first month

About 5 weeks now and some sort of start on the veg patch. Sheet mulch probably didn't have long enough to work properly, or rather process was cut off by onset of summer drought. Grass underneath seems to be dead but by no means decomposed, and wild asparagus very much alive and pushing through everywhere. Ground below is hard - loosening up the top 30cm or so involves first breaking it up with a pick-axe, then working over several times with the two-handled fork. Slow work, about one square meter an hour, including getting the masses of wiry roots and larger stones out. That leaves small stones and some reddish soil with a bit of organic matter from the sheet mulch. Much of the latter is undecomposed and re-used to mulch some of the beds not done in February. Roots, mainly of caritx (a tall clumping grass) and wild asparagus, piled up to use as mulch for perrenials. What to do with all those stones? The widespread answer in limestone country is to pile them up, so doing this at ends of beds. Started by edging beds with planks, then ran out of planks and just raked up a raised section. One bit edged with a pine log seems to work better than planking, maybe this is the way to neaten them up.

First things to go in were dwarf beans using some seed left-over from France, spring onions, carrots, and pots and trays of chinese cabbage, bok choi, lettuce and broccoli (centaur, green spear and gai laan). Followed a little later with direct sowing of daikon and beauty-heart radish, and 3 varieties of peas (oregon sugar pod, norli and zuccola). A bit more of the same over the following few weeks, plus some spinach, hon tsai tai, mizuna and a late try with parsley. Last in, today, trays of komatsuna and a few each of 2 tpes of mustard greens (green in snow and osaka purple). The green in snow was one of the few things to survive last winter in the Cevennes and was much appreciated, but a little goes a long way. With all of these I used some organic fertilizer (NPK 7-6-7) to kick start things, as such organic matter as I have added is not likely to have much food in it, being mostly leaf and pine-needle mold.

Most things grown quite well so far. Watered every day until recently when some things seemed OK with alternate days as it gets a little cooler and they get established. Using our metered water carefully, not so much involved just to get things started. Pests: no flea beetles so far, touch wood. A few grasshoppers can chomp quite a few seedlings to the ground, with a prediliction for spring onions and coriander, but that's really about all so far. Spotted one hoopoe in the patch, would love to have it as a regular but perhaps the pickings are not that great.

First thing edible was the bok choi (mei qing) ready after 35 days. Daikon thinnings nice in salad, rather like rocket, which was another one of the first things to be eaten. Basil too but that was seeded in June before moving from France. Meanwhile we've been feasting on superb tomatoes at around 70c a kilo, with peppers and aubergines at a euro odd per kilo. The standard for summer veg is a hard one to match.