June in the Garden

June’s been a wonderfully exciting month at Chez Foti where all my hard work earlier in the year’s started to reward us with a larder full of bountiful produce. Most of my wee little seedlings are growing up into large healthy fruiting plants and the garden has suddenly gone from a desert brown to luscious green. Result!

Early in the month I declared war on the weeds and mulched around most of the plants with course grass clippings. On the whole it’s working well though the most persistent weedy warriors have broken free, and there’s still a few areas I haven’t got around to mulching yet.

I’m pleased to report that I’ve finally finished planting my chitted potatoes, just as the first ones I planted back in March have started to be dug up! I also sowed some sweetcorn, lots more basil and a few cauliflowers…the latter being a complete germination failure.

All sixty one of my tomato plants are fairing well (yes 61, 54 planted ones are 7 self seeders) and most are fruiting, yikes that’s a whole lotta tomatoes coming our way very soon! I really must crack on and research buying a chest freezer in France.

Jacques assessing the Tomato Situation

The Borlotti Beans have been caned (using bamboo cut from the garden) which has made the garden look like a proper veg patch now! And they’re starting to form gorgeous red and green pods.

The Borlotti Canes

The First Borlotti Pods

I’m delighted to report that my overwintered garlic has been a huge success. I pulled it up a couple of weeks ago and was quite taken aback at the size of the bulbs…and the flavour’s pretty good too.

Pretty chuffed with my Garlic!

Finally the globe artichoke plants are taking off and moving on from the teeny weeny seedlings that they seemed to be stuck at for months:

An artichoke seedling

The squash and pumpkin plants have grown absorbitantly and seem to be taking over most of the patch again:

Pumpkins & Squash

After a slow start the pepper and chilli plants are also looking a success, with the first of the chilli’s forming, yay!

A Pepper Plant

The first chillies of the Year

Another recent success are the rhubarb plants which I took for dead a few weeks ago, it looks like we’ll be eating rhubarb very soon.

Lovely lovely Rhubarb

The disasters of the month have been my cauliflowers, cabbages, calabrise and PS Broccoli…all sown several times now but have suffered the double blow of very low germination levels and too much hot sun that’s withered the survivor seedlings. I’ve recently re-sown most of them again but covered the areas in bracken to retain moisture and protect from the strong sun, fingers crossed. We’ve also had a new problem with enemy Mr Mole who’s taken to digging up several new plants and seedlings.

What were Eating

The shallots are all ready for the eating, as are a few of the red onions. The potatoes have now started, both new and old. We’re also happily tucking into courgettes and cucumbers a plenty as well as the continuing pick and come again lettuces and salad leaves. We have a few french beans starting (the first got used last night in a lovely Salade Nicoise). Plus the spinach and my Veg of the Month, Swiss Chard. Together with the strawberries we now have a few luscious raspberries which the kids are loving. Other than the odd red pepper I’ve barely been buying any fruit or veggies and making do with what we’ve got. Together with our wonderful eggs we’ve been having quite a number of freebie dinners now, which makes it all so worthwhile!.

The first of the French Beans

Bring on the Courgettes!

…and the Cucumbers!

Lovely Lettuce

Potato Plants

The Raspberry Inspectors!

Master F, the Strawberry Appreciator!

All the ingredients for tuna nicoise (well minus any toms, tuna, olive oil and vinegar anyways!)

So that’s it folks for this month, I’m sure we’ll be tucking into a good deal more by the end of another month,

Louisa