We have a lot to consider. The house is more suburbia than country so we have a garden rather than a small holding.
We have to work within the constrains of living with neighbours. This rules out......
COCKRELS......TOO NOISY
PIG....TOO SMELLY
GOAT....LIABLE TO ESCAPE AND RUIN NEIGHBOURS GARDENS
The garden is too small to have any livestock other than chickens.
Our garden also needs to be our social area so we need to blend the working and social sections together.
We have no planting going on yet. Garlic and cabbage are the only things growing at the moment.
PREPARATION is the" in "word!
Weeding
Digging
Making new beds
Pruning trees
The garden has been neglected so the ivy and brambles are taking over. That is going to be a long haul to try and eliminate them. Petit a Petit as the french say!
Other than that we are moving our strawberry bed to a sunnier spot. The plants were ones that I brought with us from Montbrun and they did not produce well last summer. I think they were too shaded and competing with the roots of the cherry tree. We decided to make a raised bed to give them a better chance. It is also a spot in the garden where the leylandi hedge seems to be dying off. The bed is ready so am just waiting for some signs of growth in the strawberries so that we can move them.
The apple trees have been pruned as best as we can do it. We are no experts so haven't dared prune them back too hard. We have an excess of cider apple trees so are not too concerned if they do not fare well. As long as there is enough to attempt to make some cider I will be happy.
The fig trees we planted at the front of the house have been covered up over the winter to protect them. The weather is warming up now but as they are new trees I think I will leave them covered until all danger of frost has passed.
The chickens have fared well despite the cold and wet. We have been allowing them to free range in the garden.....nice bit of fertilizer (just not always where you want it!)
The egg production over winter has not altered...4 eggs every day!!! We are very pleased.
The chicken pen was getting a bit boggy due to the heavy rains and .the girlies do like to dig a lot so they isnt any grass left at all. However when we bought the logs from a local woodyard to make the raised beds we noticed he had lots of bark shavings. They very kindly let us fill the trailer full...gratuite... so now the chicken pen is bog free!!!!
The black and redcurrant bushes have started budding and I am hoping that now they are more established we will get a better supply of fruit this year.
The raspberry canes produced well last year and we are still enjoying them from the freezer.
No sign of the rhubarb plant returning. Is it too early?? I didnt think so?
We have had all the usual wildlife in the garden. The girlies love chasing the squirrels around. Last year we had one red squirrel but now we have two. Not much hope for the hazelnut trees again!!!!
A hedgehog was lulled out of hibernation but the lovely sunny weather we had a couple of week ago and was feeding on the chicken pellets in the garden. The next morning Hubby found it cowering against a wall freezing! We snuggled it up warm and it seems to be pulling round. However two days later it didnt make it. It was probably too small or had some kind of illness. We had contacted the local rescuee centre here in Charente but had no reply. C'est la vie et 'est nature!
Our other visitor was a bit more of a surprise!! I pulled the shutters closed in the tv room....in order to clean them(no, I hadn't done it since we moved in!!) and discovered this.....
I'm not sure who had the biggest shock! Me...as I thought at first it was a huge spider or the bat which was suddenly exposed to the bright daylight!!! It meant I just had to shut the shutter amd not clean it...shame!!!!
Anyhow...it has now gone elsewhere...but I still haven't got round to cleaning the shutter!!!
We are fortunate to have had no visits from foxes or stoats so long may that continue.
I have joined a gardening forum here in the Charente so its great to chat about what does and doesn't work in the region. Inspired by the blog .....Self sufficient in Suburbia.....Jonathan Wallace....I may suggest some kind of exchange day when production is in full flow!!!!
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