ODE TO THE BEAN.........

I have FINALLY got my husband to like broad beans. Oh happy woman that I am. I love them, but he hated them so I have had to sneak them into the veg. garden in the past. Either that or plant them on a bit of ground deemed to be of not much use. He had been raised as a child on nasty tough grey beans, still in their leathery skins, but all that is now but a distant, alarming memory. Things have changed.

On Saturday night friends came round for a meal and I gave them a broad bean hummus as a starter – he liked it so much he demolished the left overs for lunch yesterday. We sat happily on our terrace in the sunshine dunking pitta bread and fresh baguette into the bright green, minty mush.  And a couple of weeks before that I used tiny beans, the size of the fingernail on my little finger, (I have quite small hands), with fresh pasta and pancetta – these were bought  from the lady in our market who sells Italian foods. I used them to make a Sarah Raven recipe (modified as mine always are). He liked that too – so much so that we have had it again since.

Broad beans are brilliant in the garden and the kitchen – you can start planting them in the autumn and they sprout over winter (Use a variety called Aquadulce if you are going to do this). This means you have signs of life and the promise of spring to look at through winter’s dark days. This year the hardy little souls even stood up to the -17 degrees plus wind chill factor that was thrown at them in February. Then in the spring you can plant crimson flowered varieties which may not taste quite as good as tiny Aquadulce, but look beautiful and prolong the broad bean season each year. You can eat tiny ones still in their pods – pod and all, small ones in risottos, with pasta, in sauces and salads, big ones pureed. We also eat them just as plain old beans as a vegetable, of course, but I am not sure he is converted to this yet. They freeze magnificently. You can even eat the curly fresh green tops of the plant itself in a stir fry or a salad.

Finally once you have eaten them all and it is time to take them out of the veg. garden they deliver their parting gift. Broad beans (like all other beans and peas) are a means of fixing nitrogen into the soil naturally – not always an easy thing to achieve organically. The bean family has a symbiotic association with a bacterium  called rhizobium. This develops in nodules on the roots of the bean and  converts nitrogen which is found in the atmosphere to ammonia (a fixable form of nitrogen)  in the soil. Nitrogen, which is essential to plant growth (especially the leaves,) is hard to add naturally. So when you have eaten all the broad beans, DO NOT pull the plant out of the ground, roots and all. Cut them off at ground level and dig the roots in. You are adding a huge nutritional plus to your soil.

I know I am beginning to sound like an anorak, but here is a bit more technical info: because of this nitrogen fixing facility, legumes are an important part of a crop rotation system within a vegetable garden. Where you last grew legumes grow leafy vegetable (chard, spinach, salads etc) as they will benefit enormously from soil which has been supercharged with nitrogen.

I am actually going to put my chilli and pepper seedings into the place vacated by the beans. I know this is ignoring the advice above – but Richard hates chillis and peppers too, so they are also consigned to the same redundant corner of the garden.  However, on present form who knows what might happen when I get creative….watch this space.

Broad bean recipes to follow in a subsequent blog.

Devastation

I am writing this as a form of catharsis, having just come into the house from the devastation of a fox ransacked hen run. We had been busy in the garden all day and Richard was the last one in at about 8pm. We ate supper and then I went out again – to see a chicken wandering around the orchard (instead of inside her hen run). I called Richard and we stood watching her for a few minutes laughing because she had escaped from the run and looked completely bemused. In fact she was in shock.

As Richard went over to herd her back into the run I saw a movement in the field to my left. Thinking it was a deer I went to look – and saw a fox running along the outside of the run with a chicken in his/her mouth. It was probably a vixen in fact as at this time of year they are working hard to feed their cubs. We then realized that the run was ominously silent.

Richard went back to the house to get a bin bag and I put on my wellies. I tried to give him a hug when he came back with the bag, but he said don’t – far better to get it over with without emotion.

We walked round the run collecting bodies. There were tragedies and some consolations. We collected lots of bodies – including dear Ruby who we had only just put back into the run (ironically to keep her safe) after her failure to hatch any of the eggs she had been incubating in a hidden spot in the garden. We had even clipped her wings to stop her from flying out of it – that probably sealed her fate.  The hens were all still warm and as I picked them up I held them as carefully as I would a live bird, unable to believe that they were gone. Apart from the warmth, there were no signs of life. They had either died of fright or been bitten on the neck.

At one point I found Handsome Henry, our big cockerel. I picked him up and he blinked. He remained motionless, however, as I held him, stroked him and talked to him, so I carried him to the side of the hen house and set him on the ground, hoping he may recover. We continued our search. The grass in the run is long and it is clear that the fox had been everywhere – having fun stalking the hens individually and killing them for entertainment. The fox could have been there for an hour. It saw us go into the house and chose its moment well. No doubt it will be back. Our hen run is now, in its eyes, a cross between an amusement arcade and a restaurant.

Another hen – one of our Araucanas - appeared in the orchard and we found one, possibly two, other Araucanas hiding in the grass (not sure if it was two or the same one at the moment as they were – understandably – hiding and ran away from us as we approached. Then we saw that Handsome Henry had recovered enough to move away from the side of the hen house and take cover in a patch of long grass. Finally ‘Weldy’, our oldest surviving Welsomer, appeared from a flower bed in the garden and, after a lot of persuasion, returned to the run. So it looks like we have two or three Araucanas (the cockerel has gone – which gives us a practical problem in the future), two Welsomers, a little speckledy hen who had had the brains to hide in a nesting box and Handsome Henry our big cockerel.

Bad Boris and his wives are all safe as the fox confined its entertainment to the hen run and Boris and co. have free range of the garden. We also have our chicks and their mothers – two hens and 20 chicks in total. Most of these are little Lavender Pekins but there are 8 chicks which should grow into full sized hens, fox permitting. Because the trouble is, it will be back. We now have a major problem to deal with in terms of protecting the rest of our hens and their chicks for the forseeable future.

This is the second time I have dealt with such extensive devastation in a hen run. The last was on my birthday (May 20th – so the same time of year) a few years ago. We went out for a meal with friends. The hens had not been put away before we set off because it was still daylight and when we came home after midnight every hen was dead. One had been taken for food. The rest had – like tonight – either died of fright or had their necks bitten.

I loath foxes.  I can look at most animals and birds and understand where they fit in the food chain, or in the natural order of things, but the fox is at the top of his particular food chain and takes advantage of the fact. If he simply killed to eat, then that would strike me fair – but to kill harmless creatures for no other reason than because it is fun to do so is wicked. Plainly and simply.

No picture of the devastation to support this blog – obviously. But I have chosen a nice picture of a favourite of ours. He was called Einstein (for obvious reasons) and went to live with our friends Adriana and Jocelyn. Where he was killed by a fox.

I am in love with Sally Holmes

Last Tuesday was a bank holiday and our local town had a plant fair. At first glance it looked rather small - not enough stalls and all of them selling perlagoniums and bedding begonias. HOWEVER - on closer inspection there were some absolute gems. A fantastic stand by Pepinieres Meynier who are hydrangea specialists from St Sernin de Prats in the Dordogne and some wonderful roses from Mr Philippe Marro who has a nursery at Castets en Dorth which is just where the Canal Lateral/Canal du Midi begins its long journey from the Gironde department to the Mediterranean. From the Meyniers I bought a Hydrangea Arborescence called Annabelle; a shrub I have always loved. And from Mr Marro I bought a sensational rose called Sally Holmes. It was love at first sight. We didn't buy it when I first saw it but went to our local chocolaterie and had hot chocolate with a group of friends.

I found it hard to concentrate on the conversation - I was like a cat on hot bricks. He only had one plant with him, and it was a beautiful specimen. Would it still be there when I went back? It was - and I bought it. Our friend Joycelyn carried it back to the car for me and after tea at another friend's house we eventually got home and I planted Sally in our front border. She replaced a ceanothus which didn't make it through the harsh February we had this year. Sally Holmes should grow to about 2 metres high. It is a shrub rose which doesn't spread out too widely, so she should fit beautifully between a large tree paeony and a contorted hazel (given to me to celebrate my **th birthday). The flowers are a papery white, about the size of small saucers and with a yellow-ish tinge to the centre. They grow in clusters and appear throughout the summer. The simplicity of the blossoms is secret of their beauty - they seem to illuminate their surroundings with an innocence which will work wonderfully with the plain blue green of the paeony leaves and glossy green of the hazel. Not surprisingly, when I checked my RHS reference book Sally Holmes has an award of gardening merit.

This evening we ate our first broad beans - tiny beans, the size of a fingernail - and they were delicious. And there is lots of news on the chick front - not least that the eggs in our incubator are starting to 'pip'. More about this in the next day or two. I love this time of year.

Garlic Omelette

Or omelette aux aillets

Cooked myself an omelette made with baby garlic, or aillets this weekend. It is something I really look forward to – proof that spring is definitely here, it tastes delicious and, most importantly, it signals the proper start of harvesting this year’s crops from the garden. I slice it, using only the round bit and not the green leaves, fry it very gently in oil and then use it to make an omelette seasoning with nothing more than salt and pepper.

You often see village get-togethers advertised around May 1st when they traditionally cook an enormous omelette with aillet here in the south west where it is a traditional spring dish. They can use dozens of eggs in their recipes, whereas I use only two. Richard doesn’t like garlic so I choose when to make this dish with care.

Other uses for baby garlic include slowly cooking a shoulder of lamb which is first seared on each side then put into a heavy casserole. Add aillets, herbs de provence, white wine. Bring to a simmer on the hob and then put into a low oven for ages until it is tender. Remove the lid towards the end to brown the top and reduce the liquor. And they work brilliantly raw in salads.

The vegetable garden is coming along at great speed – broad bean pods are in evidence and we may start picking them this week. Garlic and shallots are bulking up nicely. The borlotti beans are through the soil as are our parsnips and chard. The only casualties are our 49 pumpkin plants which were devastated by the intense wind and rain we had in April. We may have to start again and sow more seeds. You can never win them all!

Battered blossoms

Blooming snow balls....

And they are appropriate as it does feel like winter. Our beautiful blossoms – ornamental cherry, crab apple, lilac and our Boule de Neige have all been brutalized by the stormy weather we have been having. The garden needs rain, but the quantity we had last weekend quite defies belief. Our well is topped up by rainwater collected from the roof and it is full to ground level, normally the water is at least three meters down. Seeds which we planted in all confidence and seedlings which we raised lovingly and transplanted carefully have been whipped to shreds by the severe winds. It all reminds me of an incident we had very shortly after we moved here seven years ago.

When we moved here we inherited a beautiful, enormous Boule de Neige (Viburnum macrocephalum or ‘snowball bush’). These are very popular locally as they suit the heavy soil and normally have a fine and dry flowering season which shows the blossoms off to their best advantage. Ours was THE best around and I somewhat smug that it was in my garden.

I watched it develop that first spring with delight. One day the weather changed and it was obvious, because of the blackening clouds, that we were about to have a major storm. So, worried that the tree might collapse under the weight of the rain on the blossoms, I propped the branches up with planks of wood.

I was too much a novice French gardener to realize that storms in this part of the world tend to be preceded by very heavy wind. This duly happened, blowing the planks of wood away. Immediately after the planks landed on the ground there was the mother of all thunderstorms and, when it had all finished, I dashed outside to check the Boule de Neige. It looked as though it had been trampled by a herd of elephants; completely smashed and flattened. I doubted that it would ever recover. Almost all branches had been snapped off and the balls of flowers had been dashed to the ground. There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth and the tree was cut back to a rather ugly stump.

Six years later and it is beautiful once more, although again suffering from the dreadful weather. The size is just right – not as big as previously and a beautiful shape. It has come through the storms. The lesson is clear – if I don’t prune my shrubs and trees properly then at some point nature will. Pruning is essential to keep plants healthy, the right shape and blossoming vigorously. And someone has to do it.

As a rule of thumb, shrubs which flower in the spring need to be pruned after they have flowered. So the Boule de Neige will be pruned in a few weeks’ time when the flowers have all faded. This is because they flower on growth made the previous year. Shrubs which flower in the second half of the year are flowering on growth made that same year (in the spring). You prune them at the end of winter. Therefore, now is the time to prune things such as flowering quince, mahonia, forsythia, winter flowering honeysuckles and winter flowering jasmins. They will grow throughout the summer and bloom again early next year on the new growth which will happen after pruning.