French Winter Continuum
Champêtre: Potager & Pots. Plotting the Garden at Camont, one day at a time
Camont Weather Report— Janvier Brrrrrrr
The apple orchard veils remain frosted like so much sucre glacé dusted across the rows. This rare freezing fog, which usually dissipates in the afternoon, keeps a layer of crystals on the wild rose hedges while outlining in delicate silver etching nettles, seedpods, and hydrangeas. The remains of this below-freezing week rest coddled in little white frosty pockets of brittle green grass around Camont.
Our winters in Southwest France are typically mild—in the high 40’s most days. But this year, a once-in-a-decade pattern, promises a brief foray into the extreme lowest temperatures -5’C / 23’F. Brrrr. It is the coldest I have ever experienced here and the sprouting garden time seems so far far away.
Everything fragile has collapsed—the broad-leafed calla lilies, the giant banana shoots hanging their heavy leaves while new ones stay tightly furled until spring, and the rampant nasturtiums self-sown in the newer beds and by the kitchen window have finished their show. They had an extraordinarily long run, flowering just through the holidays and keeping the architecture of their beautiful saucer-sized leaves upright and pretty until this week. Note to self—sow more nasturtiums on the edges of beds and let them run free.
Garden Continuum
When I look out at the garden in this deep, cold January week, I see the extreme end of this year’s cycle as spectacularly beautiful frost patterns with layers of pastel colors across bare fields and skeletons of fruit trees. The daily warming will begin soon as the morning light arrives before 8:00 at last and lingers a few minutes longer in the tops of the poplar trees along the canal.
This begins the slow crawl to the other end, Summer, and it’s hot, hot, long days. This continuum of minute changes is evident when I look closely at my French garden. My kitchen garden or potager is annually planted with seeds and seedlings in ten raised beds plotted on gravel paths that keep the Spring mud days at bay. But the other less visible side of the edible gardens is tucked into the ragged edges, built on composting wood piles (hugelkultur), and crawling along the chestnut wood ganivelle fence that cordons off the enclosed spaces that keep Chica from running wild. It is mainly in these freer, wilder edges that I watch for the first daffodil, already showing her yellow bonnet, the hellebores dipping their pale faces toward the earth, and the nervy rampant roses escaping their willful wire guidelines to poke through fences and reach for the sky. Each day discloses another small event—a pile of leaves disintegrating into new soil, a huddle of snails under a clay pot. The bigger picture, the grand garden plans, pale compared to the magic of this daily evolution of life from bud to blossom to fruit to rot. One day at a time.
Rather than starting a new big project this January, I am looking hard into the corners of my past work and see what survives- of course, bulbs are already showing a few green tips. Still, I spy some fennel fronds hanging in there and know it won’t be long before I can clip some to add to a velouté Parmentier, a creamy potato soup. I seek a hint of how I might urge a bit more growth in the shady reaches or inhibit the wayward eye toward a lesser-seen beauty. This year’s garden will evolve slowly and the rewards will be evident on the same scale. This year, I will plant the things I love to eat right from the garden and those not easily found in my local markets.
Haricots verts or green beans— to be gathered often by large handfuls before being tossed into boiling water and dressed with walnut oil and salt, a splash of homemade vinegar, and handful of pickled onions.
Pumpkins— to run wild between the beds, huge leaves sheltering tender lettuces.
Turnip greens— actually any kind of cookable greens. With the exception of chard, these are difficult to find in my markets.
Tomatoes— of course, although there is no shortage of great tomatoes and variety grown locally- but there is nothing like walking out to the garden and plucking enough fully ripe tomatoes to slice for a salad or make into a tomato tart. my preference? Le coeur de boeuf, of course!
Tomatillos and chili peppers— Mexican or Basque, mild to hot, to pluck off the plants and add to a quick tomato summer sauce or let dry hanging in the kitchen for winter food.
Sweet potatoes— it seems like my local farmers have now discovered they can grow this miracle food easily. Pascal and Nathalie have at least three varieties including my favorite Ube or purple sweet potato that tastes of chestnuts and is so easy to incorporate in many things, including ice cream!
Cornichons and cucumbers— They grow well and easily in my garden’s heavy clay soil. This year's challenge is finding the best way to trellis them so they can be easily harvested. So many get lost under the leaves.
Green onions and salad greens— the bitter, the better- mustard, mizuna, roquette, and any other sharp pungent greens to toss into impromptu salads.
Raspberries— staked and trellised for easier picking and keeping watered through the hotter months. Raspberries for breakfast and sorbets, I want more raspberries! Enough for confiture, I love raspberry jam!
I’ll leave you with the starting list and look to the recipes to come. Browse the archive of posts in the Camont Journals by using the search bar on the website or app and discover some of my favorite posts like the three below.
Three of my favorite garden flavored posts!
Pumpkins! The last time I wrote about the potager at Camont was in October. Take a look here:
Tomatoes! My favorite summer soup enriched with golden eggs and a crusty garlicy crouton afloat:
Cornichons deliver a lot of bang for your buck. Read about my experiences here:
Join me every week for a jaunt through the French countryside, in and out of the markets and garden, and into the warming kitchen of my creative residency The Relais de Camont. The Camont Journals are a chronicle of this country life in Southwest France: Champêtre: a Field Guide is the next adventure full of good food and slow living in France.
Finding France: A Memoir in Small Bites is also archived here for paying subscribers at The Camont Journals. You can read about these long adventures from arriving in France on her canal barge, the Julia Hoyt, to the gathering table here at the Relais de Camont. It’s all archived here: https://katehillfrance.substack.com/t/finding-france
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Kate!
Omg Kate, your winter has such beauty, thanks for taking me on the wintry tour of the fields and gardens, your descriptions are exquisite!
I spent my childhood summers at a grandmother's dairy farm near New York State. Much of what you share is so familiar to me even though it is experienced so many miles away. As I await a heavy snowfall, I think I too will go about planning my potager for the summer to come.