LIFE AT LA VUDELE - spring gardening

Every year, or rather: continuously, we work on our vegetable garden. 'Continuously' because we use permaculture as the basis which utilizes many different factors like the moon phases; creating our own compost, of course no fertilizers but to us nothing which comes from the outside; local plant varieties and seeds from a trusted source; rain water captured in a basin; the sun's movement; and our own two hands.

cherry tree in bloom in our garden

This year we finally managed to source the materials for a cold frame, like an old window très local, ie. at our neighbors' who had their windows replaced. More on that in our April postings because starting this year we can offer 2 more guest rooms at our organic B&B! Anyway, the end of February, in 

time for the first planting, we sawed, nailed and hammered away one afternoon and created a beautiful space for the first seeds! In went broccoli, arugula, spinach, basil and cabbage, and to our own surprise it works beautifully! It's still early days to speak of success but we are very confident it will work...

our very own cold frame, filled with all kinds of seeds and soon seedlings

To the right of the cold frame is a rabbit cage reclaimed from the local land fill which is protecting freshly planted garlic from hungry wild animals like badgers or wild boar....

We are also trying to get a head start on tomatoes this year but results without a heating lamp and other little helpers tend to be minimal so we are prepared to not have any results out of this exercise. But maybe... with the cold frame... later on...

Happy gardening to everyone!