Life in France

A not every day story of normal people trying to live their dream in France starting at the beginning and ending?

Thursday, July 27, 2006

It's too darned hot

I am completely worn out! i need a rest from work which i think will happen next week as i finish for a month for a"holiday". I will of course still be working on the house if that counts?
We have been starting at 6am and finishing at 2pm because of the heat. It really is darned warm, the temperature hasn't really dropped below 30° during the day and yesterday it hit 39° in the shade and a boggling 51° on the terrace. That's 123°F in old money so to speak.
The cat doesn't know what to do with herself and as you can see she tries to find the coolest place to sleep that she can. This was just after i had watered the flowers in the pot she just climbed in made herself comfortable and within seconds was fast asleep!
The garden is going mad, the courgettes are being extremely prolific, 4 plants have given us kilo's of the things so it is courgette soup, baked, stuffed and made into pickle and still we have a load left. Anybody know any good recipes for courgettes? the melons are growing well and the cucumbers are producing in moderate numbers, raspberries are coming to fruit and the butternut squash is loaded with flowers. Beetroot was nice and at last the tomatoes are going red. Disasters; the runner beans have produced a huge number of flowers but no beans...something is munching the flowers and the Fennel has been completely stripped by the caterpillar of the swallowtail butterfly. The broccoli started to flower and then went bannanas and bolted overnight so it seemed. All in all though i think for our first year as virgin gardeners not too bad. Now, what can i do with this next lot of courgettes? Posted by Picasa

4 Comments:

  • At 3:11 pm, Blogger R J Adams said…

    Could be your runner beans are suffering from too much heat at night, AP. They're high altitude plants and need cool nights for the pods to set - and loads of moisture! Spraying the flowers with water last thing at night can help. (Didn't know I was really Alan Titchmarsh, did you!)
    The rest of your crop seems in excellant health - just keep eating the courgettes and stay cool.....

     
  • At 12:55 am, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    There's this book about just what to do with courgettes; I'm considering investing in it myself!

     
  • At 11:50 am, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    That isn't just hot, that's unbearable! arghh. Roll on winter, that's all I can say.

    What an abundance of veggies and fruit, even if they didn't all turn out as expected. I think you did very well. Home grown beetroot.. yummy!

    Mandy

     
  • At 12:53 pm, Blogger Ally said…

    That sounds pretty good for a first year's go. And well done for your support of the Swallow-tail butterfly :).

    Courgettes: I do something vaguely like this - rice & eggs, normally with courgettes, onions & spinach. It is rather nice hot or cold and REALLY, really, filling.

     

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