this blog, I'm going to be the one who knows the least about growing veg as it's my first attempt - so maybe I can ask the audience here?
Should I earth up the spuds?
What do you think? Should I earth them up? I reckon I also need to break up the top soil crust a little bit too. What's that called? hoeing perhaps?
May/090
So winter's all finished then?
I haven't quite got back into the habit of writing my blog yet, but I will. Every time I start writing I get distracted by twitter. It's very addictive.
So a quick catch up. The ski season is over, my ski boots are firmly hung up till next winter and everyone has buggered off, leaving the valley very quiet indeed. Yay. My girlfriend is about to leave to go on tour for practically the whole summer. Boo. I've started working properly again this week. Yay (I get a bit antsy if I don't work for too long).
Most importantly I've finally finished preparing the ground for the kitchen garden. It was bloody hard work. I was digging out boulders so big that it needed two of us to lift the buggers out. That pile of rocks in the distance of the picture below all came out of the tiny 20m2 patch I've prepared. The soil does look good, despite what the other families in the chalet think. I've enriched it a little with some organic guano fertiliser and a shitload of horse manure.
There's some debate about when to plant out - especially up here at altitude where it's much colder and the seasonal change is a few weeks behind the norm. I reckon it's time to get some of the larger seedlings in. The potatoes and onions which have been growing in pots are definately ready and the berlotti and french beans are getting so big they need to start climbing up something.
Planting. This is the bit I've been looking forward to all along and I'm glad to get the chance to share that pleasure with my girlfriend before she heads off to work.
Kitchen Garden, Le Tour
Apr/092
Getting my veg on
The project I'm planning for this summer that I'm most excited about is the garden. I'm going to grow vegetables. The only problem has been that the chalet I live in is divided into three, with 2 other families sharing the garden. I've got permission from my landlord, so I just have to discuss it with the other families (who happen to be the brothers of my landlord) to make sure I don't dig up the any part of the garden they usually use and I'm ready to go.
Ready except for the snow on the ground, but that's melting so quickly at the moment it will only be a week or so before the ground is fully clear of snow and I can start turning it over. In the meantime I've got got my seedlings going indoors on the window sill. Spinach, leeks, pumpkin, green beans, berlotti, beetroot and 8 different types of herbs and loads more are all starting to sprout ready for planting out in a few weeks.
