Fete de l'oignon et la pomme

Every year we cook our onion bahjees at the Fete de l'oignon et la pomme at Le Vigan. People will wait in-line for over an hour!! This year though we went prepared, all our children helped and Cole, (our very willing worker from America who lived with us for 6 weeks this autumn. A great help and friend to all of us.) we were 6 on the stall, 3 of us cooking, 2 serving, 1 making the mixes. India looked after Ruben. It was a great succes.

Wwoofers meals summer 2009

So many faces, so much laughter, hard work and lots of fun. Many thanks to all of you who helped us this summer. Here follow just some shots to remind us of all the 'wwoofers meals' you cooked for us! From a giant apple strudle by Leon Yuti and Sumara from Austria, trout fished at our friend Veronique's trout farm and cooked by Finn and Jo, roast lamb with Sam and Pete, more lamb with Alex and Wenjing (she's a vegetarian!)
Bon appetit!

Weeds Weeds Weeds

It's a long time since i last wrote, this is our busy season........weeds weeds weeds. Dan and Suzanne from America helped with weeding the onions, I guess this was one of their main not very glamorous tasks. They left about two weeks ago. The following Tuesday I picked up Ricardo from the bus (half Brazilian, half Italian), he became like others before just very naturally part of our family, he left this morning - we will miss you. A more dedicated weeder we couldn't have wished for and such good company. I have few photographs Ricardo. Just never seemed to get round to taking shots outside.

Sam & Ralph

We've been so busy that I just haven't felt I had the time to keep up this diary. We are now on the eve of Sam & Ralph leaving, well what can I say?! We will miss you, you rapidly became part of our family, helped us with all you could. We enjoyed your cooking and hope to meet up again. You know there is always something to be learned here. Their first day they were thrown into the last of the onion 'repiquage', followed by putting up more fences to keep our sheep out of our produce, irrigation of potatoes. Our friend Yura from the Ukraine arrived and suddenly we have a building site. The roof is coming of La Clede. At times our kitchen turned into a cyber-caf leaving me either bemused or irritated. The first Tuesday Sam joined me on the market, helped me cook the onion bahjees, the next week it was Ralphs turn to lend a hand. Today we planted tomatoes. I am sorry we never had a chance to put up the 3rd yurt. Well perhaps another time when you come to learn more about carpentry. My camera seems to have had brain damage so cannot find any shots right now, hope to remedy this shortly.

Growing Oignons Doux des Cevennes

In January/February we seed our onions, they are then planted out in Mai, harvested in August/September. To get the seed we plant some of our best onions from last year in march/april and let them grow a flower, which turns to seed. We harvest the flower at the end of the summer.


Boxtree terrace onions.












'Oignons fanes', these are onions we harvest at the beginning of the harvest with their green leaves on. (end June) They are then sold in small bunches with the green leaves but the earth removed.








Sam, Pete, Tess and Kathryn over at Breau crating up onions, everything is manual, hot dusty sweaty work.
Thanks to you all we got them in just in time!
The next day rain was forecast from midday. Sam Pete and me crated up at la Clede, Paul took Kathryn and Tess to La Maison neuve to get the rest in, we just managed it.

Wwoofers quarters

This is where our wwoofers sleep at the moment, we are going to move the tent though to a more shady spot. The bathroom is not the most celubrious of places BUT there is a shower with hot water, from the tent you walk through the box hedges into La Clede.

Rachel and Michelle

Rachel arrived on the bus a few days ago, followed by Michelle the next day. Two girls from California. It was our onion 'repiquage'. This is when we pull up the seedling onions and replant them wider spaced. I guess they really got a taste of manual farming.