Main crops

Haven't got any pictures (camera's dead) but please feel free to Google "120kgs of Desiree potatoes".
Should be ok for the winter...

Also harvested the buckwheat and made a right pig's ear of it - I scythed it and the stalks went everywhere, and I left it too long and a load of the seed has "shattered" and been lost on the ground.  Still, it's all a learning experience and most of it is now hanging on a line with a fine net under it (scaffold net again) to catch any seed.
It's funny what a sense of security it brings.  Like Cobbett said, "a couple of flitches of bacon hung up are worth more than fifty thousand Methodist sermons even if accompanied with the horrors of hulk and gibbett".  Food security.

A couple of flitches of bacon is next year's project.

Reasons to have a bucket to shit in.

I've just taken out one of those new fangled flushing toilets and replaced it with a warm, comfy wooden composting one and am feeling green and smug.  Might also be due to finally finishing a course of antibiotics to kill off Lyme's disease and am thinking about another pint of beer.  The original toilet was connected (kind of, see later) to our septic tank, which is a great breeding ground for all sorts of things to make you sick and poison the water table.  Flushing loos also use a hell of a lot of drinking water, which seems mad considering a lot of the world don't have any.  Bit like sticking two fingers up at those who have none in my opinion.  You also get rid of fertile soil (you know, the stuff that feeds us all and keeps us from dying of starvation) every time you flush, and we as a race have managed to get rid of most of the topsoil in almost every area we've ever built up a civilisation apart from China who are a lot more sensible than we, although they too have lost the plot recently to the great god Crapitalism and build mega-cities on farmland that has fed them for four thousand years.  So we've got a composting loo now and will be growing our food with our poo.  It's just going to be a 2 year wait for it to compost, but what's that in a lifetime?  We've been here for two years already and have done bugger all apart from haemmoridge money!

What really matters to every one of us as humans and not two-legged viruses like everyone on Wall St, behind a till in a supermarket, driving along with a cigarette poked out of the window, eating factory chicken, etc on this planet is to be in a state of balance, to take and to give back in equal proportion.

So we're pooing in a bucket.

P.S. The loo I took out wasn't actually connected, which meant there was a pile of old poo under it with loads of worms in it.  This is officially named The Bad Day now.

August update

We have been busy...

 Harvesting big plum tomatoes.

 Digging up onions and putting them on wire racks to dry in the sun.

 Thinking that the sunflowers might be a good idea after all.

 Keeping it all neat, and keeping the caterpillars at bay.

 Scoffing melon, strawberries, plums and raspberries with home made shortcake for pudding.  Every day.

...and making a composting toilet at long last!  Bit on the right holds the cover material.

Gite complete!

Bit like world war one, whereby we thought it would be done in a few short weeks but we were still toiling a year later, covered in mud.  I'd say there is a substantial discount for friends but I don't have any so you can all pay full whack.

We have our lives back!  Now, where were we again? Ah yes, composting toilets, rabbit runs, beehives, pig arks, fencing and hedging....

August = 2 years in France.

How time flies when you're fiddling around trying to plumb sink units in, assuming that the caterpillars can't get your cabbages because they're netted, and shelling peas.

 ONE okra for dinner!  Going to be a bloody small curry...

Cauliflowers are doing well though - must be due to the rain.

 It's a safe bet that we have more runner beans than you, dear reader.  Most of them are for the bean and not the pod.  Not sure why no-one else does this as they're delicious and a hell of a lot easier to shell than haricots.  Probably contain cyanide when mature or something.

 Buckwheat for the chooks looking nice - this is to be a field crop if it works out as planned.

 Same with the sunflowers, which are squatting in the rhubarb patch at present.

Huge Canadian tomatoes coming along nicely - Burpee's Delicious - and are about as big as grapefruit. 

And the aim to grow a curry comes closer now the turmeric's sprouted!  Just need to keep it alive during a decidedly non-Indian subcontinent Breton winter...

Don't fight the system, just walk away and grow some onions.  It's the only way to kill the Hydra.

Even more gite progress.

I know, I know: what about the bloody smallholding?  Well, it's been howling wind and cold rain for weeks now, so instead of being cold and wet and miserable like the chooks I've been:

 Making the door and frame to the small bedroom with nothing but hand tools.  

I ripped the door to size with my Disston No.7 (I think) that I got for £7, cutting the edge 1cm narrower at the bottom than the top and got it spot on (!) for a 5mm clearance all around, and got a workout at the same time.

Detail shot.

Nice hand forged iron -not steel- mongery from a shop in Suffolk where things are made by people and not robots, for £20.  Due to my hand-planing the rough sawn timber, it's got a lovely patina on the wood with no scorch marks from a wobbly planing machine like the oak lintels we put in.  Admittedly this would look crap in a modern setting but it's perfect for the wobbly ol' cowshed we've got.

 View into the bedroom.  Loads of junk just behind the door, which is why I took the photo like this!

 Main bedroom done with some boxed-in shelves along the back to hide conduit.  Me, I would have put it under the floor, but never mind...

Concrete under stairs gone!  Dark and oak-effect woodstain dry-brushed on, looks like the real thing!  I'm going to oil them as well to give them an also fake glazed effect.  I have found my hidden talent: bodging.

"I know what I did this summer."

Sounds like a "straight to video" B-movie.

 Went to Sweden.

 Ate some fish and drank schnapps.

 Watched and didn't join in the "hop around the leafy cock" dance.

 Came back (eventually) and converted an old rusty bike into a sharp shiny bike (work in progress) with lots of wire wool. WD-40 and old imperial spanners.  Car now stays put!  I hate cars!  They will kill us all!

 Tidied the tip of a hanger and re-stacked the log pile - all nice and dry for winter.  Barbell not needed, but will go for it anyway.

 Dug up one 10m row of early spuds and got 47 kilos.  Not bad.

 Watched f-king caterpillars strip the gooseberries - again.  Finer net next year.

 Ate tomatilloes and wept with pleasure.

 Waited eagerly for the Amish paste toms to ripen.  They're in the Lord's hands...

 Ate chillies - in May!  Good variety this one.  Hungarian.

Ate too much perfect juicy beetroot and now want a break.  Good grated with horseradish, ginger and soy sauce, with toasted pumpkin seeds thrown in - but not every day, dammit!

 This tree did absolutely nowt last year.  It's stake rotted out in one year (it was sweet chestnut as well!) so I re-staked it at the angle it was leaning at and now it's growing!  Must have been trying to tell me something.

 5ft high broads on the left, tons of runners for beans not pods on the right, with netted brussels sprouts behind.

 Made six compost bins and filled five immediately!  NEVER have enough compost bins!

 The sunflower seeds for sprouting have sprouted and turn out to be a sturdy dwarf variety - spot on for this windy site!  Hope the seeds turn out well...

 Taking no chances this year with anything: all my broccoli is under (scaffold) net, and looking much better for it.  Gardener's best friend is scaffold net: shade, windbreak, pest barrier, mulch, and cheap as chips.

 Onions looking ok.  Time will judge.

Too much bloody granny's pastel shaded wee bonny flowers here!  I want paper bark birches with dogwood underplanting, stones,  moss and ferns!