Starting the 'Potager'

As an extra for our paying guests staying in our gites we decided to enable them to have access to our vegetable garden. The only problem was the area we wanted to have for a vegetable garden was thick with bramble and briar and nettles. Measuring around two hundred and fifty square metres this posed a huge challenge for us. We were further handicapped by the fact that we were late in the season for growing vegetables - Stephen had his operation in late March - it wasn't until easter time that we began the planting out of the crop. The main problem, however, was clearing the area without using the poison method that everyone advised us to use. We didn't like the idea of using such strong chemicals and also any such method would have delayed us using the ground. Stephen bought a brush-cutter and with it he cleared all the growth, burning the dreaded 'ronce' roots and plants on a huge bonfire. We asked our neighbour, Monsieur Giraud, if he would come with his tractor and dig over the patch. This he obligingly did - his massive tractor heaving through the soil lifting many of the weed roots to the surface. We then handpicked out every root we could find, turning over the soil and searching for these evil plants. Eventually we cleared enough to begin planting. Armed with our self-sufficiency bible - John Seymour's Complete Book of Self Sufficiency - we began the daunting task of setting out the plot. We divided it into four areas deciding to go for the rotation method. We planted first off potatoes and onions - red and brown - and garlic. The leeks, capsicum, courgette, lettuce, aubergine, tomatoes, beetroot, cabbage, broccoli, sweet corn - to name but a few - soon followed. It was a huge thrill to have such a production going - especially when it semed the land was so difficult to clear. Some tips we learned - use ash from the woodburner to deter the slimy snails and slugs - they can't bear the stickiness of it and soon learn to keep away. Use nettles in water soaked for two weeks then dilute 10/1 for fertiliser. Wash blackfly and aphids off with washing up liquid. We were lucky that conditions were quite good overall - few animals and insects causing damage. The worst offenders were our own maverick chickens who were not in any proper enclosure - running totally free-range they inflicted the most damage on our crop.

The satisfaction of eating from this garden both with friends who came to see us for a holiday and for those clients staying in our gites was absolutely wonderful. Using our food bible - Hugh Fearnley Wittingstall's wonderful River Cottage cookbooks we made several wonderful recipes including his fabulous beetroot and feta cheese soup. In the end it felt as if very little effort on our behalf had yielded huge rewards. Plans for next year are to increase this project - to extend the duration of its produce and increase the variety. How long we have wanted to do this and here we were - harvesting our very own crops. In our barn we store the potatoes and onions harvested from our potager. We were also lucky to pick apples, pears, walnuts, hazelnuts and apricots and peaches from the abandoned gardens situated all around. It was, for us, a most wonderful experience to have had such an array of fresh vegetables and fruit all on our doorstep.