Radis roses

Pink radishes are common in France this time of year. They're a favorite at apértif time, served raw with sweet butter, salt, and fresh bread. The oblong radishes are sold in bottes (bunches) with their fanes (leaves) and we've been enjoying one bunch a week for the past couple of months. They're crisp and crunchy and sweet, very different from the sharp taste of the round red radishes I remember from the US.

Radis roses, trimmed (roots and leaves) and soaking (to dislodge any stubborn dirt). And yes, we eat the green part, too.

By the way, the round red radishes are available here more and more. And I saw one vendor at the Saturday market in Saint-Aignan who offers radishes of many colors, something I've not seen before. Maybe I should give them a try.

I grew radishes in our vegetable garden for a couple of years, but the slugs really like them. That, and the fact that they have to be sewn successively to have a steady crop, make buying them in the market much more practical.

Tomates

Our local Saturday market in Saint-Aignan has at least five produce vendors that I can think of. All of them have a nice variety of good-looking vegetables and fruits to offer. One of them is a local organic grower (and their prices reflect that). The others are vendors, likely buying their produce wholesale and reselling it at markets around the region.

Gorgeous and tasty tomatoes.

Even though it's not tomato season, the toms at the market are beautiful. They're probably grown in ideal and protected conditions, but they're still good. Nice and ripe and full of flavor. This past Saturday, I got a huge yellow tomato and two good sized "black" tomatoes. We ate the yellow tomato in a Caprese salad on Sunday. We haven't cut into the black toms yet but will soon, maybe for a tabbouleh-style salad, maybe on a pizza.

Lotsa grapes

The grape crop looks plentiful this year. Must have been the warm, wet spring we had. It makes me think that the growers might do un vendange en vert (green harvest) as the grapes start to mature. If there are too many grapes on the vines, there is not enough energy in the plant to allow them all to mature they way the grower intends, so some of the grapes are removed from the vine. The remaining grapes can then develop the appropriate levels of sugar and water to make a good wine.

Looking good! These leaves look like this could be gamay, a red wine grape common in our area.

In certain appellations, the grape yield is regulated. If there are too many grapes per hectare (a measure of land area equivalent to 10,000 m² or about 2.5 acres), some of them must go. Grape growing is almost, if not more, as complicated as wine making!

Amber waves of grain

It's the Fourth of July, the national holiday of the USA. It sounds from the news reports that many celebrations are cancelled and that others will be more subdued than usual. But I'm sure there will be plenty of people willing to risk their own and others' health to party like it's any other year. Sigh.

The tall grasses in and around the vineyard are pretty, but they make walking difficult. They're often wet with dew and they're great places to pick up ticks.

France will face the same issue in ten days. I believe the government has scaled back the national event on the Champs-Elysées. But I'm sure there will be individuals and groups that will flout the recommendations for protection and prevention. It's human nature, I guess. I'm sure the health professionals are nervous about another opportunity for the virus to spread.

We'll be laying low, as usual.

Diplodocus

That's how I jokingly refer to this plant, dipladenia, because I couldn't remember its name. I think it's more commonly known as mandevilla, from what I read on the internet. I first saw the bright red flowers of dipladenia across the road at our neighbor's house a couple of years ago. We went over and found the plant's label in one of the pots. The next year, I got some for our deck planters from one of the local garden centers.

Dipladenia in the real fake well, surrounded by clary sage which is now going to seed.

Last fall, we dug them out of their planter boxes and put them in pots in the greenhouse where they spent the winter. They survived, but didn't look so good. We set them outdoors in May and they started to produce more leaves and then flowers. I decided to plant them in the well once the volunteer wheat crop was gone. That happened this week and the photo above shows the result. I'm hopeful that the plants will get stronger and fuller as the summer goes on. The red flowers are quite vibrant.

In case you don't know, "diplodocus" was a dinosaur similar in appearance to the brontosaurus.

Don't sit under the apple tree

Until I get the apples picked up. It took me two days to prune off the low-hanging branches of our two apple trees. Now I need to gather up the apples that came off those branches as they hit the ground. Then I'll be able to run the mower under the trees again without being slapped in the face.

The drooping low branches of both trees are gone now.

I do this every year, but this year the trees have more fruit than I've seen in a while and it's really weighing down the branches. Like I said yesterday, it may be time (this winter) to have the trees professionally pruned back again. It's too big a job for me because it involves ladder work and chain saws.

Most of the apples on the cut branches fell off when they hit the ground. Clean-up time!

I piled all the cut branches out in a section of the yard where they're out of the way. I'll dispose of them later in the fall when it's time to clean up the vegetable garden. The apples will go into the compost pile.

The wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet

Here's my wheat harvest from what grew in the real fake well this spring. You may recall that the wheat sprouted in the well from bird seed. I hang the feeder above the well in winter and some of the birds like to push the seeds out then eat them on the ground. Obviously, they don't eat them all.

My wheat crop makes a nice centerpiece for the deck table.

There seems to be more than just one type of grain here and I don't know what they are, so I'm just calling it all "wheat." From what I understand, much of what's grown by farmers around here is "winter wheat," sown in the fall and harvested in the following summer (about now). After I "harvested" my wheat, I pulled out the roots and planted the dipladenia in its place. I'll try to get a photo of that soon.