Gardener's World, French style

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Why has gardening suddenly got so complicated? When I started out a few weeks ago in France, cheering the place up with a few pots of pansies, we slipped out and bought a bag or two of ordinary potting compost to get us started. Well, that's what I thought. Most bags are variations on John Innes No. 2. Aren't they? Well, apparently not. Firstly I noticed that when I watered the pots, a viscous liquid powerful enough to use in blood transfusions oozed out of the bottom, staining the stonework. Then some of the plants started to look peaky. Finally, I read the compost bag. My bio-mega-organic compost turns out to be a concentrated super-product to be added to the mixture used in planting at a dosage of no stronger than 10%. So all my garden plants have been force-fed on the plant equivalent of foie gras for breakfast lunch and tea with no chance of a jog round the park to work it all off.

Oh well. Back to the garden centre to buy something else. I was gone so long Mal thought I'd decided not to come back (Actually,that wasn't the only reason. I had to stop and chew the fat with several people I met in the street. We get immoderately excited that we are now sufficiently part of the community that we too are expected to exchange bisous and gossip so that a quick dash along the street on an errand can take half an hour or more).

At the garden centre, I read package after package, and only after a very long search found a product that looked as if it would do. Who'd have thought that gardening French style could be so very different from pottering around the potting shed in England? So it's been back to the beginning. Haul out all the plants from their super-fatted homes and re-pot. And what to do with the mega-concentrate? I rather think the potager will benefit.

Aftnd that's where I went next. First of all, tying in the vines so they produce to the best of their ability. Our 'vineyard' had the potential to make one whole bottle of wine......maybe. Then digging - again, then planting the seedlings I'd bought in Mirepoix market. It's all hard work over here you know.

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Photos

Tying in the vines
Hope I've done it right

The garden shed
Not exactly a state of the art number, but it seems to do the job

My supervisor on the potager
Someone has to do it....