The Pie Garden (bottom plot)
This is how it started back in the spring. When I posted on March 16 I had cleared the bottom bed and planted raspberries, myrtle, currents, and two hazelnut saplings. Since then I have added two small beds of rhubarb (4 plants) to balance the space and continue with the pie theme. I got a few raspberries, but was gone at a crucial watering time and returned to a lot of dried leaves and shriveled fruit. The plants are coming back though, and the golden raspberry gives me a few berries every other day. The new growth is coming in very healthy looking, and the myrtle has a few berries ripening. As far as planting, I declare the bottom “Pie” garden done. I may put a few sunflowers along the wall just to make me smile, but that is it.
The Middle Plot & Artichoke Corridor
This is the one I decided to leave untouched, but when I cleared the weeds away I found two gooseberry bushes, one of them quite large and one a single twig. I also found two St John’s Worts up against the wall although their sojourn buried in weeds left them in poor health So this is now an extension of the berry space. The blackberries snake along the bottom half of the grape trellis on the other side of the path, so it makes sense to encourage more fruit. In fact, I’d still like to put in a peach or apricot tree there aligned with the Mirabelles, but for the moment, opening up the space and letting grass grow works for me. And maybe more sunflowers?
Connecting that with the bottom bed is a corridor of artichoke plants, which I left fenced to make it easier for us to avoid accidentally mowing. Sadly, the plants did not come back with the vigor of last year, some not at all, and we got not one artichoke. Last year we (horrors) did not cut them. We had so many guests and there never seemed to be enough artichokes ready to feed everyone, so I let them go to seed and beautiful flowers. Honestly, they might be the most beautiful flowers in the garden, outshining the roses or at least equal to them. This picture does not do the delicate petals justice. When they didn’t come back this year I thought I had killed them by that neglect. Or by not watering them when it got hot in March this year.
Then a neighbor casually complained to Walter about how the freeze had killed all of his artichokes. Another casualty of that also beautiful freezing fog and ice! [See January 3, 5, and 8, 2026]. And it wasn’t my fault. As I learn to steward this land I also need to learn not to internalize responsibility when things don’t grow!
There are a few leaves showing in the artichoke corridor now and today I noticed more in the corner of the vegetable garden. I also bought a few more little plants, so in a few years we should be back to full production. This is particularly exciting because last time we went to the Green Dog Brocante outside Albi I bought a long bain marie (aka fish poaching pan) that is perfect for artichokes (we have already tested it). So now I will have no excuse.
The Top Plot
This plot, closest to the barn and the grape arbor, was the hardest to clear as the image to the right suggests (which is why I left it to last). And it took a while. There were strange wire cages half buried in the stones and weeds — absolutely no idea what they were for but they were carefully crafted with closed ends and now half rotted wooden posts along the bottom to anchor them (I am using one to keep the birds off the strawberries). And a lot of well established root networks, crab grass, and thistles. But there was no sign of plants. There is a huge old rosemary in the corner and a wild rose under the edge of the grape trellis, but nothing in the bed I cleared, so on this one I also had carte blanche. I had thought perhaps corn, but I want to leave the table and chairs under the Mirabelle, so that would be tight and the plot didn’t seem to be calling for corn. It did seem to call for more fruit, though.
So a few weeks ago I used some of the scrap wood laying around in the corner of the front courtyard and made a raised strawberry bed at the very top end of the plot in front of the rose and rosemary. Nestled under a coat of straw (lawn clippings), I planted 7 plants, four of them what they call “climbing” strawberries here, which just means they put out runners to grow new plants that can be tied to a post (why would you?). That is the kind of strawberry I grew up with, and I appreciate the extra plants they are already gifting me. That said, I do not recognize any of these varieties (Anabelle, Ostra, Cijosée, and Everest), so look forward to the surprise. I got the three planted at the front from the plant fete at Laguépie and don’t know the variety (but they do not have runners), so that will be a different surprise! One of the strange cages made a good frame for bird netting when I need it. Next year, I’ll make a more sturdy and larger bed, but this is a happy start and will give me a sense of which varieties to add to the larger bed, if any.
That done, I made four mounds the down-garden side of the box and planted two varieties of watermelon, along with a “Melon Anasta” (which is a hybrid Charentais, although I don’t know whether it is as small as traditional Charentais melons) and a “Brode” (a “netted melon,” in this case, a standard French cantaloupe, which is not quite the same as the commercially grown cantaloupes in the US the internet tells me). I’m eager to try these French varieties, although next year I’d like to find a honeydew or yellow doll, and/or some heritage French varietals, including an actual Charentais because grapefruit-sized melons sound perfect. I think I will need to plant from seed to get that. Time to order seed catalogues to help me through the winter!
We do have a few blackberries ripening. Like some roses, the berry at the end of the stem seems to ripen first and then all the others follow. They are really sweet and juicy, and in a few days I’m sure there will be too many to keep up with!
So that is it. As with the bottom bed, I might throw in some sunflowers along the wall because I have a big bag of seeds and why not? But aside from that, the orchard gardens are cleared and planted and all I have to do is keep everything alive, weeded , and watered [see entry on hydration for more on that] . . . and then I can sit back, watch it grow, and prepare to eat (and make pies and jam).
