A New Adventure in France

We’re discovering more about what we actually have on the land around the house. The previous owners planted a number of trees to supplement long-standing specimens and we have a variety of fruit trees including cherries, apples, pears, plums, walnuts and figs. So we will not go hungry and will have to learn pretty quickly about when each variety is ready for picking and about bottling, preserves, etc. to manage the inevitable gluts when the various fruits ripen. The huge fig tree already has some ripe fruit and I have managed to pick some when the wasps will let me near the tree.

In another corner is a ‘potager’ or kitchen garden plot, currently bare apart from some, as yet, unidentified soft fruit bushes. We will need to get a grip on this patch fairly quickly or we’ll be endlessly turning over weeds with the rotorvator and getting a full body workout at the same time as it launches itself through the earth. In preparation for being the custodian of a vegetable patch I did buy a second-hand book about growing vegetables from a used book shop in the grounds of the National Trust property, Ightham Mote, when our French exchange group were visiting in June. The book is quite an old one but I figured the principles of growing vegetables can’t have changed that much.

One of our neighbours kindly called in a few days ago to introduce herself. She is originally from Canada and has lived here about 12 years so was able to tell us a bit about some of the other locals. Spurred on by her visit we thought we should venture up the hill to try and meet some of the other neighbours. One of the main local products or specialities is prunes and our nearest neighbour has a small commercial orchard of about a thousand plum trees and was emerging from his barn when we called by. He is now 74 years old and explained that one of his daughters now runs the farm and manages the sale of the plums. Apparently they have not had a crop for the last 2 years due to hailstorms destroying the fruits early in the season. This year looks to be a good crop with even too many fruits – farmers never seem to be content whatever the yield!

There seems to be some activity in the orchard every day and they also water the trees. Harvest starts in mid-August with a machine that shakes the trees to send the ripe fruit onto nets below and there are several passes over the course of a month as all of the fruits ripen fully. It’s amazing what you learn from your neighbours! Monsieur also explained that part of the crop goes to be dried for standard prunes and another part of the crop is destined to be ‘mi-cuit’ prunes – a plumper and juicier prune that is only 35% dried. The farm sells those to regions like Brittany which use the prunes in their famous ‘Far Breton aux pruneaux’ – a baked sweet flan, something akin to a clafoutis. By coincidence, I had been asked to try some local prunes when I was in the supermarket and came away with a small tub of ‘mi-cuit’ prunes and we can confirm they are very good.

On the same farm are a couple of other buildings – a gite, run by the farmer’s other daughter, and a house occupied by an Australian who we are yet to meet. Further up the road we met a Belgian couple whose house is a holiday home and rented some of the time. As they’re heading home soon we plan to meet up with them properly when they’re back in September. In the meantime we’ll venture a bit further and hopefully meet more neighbours.