May 4th and the grasshoppers have arrived

It has been sunny and warm for two days. No rain.... but that is forecast for the rest of next week. We have battled with our land, which Captain Sensible reckons is as bad as land is in some parts of Zimbabwe where once he worked as a volunteer. This land of ours is heavy, stony and labour intensive and needs more manure and more sand and fewer stones! However, we have spent two days toiling and breaking our backs to get about 200 potato plants into the ground, plus several rows of seeds... parsnips, carrots, lettuce leaf (two types), mangetout peas, french butter beans and french beans as well as garlic, onions, and shallots! That's our lot!! However, we left space for tomato plants and courgettes, squash and pumpkins will have to go at the end of the field where they can run rampant now that the sheep don't come onto our land. Along the wire fence I planted "grimpantes", that is climbers of mixed flowers, nasturtiums and an orange flower with a black eye! I ran out of space to put the sweet peas which MUST be planted this year as they are my alias.

The new potager The old potager
The two potager gardens The two pottergers
Yesterday we had the first barbecue. Sardines! Tonight we had the second barbecue. We hacked off some of the thawed frozen leg of lamb from LIDL, which is superdupervalue, and made it into kebabs. Yummy. We will roast the rest of it tomorrow and that should last us the week!
Back to the garden .... it seems endless.... the mowing, strimming, weeding, moving stones and plants, repotting, sowing seeds etc etc etc! It sounds so easy but it has been jolly hard work and we really did have to STOP mid afternoon, as the temperature was 28°C and hot. I did my crochet whilst the Captain slept in the hammock, and then I had a brainwave for the 4 o'clock gouter and found the bottle of Pimms which we have discovered the French supermarkets sell, so we can have a little slice of England in our French garden under the shade of the plum trees!
Yes, the grasshoppers have arrived - 6 days earlier than last year - they haven't quite got into full song yet but are competing with the chaffinches, tits, magpies, cuckoo and the song of the beautiful nightingale!

On a different note. Go to my son's blog - Wendy Ann II - see right hand side of this blog page ! Despite the fact that I don't hear from him very often, I know that he is working oh so very very very hard and therefore I cannot berate him very much!!