Vivement l'été !

Summertime, bring it on. Welcome to July. The month has dawned sunny and ... almost ... warm. Warm is such a relative term. Our temperature today is supposed to hit 75ºF — not quite 25ºC. But we'll take it. June was chilly and gray except for the first week. We were due for a change.

This is one of several jade plants I have in pots. In San Francisco, I could leave the jades outdoors year-round, but not here.
They'd freeze in our Loire Valley climate.

Walt planted some marigolds outdoors, but something — we suspect snails or slugs — immediately ate all their leaves.
They're completely gone, except a few that we have in pots on the terrace.

Nearly all the potted plants are now outside. I've gradually been moving the ones like jade and kalanchoe that don't like chilly and damp conditions off the glassed-in front porch and out into the fresh air and, hopefully, sun. They seem happy enough. I still have several cuttings in water, waiting for roots to form. I can't believe it's July and we're where we might expect to be in early May for all these gardening activities.

Millepertuis (St. John's wort) is trying to take over the whole south side of the house along the road.
I don't know how to get it under control.

The big bank of millepertuis — Hypericum, a.k.a. "St. John's wort" — along the ditch and up against the south wall of the house is having its best year in a long time. I guess it has enjoyed the wet conditions. The flowers are pretty, but the plant is invasive and hard to contain. If anybody has any good ideas about how to keep St. John's wort under control without ripping all out, I'd be happy to hear them.

 Clothes on the line — I hope to be able to dry laundry outside until October.

It's nice to be able to hang clothes out on the line to dry. This time of year, the north side of the house where the clothesline is located gets morning sun and afternoon sun. Most people here don't have or use clothes driers; they prefer to hang laundry outside in the fresh air. I know I do. I guess in many places in the U.S. that's against local ordinances. Not here.

A red squirrel visited the back yard a few days ago. We don't see many of them, and we don't have gray squirrels here at all.

Blackberries and cherries are doing well this year.

Walt transplanted some kale and collard greens that I had carefully planted in one of our garden plots a month ago. My careful planting style was just to throw the seeds on the ground and hope for the best. Oh, I did scatter some compost over the seeds to give them a fighting chance. They've come up and now they need to be moved, and that's mainly because as many weeds as greens have grown up in that spot. The easiest way to get rid of the weeds is to move the little kale and collard plants to a different plot.