The vegetable garden — le jardin potager in French — is mostly in now. We have had a long spell of fine weather, with just enough rain to keep the ground damp but not make it muddy. In recent years, May has been a very wet month, but not in 2018. We've only recorded about one inch (28 mm) of rainfall this month, so far.
I was able to run the rototiller (le motoculteur) over the garden plot three times this spring. That's pretty good, considering that the winter and early spring were so gloomy and rainy. Walt set plants out earlier this week. They are still very small — 25 tomato plants of four or five different varieties — along with flat beans (haricots plats), snow peas (pois gourmands), zucchini (courgettes), chard (blettes), and winter squash (potimarrons). Those curly-cue steel rods you see are tomato stakes.
Here's one of the tomato plants. They look healthy but have a lot of growing to do. In many years, we don't even get the garden planted before June 1, so we are slightly ahead of the game. I have some Tuscan kale seedlings that still need to be planted outside, and Walt plans to sow green beans (haricots verts) in stages over the next few weeks so that they will keep bearing all summer.
Meanwhile, it's time to harvest some grapevine leaves (feuilles de vigne). We have a few vines (pieds de vigne) in our yard, but they almost never produce many grapes — the plants don't get enough sun. We do however get a lot of nice leaves in the spring and we can blanch, stuff, and roll them to make dolmas (stuffed grape leaves). In the photo above, you can see the grape leaves in the background on the right. Those are sage flowers in the foreground, and the hedge in the back is hazelnut bushes.
Like a fortune teller I see a lot of dried tomatoes and tomato sauce in your future.
ReplyDeleteWe have those curly tomato stakes, but they always topple over from the gigantic tomato plants. This year, I bought more to make three-legged teepees for the tomatoes. How do you manage to keep the tomatoes supported with single stakes?
ReplyDeleteKeep the tomato plants pruned back?
DeleteWe had no internet access from about 10 this a.m. until a few minutes ago. Seems some work crew using a backhoe over in Selles-sur-Cher cut a cable that knocked out our service. It's been repaired now. It's always a mystery when these things happen and who knows who to call or what to do...?
DeleteYour own grape leaves for dolmas is great. They're so good in summer.
ReplyDeleteToday's the day to cut grape leaves. Blanching them is a lot of work, but it's not hard to do. Then the leaves can be kept in the fridge and rolled around stuffing for make dolmas whenever...
DeleteDo the tomato plants curl around the curly stakes on their own, or do they have to be tied?
ReplyDeleteThe idea of homemade dolmas is drool-worthy; I remember that you did at least one post about them back when.
We have special clip-on ties that hold the tomatoes up on the curly stakes. One thing French people do when growing tomato plants is to keep not just suckers but also a lot of the leaves cut back. That way the plants don't get so heavy, the tomatoes are more exposed to the sun, and moisture doesn't get to be such a big issue. The plants are healthier.
DeleteYou've had a lot less rain than us I would guess. We've had a couple of tremendous downpours, with one that must have given us as much rain in a single event as you've had all month. Yesterday I picked up about 3kg of cherries off the ground -- not properly ripe, but blasted off the tree by a storm. Super annoying -- I'm going to make jam with them. Your grape leaves are a lot further advanced than mine. It will be at least a week, probably two before I have enough suitable leaves to pick.
ReplyDelete