Tag Archives: beans

Tuesday 10th April 2012 – I planted my spuds today.

Yes, that’s two raised beds worked over and thankfully they didn’t need much. I realised in fact that I’d dug them through a couple of times in February and so one needed just a once-over with the fork whereas the other one managed with a quick hoeing. And that made a change – usually it takes an age to dig over one of the beds.

There was some garlic from last year growing away quite happily in there too, and so I’ve left that for now. No point in disturbing it when it seems to be doing so well. i’ll pull that up when I pull up the spuds in the autumn.

The shallots and onions that I planted earlier this year are doing well too. Nice regimented rows of shoots bursting out of the soil. This year’s garlic and the leeks aren’t doing anything though – I suppose it’s too early for them.

I also planted another row of peas and another of beans. The earliest row of peas looks like it might be doing something although the rest – and the beans – are not doing anything yet.

But that was all that I did in the garden and I knocked off early – at 18:00. It was teeming down with rain on and off and I ended up soaked to the skin and thoroughly miserable. I sat up here, watched a film and wrapped myself up in the quilt to try to warm myself up. It wasn’t very nice.

But this morning I was up before the alarm and breakfasted before the second alarm went off. And I’ve been working on my website again. High time I caught up on that. But the next time we have a sunny morning and I can run the inverter early on, I’ll update the Radio Anglais blog now that I’ve finally managed to find an mp3 converter program that seems to work.

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Thursday 29th March 2012 – IT’S "NEW TOY" TIME AGAIN.

akai 12 volt DC DVD player television les guis virlet puy de dome franceI told you the other day that I had ordered a new DVD player – an AKAI 12-volt television, 16″ screen, with built-in DVD player.

Anyway, it turned up this morning.

First thing that I did was to cut off the cigarette lighter plug (I hate these) from the 12-volt connector lead, wired a fuseholder into the lead and then wired it up to an American plug.

Regular readers of thie rubbish will remember, but for the benefit of newer readers, I have a 12-volt electrical circuit running around the house, using American plugs and sockets.

I use them for the simple reason that they take heavier cable and I use 6mm cable for the circuit – the bigger the better to avoid voltage drop.

Anyway, the cable works and so does the DVD player. It even played one of the DVDs that wouldn’t work on the old in-car DVD, and the sound quality is exceptional.

I’m really pleased with it.

Only downside is the remote control. The keys are moulded plastic with the symbols moulded in., the same colour (light grey) as the keys. And so it’s really difficult to tell which key that you need to press, especially in the dim light.

But that’s a minor point.

Apart from that, then besides another couple of hours on the computer, I was outside in the garden for much of the day.

Another bed has been dug over and the remainder of the onion sets were planted and a few lines of leeks were sown.

After that I did a little hoeing and planted the beans that I had soaking, some cabbage, sprouts and cauliflower seeds.

I’ve also planted all of the raspberry plants that Liz kindly gave me in exchange for the lettuce from the other week.

All in all, it’s been another busy day today.

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Wednesday 28th March 2012 – PREPARING THESE RAISED BEDS …

… is not as easy as you might think.

I did another one today and all in all it took me a good four hours to have it ready and planted.

This particular one has the shallots and also some of the onions. And I hope that I have better luck with them than I did last year. I didn’t find a single shallot and neither did I find a single onion.

raised beds gardening les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnyway, here’s a photo of the garden as it is at the moment.

Down the right-hand side you can see the land that I cleared a couple of weeks ago when I had my garden fire The framework for the greenhouse and the windows to fill in the framework are there as you can see.

You can see the drain to the right, and then right on the extreme right-hand edge is the stone wall that marks the property boundary.

There’s also a pile of gravel and a pile of broken bricks there too.

The white metal that you see is the remains of an old Ford Transit and in it is a pile of wood from trees that I cut down when I started to clear out this area, whenever that was.

The other pile of wood in the right foreground is from trees that I cut down this winter.

On the left side are the raised beds. Down at the end is the newest of the beds, which will have the new potatoes. To the left of it is the new compost bin.

The three beds covered in black plastic – they were last year’s beds. They are dug through and they will be having beans and peas in them.

Then, by the cloche are the two beds that I have dug out these last two days. The two beds that will be having the brassica and that I dug out last week are the two covered in black plastic by the old grey Ford Cortina.

So just four more beds to dig out, and two that need just a quick going over, and then everything will be ready for planting. But I need to put the early spuds in soon, and the cabbages will soon be past their planting date if I don’t get a move on.

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Tuesday 16th August 2011 – It’s quite useful …

… being up early in the morning because you can get so much more work done.

And up early I was as well for last night I had an early night. It wasn’t planned, but the internet crashed here quite early on as I told you and so I profited by going to bed early. And that surprised everyone, I bet.

This morning I was up, breakfasted, washed and dressed long before 10:00. And after working on the website again I was finished by 12:30. It was time then to attack the pointing again and I managed to do quite a lot.

thunder box beichstuhl composting toilet les guis virlet puy de dome franceI finished one load of mortar by 13:45 and ir wasn’t worth starting another load prior to lunch so I fitted the toilet seat to the composting beichstuhl. It’s cut like that for a special purpose and that’s why I needed a wooden one.

You can see how the beichstuhl works. There’s a huge 20-litre casserole saucepan in there, complete with lid. Inside there is a compostable bin liner. So you lift the white top of the box (you can see the hinges), take off the casserole lid, put in some sawdust (you can see the blue sawdust container behind the beichstuhl) close the white lid, do what you need to do, put in some more sawdust, lift up the white top and refit the casserole lid. When the bin liner is getting full, you dump it in the compost heap and fit another. It’s as simple as that.

Recycling, self-sufficiency and closed-cycle environments is what it’s all about. The water consumption is zero and I shall have tomatoes as big as your head next year.

This evening the temperature in the solar shower was at 39°:C and so I had a gorgeous shower. That was quite enjoyable too. And to round off the day I was down the garden getting a huge courgette, a pile of beans and a pile of new potatoes and made a huge curried stew that will keep me going for the next couple of days as well.

All in all it was quite a good day today.

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Friday 12th August 2011 – What a lovely tea …

home grown potatoes beans courgettes puy de dome france… I had tonight. And not only cooked with my own fair hands but grown with them too, for everything that you see came from out of my garden. I used my own herbs as well, but as for onions and garlic, I used shop-bought stuff because I had them and they need using. There’s no reason not to use my own though.

But it’s all exciting, isn’t it? Starting on the harvest of crops out of my garden. But I’m having a struggle to find them as the weeds have gone berserk I wish I had time to do the weeding.

This afternoon anyway, after another morning session on the computer, I restarted at last on the pointing of the end wall, and I’ll post you all a photograph tomorrow when the cement has dried so that you can see where I’ve got to.

Regular readers may recall that I started this at the beginning of last summer but doing my barn roof and then Lieneke’s roof, followed by my trip to Labrador put an end to my progress. And with having to empty the apartment in Brussels and make it ready for sale (which included clearing out the barn and the lean-to so that I can store everything in there), that took up most of the summer so far.

I want to get one side of the wall finished before I go back to Canada because when I come back, I want to put the wind turbine up there. Seeing how the anemometer is doing up there – about 3 times the wind down at ground level, I might even have enough wind to get the turbine to work.

And so I need to get a wiggle on.

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Monday 18th April 2011 – I’ve been gardening today.

Well, after all it is the full moon. Before lunch I planted all of the main crop potatoes – I put 64 into two of the raised beds – the last two that I installed the other week. I’ve had to be careful how I planted them because the baby lettuce that I bought the other week – they are in one of those beds and I’ve had to fit the spuds all around them.

After lunch I planted this week’s seeds – things like cauliflowers, broccoli, carrots, courgettes, beans, peas and so on – they all went outside and into place. In the smaller cloche I planted into small pots some more peppers, chilis, cucumber and gherkins. And there are already some of those sprouting up from a fortnight ago. I’ve also weeded out the strawberry patch in the mega-cloche. That’s doing really well in there and it’s a mass of flowers, looking like there might be a bumper crop, and quite early too. But then again, this magnificent spring has a lot to do with that.

But there is a down-side to this magnificent spring. When I finished weeding and planting, I gave everything a thorough watering. And with no rain for 14 days, all of the casual water, that in buckets and bins and tubs about the place, that’s all gone. All that’s left is my rainwater for household use and there’s just about 150 litres or so of that remaining. I’m drying up and this could make things difficult here. I shall have to start a rain dance if it carries on like this.

But there’s still some water for a shower and at 36.5°C I had one as well. And then off to St Eloy and the Anglo-French Group where I set everyone an exercise – I’d found some old notes that I had made, with useful French phrases that are used in everyday life. And so I set everyone to translate them from French to English, to keep them out of mischief.

And so apart from working on the Newfoundland web pages this morning, that was my lot. Tomorrow we are in the studio at Radio Tartasse again. Don’t the months come round quickly?

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Monday 30th August 2010 – No photo tonight people.

That’s because I forgot to take one, and probably there wasn’t anything worth photographing anyway. But what a day it was!

This morning started with the website. I’m trying to bring August 2010 right up to date and then that will be all the arrears sorted out and I can move on to doing some new stuff. I’ve not had the opportunity to do anything to it properly for over a year.

So when the battery went flat I went outside to try to sort myself out a wheelbarrow. The Caliburn-coloured one won’t be going anywhere for a bit. It was okay until a huge pile of slates from the house roof landed in it from a great height last year and that blew the tubeless tyre off the beading and try as I might I can’t get it to go back. So into the barn to look for the B&Q wheelbarrow that is in pieces and I eventually tracked all of the pieces down, despite doing a good deal of tidying up … “Aren’t you feeling well?” – ed … and discovering more things I never even knew that I had.

That inner tube is perished and the two tubes that Claude gave me – so are they and so that was that. I’ll have to bite the bullet and get some wheels or tubes the next time the lorry comes round, or see what there is on ebay.

This afternoon I played a round of the French national sport of “here we go round the mulberry bush” trying to get a Social Security number. Seven different numbers I was given, and seven different people I spoke to until I finally found someone who could help me with this. Apparently I need to produce a birth certificate giving not only the details about myself but also the details about my parents.

Now many people reading this blog, especially Turdi de Hatred and everyone else from OUSA, will be wondering how I will be able to find out the details of my father, and they would be surprised at how close they might be to the truth.

But having said all of this I can understand why it is that so many people in France work on the Black Economy. It’s not that they have any lack of goodwill, it’s just that they get totally fed up of this absurd and relentless paper chase and I can’t say I blame them as I was pretty fed up by this time too and ready to renounce my registration and do it all stumeling, as they say in Flanders.

And the best is yet to come. I need to change my driving licence over to a French one so I rang the sous-prefecture. They told me that I can’t do it there but at the prefecture in Clermont Ferrand. They gave me the number but told me not to ring as apparently the guy doesn’t answer his phone in the afternoon. And do you know what? They were dead right too.

It’s not surprising that no-one ever does any business around here.

I mentioned Turdi de Hatred just now, and that reminded me. When I was at the brocante yesterday I came across a video entitled Return Of The Living Dead. You know, I had no idea that anyone had filmed her reading out the Open University Students Association election results.

So after my marathon session on the phone I went into the garden and sorted out the veg for tea – a veggie burger with onions and garlic, and with spuds, carrots, beans, spinach, sage, rosemary and mint from my garden. Beautiful it was too.

But the meal is in the future. While the veg was soaking itself I mixed a bucket of mortar and started on the pointing of the house wall in the lean-to. High time I did that so I can put the lean-to roof on again. But it’s going to take me forever I reckon. It doesn’t go as quick as you like it and you might remember what happens if you take the cheating way out and just crepi it to hide the gaps. There’s a pic of the results of that on this blog from a few weeks ago.

When the bucket was empty and it was 17:40 – not worth mixing another – I went to chop some wood. An after a little while I rediscovered the branch cutter that had seized up and stopped working. Now that I have a workbench and a place to work I stripped it down to look at it and sure enough there was a bolt that was badly worn that was distorting the cutting angle. So I swapped it round with a less-important bolt from another part of the machine, cleaned and greased it, and now that’s that fixed.

My day isn’t finished yet either! Bernard from the footy club rang up. Apparently my name is now on the referees’ list for the forthcoming season and so he gave me the telephone number of the sports outfitters who supply the club, and told me to order what I need in the way of referee’s clobber.

No wonder I’m knackered after all of this!

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Friday 27th August 2010 – It’s been an exciting day today.

This afternoon I had a good wander around the vegetable plot checking up on things as it’s been a while since I’ve had a really good look, what with one thing and another.

cucumber cloche les guis virlet puy de dome franceOne of the things that I did was to check in the smaller cloche where I have the strawberries and the one surviving cucumber plant. That has just been growing and growing with plenty of flowers but nothing much else, however today I noticed for the first time that the cucumbers are set.

There’s just three of them at the moment, still quite tiny but it’s nice to see some kind of progress in there. If the way that the courgettes have burst into life is anything to go by, within a week they should be monsters.

After that I went and checked on the tomatoes in the mega-cloche. They are just growing and growing with tons of flowers and fruit and so I took an executive decision and topped them all. No point in growing stuff that is never going to ripen and letting perish the fruit that is already there. Topping them will hopefully concentrate all of the energy into the fruit and they may even ripen.

gherkin plant greenhouse les guis virlet puy de dome franceThere’s a stray tomato plant in the greenhouse so I went to check on that. And fighting my way in past the gherkin plants I noticed that they are finally starting to do stuff.

And that’s about time too. Thousands of flowers and not the least sign of a fruit, and all of a sudden a few of those have burst into life.

Now what do you do with a gherkin? If I could get malt vinegar over here I might be tempted to pickle them but I can’t so I’ll have to think of something else. All  suggestions are welcome

I followed that up by pulling the veg for tea. I had a veggie-burger lined up and so I pulled up some carrots and spuds, and picked some beans, spinach, sage and rosemary. Add a garlic clove and an onion to that lot and it really was a nice tea. Quite enjoyable. And I sowed the last of my parsnip seeds in where I’d removed the carrots. I’ve no idea what they might do but they won’t do anything in the packet.

The rest of the afternoon I’ve been sawing wood. I need to move the wood to erect the dividing wall in the lean-to where the composting toilet is. I keep on moving this wood around and nothing ever happens to it so I’ve decided to remove it by cutting up for burning, no matter how long it takes (and it will take a while). Winter’s not far away, you know.

This morning though I spent until midday working on my website. It’s almost up-to-date – I reckon another week will see the monthly pages done up to August 2010, and about time too. Nevertheless I was interrupted by a buzzing coming from across the yard – the water boiler that Smon gave me sprung into action at about 10:00. The weather today was terrible (it’s still pouring down now) and there wasn’t enough current to really fire it up, but it ran for a total of 3.5 hours. And more of this anon.

Once I’d knocked off computing at midday I went with Caliburn round to Lieneke’s and tidied up there. It seems that Terry and Simon have finished.

sankey trailer caliburn hardstanding tractor les guis virlet puy de dome franceI rescued the breeze blocks, the sand and cement, a huge pile of buckets my tarpaulin and ladder and a host of other stuff, heaved it all into the Sankey trailer and brought it round here.

I reversed it down the lane (hard to think that 20 years ago I did that for a living) and parked it next to Terry’s tractor where it can live for a while.

And it’s amazing how much room there is on there. I still reckon that the money I spent on having that done was money well spent. There’s room for another couple of cars on there I reckon if I tidy up a little bit better.

But the exciting bits involved the water heating.

Of course the day that I get everything ready for blast-off is the day when the weather turns miserable. The immersion heater in the house ran for a grand total of two minutes. But it was trying its best to fire up as the charge in the batteries bounced along the critical voltage. It was quite a windy day so I reckon that if there had been a wind turbine on the roof it would have worked a treat. I’m going to have to sort out this wind turbine.

As for the water boiler, even though the solar energy levels were pretty miserable it fired up in early morning once the batteries in the barn were fully-charged and ran for a total of about 3.5 hours. And the water, all 2.5 litres of it, was boiling away merrily to itself. So much so that with it being POETS Day ….
“POETS Day?” … ed
“Yes, that’s right. P155 Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday!”
… today I had a lovely hot wash and shave out of that boiler at 17:30 when I knocked off. And had it been less windy, I would have gone for the hybrid shower – the solar water (that struggled to reach 30°C) diluted by the 2.5 litres out of the boiler. Now THAT would have warmed it up.

I topped up the water with cold water once I’d emptied it, and it carried on warming itself for a short while until the sun went down and the solar charge stopped. And when I went to do the washing up after tea at 22:00 it was not very far short of being hot enough to do the washing up. A couple of minutes on the gas ring sorted that out.

All in all, I reckon that this is major progress and I’m really pleased with all of this. This place is slowly starting to take shape one way or another. I just want a nice sunny day now so that I can see what the immersion heater will do. But with all this rain that’s going on right now that isn’t going to be for a while.

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Tuesday 24th August 2010 – Just look at the size of this!

monster courgette les guis virlet puy de dome franceNever mind the Winter of our Discount Tents, this is the Summer of the Monster Courgettes. This one has burst into life from being a cigar-shaped nonentity, is just a few days. Now it’s 44cms. I’ve got a luvverly bunch of coconuts indeed.

It’s so big that I only cooked half of it tonight, and with the spinach (out of the garden), carrots (ditto), beans (ditto) and chili (ditto) together with sone onions, lentils and garlic I made a huge mega-curry and there is enough to last for three days.

As well as the other half-courgette of course, and I don’t know what I’m going to do with that.

The pan was full to overflowing but as most of the courgette is nothing but water it soon simmers down to a reasonably size. And it was absolutely delicious.

Mind you, I’ll be eating courgettes until they come out of my ears. It’s the one thing that seems to do well here.

It was raining when I woke up and so after I let Terry and Simon into Lieneke’s house I carried on here – but not outside. The composting toilet will have to wait.

wardrobe back wall bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceWhat I did instead was to carry on working in the bedroom – the first time for about three months I reckon. And I now have the back wall finished as well as one of the sides of the fitted wardrobe that I’m building. That’s what is going down the far side just there.

I can’t do the other side of the wardrobe as it’s out of there that the electric wiring is coming and I need to work out how I’m going to fit it. But it’s nice to see progress all the same.

The weather brightened up this afternoon and so I reckoned on a shower, but the temperature has plummeted. 19°C it was outside, and the water temp was only 31°C. But not to worry – I tipped a kettle-full of boiling water into the solar tank. That took the temperature up to … errr ….45°C so a half-kettle of cold water took it back down to 42°C and that was my shower sorted. Delicious! Mind you,  won’t have to boil up water much longer as Simon gave me the boiler out of his van. It’s only 2.5 litres by the way but it will go nicely in the garage running off the excess charge over there. I’ve made a note of the maker and I’m going to see if they can do me a 50-litre one. That would be progress.

But the temperature is still falling, and with a clear sky, full moon and no clouds at all, it seems that the weather has turned (already!) and autumn is just around the corner. That’s depressing.

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Monday 16th August 2010 – We start off today …

roofing inside lean-to lieneke les guis virlet puy de dome france… with a couple of photos that features the inside of the roof, by way of a change.

Don’t mind the loose lath that is on top of the wall just there – we will be moving that in due course. But the rest of it looks pretty impressive.

You’ll also notice the black damp-proof membrane up there. That’s to stop the snow drifting in underneath the tiles and falling inside, something that’s a real problem around here in winter.

roofing inside lean-to lieneke les guis virlet puy de dome franceYou can see that we have extended the walls by mounting breeze blocks all the way up and we’ve put chevrons on there.

You will also notice the cross-beam that we fitted to the wall of the house the other day. The chevrons are supported on that. The cross-beam goes all the way across the wall of the house and it’s a good job that there were three of us to lift it as I remember it being flaming heavy.

roofing tiles lean-to lieneke les guis virlet puy de dome franceFrom the outside, however, it looks even more impressive. We had quite a few tiles left over from when we did the roof of the house and so we nailed the laths to the chevrons and popped the tiles onto the roof of the lean-to.

We didn’t have quite enough as you can see if you look at the top left-hand corner, and so we’ll have to go and pick up some more tomorrow. But we aren’t ‘arf cracking on with the job and we can be proud of this.

So my day has been spent in non-stop cement mixing – load after load after load, with a slight break to go to the quarry for more sand. So I’ve mixed a ton and a half of sand since the other day. No wonder I’m exhausted.

And so when we knocked off I went round the garden, weeded the carrot patch, pulled up some carrots, beans, spinach and a courgette, and sowed some lettuce and parsnips.

After crashing out I made tea – lentil courgette and split pea curry, with carrots spinach and beans. All followed by fresh strawberries. And it was gorgeous.

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Thursday 5th August 2010 – Look what I had for tea tonight.

home grown potatoes les guis virlet puy de dome franceYes, a pile of spuds. And all grown with my own fair hands too. And when I finish off this tin of veg I opened the other day I’ll be on the home-grown beans and carrots, because my vegetable garden has now suddenly sprung into action after long last.

The beans have gone berserk and are producing all over the place and a sample carrot that I pulled up looked quite promising too.

The potatoes tasted really nice with some (home-grown) mint sprinkled into the water. It’s definitely so rewarding having your own garden and growing your own food.

Apart from that, today I’ve done … errrr … badger all. And I mean that too. I’ve had a day off. I’ve been working hard on that perishing roof for a couple of weeks and so I reckoned that I’ve earned it. Tomorrow I have to go to Riom to discuss health insurance.

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Saturday 31st July 2010 – Tomorrow the world!

tryffid squash plant greenhouse les guis virlet puy de dome franceI can’t get into the greenhouse for the moment because this monster is in the way. It’s supposed to be a squash plant and it does indeed look as if it’s quite a squash in the greenhouse.

That’s especially the case seeing as yonder tryffid is being backed up by another one of its ilk as well as a rogue tomato seed that fell onto the floor and is now likewise threatening to take over the world. It’s quite impressive in there.

tomato plants mega cloche puy de dome franceI actually have piles of tomatoes ripening in the mega-cloche, as well as peppers and chili but these are the plants that I bought at the St Gervais d’Auvergne plant fair. The ones I planted aren’t doing much. The brassica are doing well but the one surviving pea plant has turned brown and died.

Elsewhere in the garden the beans are going berserk (especially those I planted the other day), the spuds have gone wild and the carrots are doing the biz. The onions are now swelling at long last and the garlic is dying off so that will be ready to lift in early course.

Today is Saturday and just for a change there was a brocante at St Priest les Champs. It’s not natural to have a brocante on a Saturday – it’s like your body clock is all wrong when you have other things to do. But not to worry – it’s Pionsat’s brocante tomorrow. I’m still looking for a milk churn, and Liz saw one at St Priest today and rang me up to tell me about it. I went round there chaud-pied, as they say around here to have a look but it was only 15 litres and that isn’t big enough.

I’m also after a car CD player so I can build a unit to play all of my CDs around the house, and that’s not as easy as it sounds either.

Nothing of any use at Carrefour or at Lidl so it’s been a bit of a non-day today. But they were selling tubs of sorbet at LIDL for €0.89 and they looked ever so enticing and after all it has been quite a while since I had an ice-cream …..

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Friday 23rd July 2010 – I went downstairs this morning …

… and found a mouse dying in the kitchen! My cooking isn’t that bad, you know. Anyway, I heaved it outside to join into the food chain and waited for Terry. He had gone off on a tour of sawmills to find some of the specially-shaped wood for hanging these tiles and so I carried on with some weeding.

When Terry turned up he didn’t have the wood because it’s no longer sold. Apparently it’s a fire risk but having seen last year how quickly ordinary household products catch fire some kind of fire restriction is totally unnecessary.

We started to cut the laths and voltige to cover this roof and made a start on fitting the tiles. With good weather we could have fixed them all on but it was not to be. We were having rainstorms every 10 minutes and they kept on driving us off the roof into shelter.

After Terry went home I sowed some more beans and peas and that really was my day. Tomorrow is shopping, Sunday is rest and then we are back at it on Monday.

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Thursday 22nd July 2010 – It was a much better day today.

Only 18.5mm of rain. But this morning was far too wet to go up onto the roof and so instead we went to Montlucon to look at some trailers and so on.

The afternoon was still rather damp so Terry took some wood home to cut and I did some gardening. I’ve sown some more peas, beans, chicory and carrots, as well as doing some weeding in front of the house. And that’s about it, really.

In other news, TNS’s good win has been emulated by Bangor City who beat Honka Espoo of Finland in the Europa (formerly UEFA) Cup to progress to the 3rd round of the tournament where they will meet Maritimo of Portugal. I can’t think that it has ever happened before that two Welsh football clubs have reached the 3rd Round of their respective European tournaments in the same season. In fact I have to think long and hard about the last time that just one Welsh Club did. TNS’s win drew the Welsh Premier League to within a fraction of a seeded place in next year’s series of matches and maybe Bangor’s victory might be sufficient to ensure it. The Welsh Premier League clubs have never yet been seeded at all in the draw for the opening matches so history may well be made next season.

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Monday 7th June 2010 – I had another gardening day today.

bean frame raised beds les guis virlet puy de dome franceYou can see in the photo that I’ve rediscovered my bean and pea frame, so seeing as I now have three pea plants and four bean plants ( and isn’t that disappointing?) I put it up so that they will have something to cling to. When I saw the lack of beans and peas this year then I needed something to cling to for support, but I hadn’t recovered the frame then.

The radishes I planted a couple of weeks ago are going berserk and the spinach is now coming up. maybe things are putting in a late burst.

I’ve sown another row of carrots in place too, and transplanted the first showing of cauliflower and the second showing of broccoli. The cucumber plants I planted in the small cloche and to do that I had to take out the trays of herbs. They are on the window ledge of the house for now.

herb garden verandah planters les guis virlet puy de dome franceYou might recall that I brought my herbs back from Brussels and planted them in a trough. I had some more in small pots and so I made up another trough and those herbs have gone into there. I’m putting them in troughs so that in winter I can take them indoors.

The mint I left in a pot and planted the pot in the trough for the simple reason that mint goes berserk and spreads everywhere if you don’t contain it.

The soil in the trough by the way is 50% compost from LIDL, 50% soil from when I dug out the earth beichstuhl and a dusting of wood ashes to give it all some potash.

So that was the afternoon. In the morning I was computing and before lunch I did a load of washing – the first for ages down here but you might recall that I did a few loads in Brussels when I was there and Liz kindly did a few loads for me while I was helping Terry.

This evening was the Anglo-French Group. Mark prepared a good game for us and we had some fun. We were somewhat divided into two groups though – some of us working upstairs and the others talking and smoking downstairs.

So tomorrow now that the garden is done for this week I’ll carry on moving stuff from the side of the barn. I want to get all of that stuff moved as soon as possible.

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