Baratzea – July

Yesterday I was working in the garden when a woman came passing by (as people are wont to do in such a public space).

‘Is that Comfrey (Solidage)? Where did you get it?’

I was impressed. Most people ask me what it is.

‘The guy who sold me my apartment left a potful on the terrace. I’ve been propagating it ever since. It takes really easily ’

‘Do you know where can I get some?’

‘If you wait a moment I will dig you up a root’.

I dug up a young shoot, put in a pot and gave it to her.  My visitor, who I have never met before, was delighted.  So was I.  Comfrey was, symbolically, the first thing I planted on the plot, to build fertility.  Over the past few months I have been given so many plants, seeds, gardening equipment (tools, stakes etc.) and composting materials so it was a real pleasure to start to return those favours. 

Baratzea looked like an ecological disaster zone two months ago.  Nitrogen demanding bacteria were busy consuming the cardboard and straw I had put down to suppress weeds, leaving no N for the plants, no matter what I threw at them.

I have improved that situation somewhat (same plant seven weeks later)

Baratzea naturally falls into four plots. The lower two (2&3) are doing quite well, the upper two (1 &4) require more attention.

Plot 1: Pumpkins and maize 

Plot 2: a little bit of everything that was available in May: though mostly onions, peppers, cabbages and fennel 

Plot 3: tomatoes and potatoes 

Plot 4: mostly beans and cabbage family (still to be planted) 

Plots 1 and 4 seem to be suffering from a fertility/compaction  problem.  The soil on these higher plots seems to have more clay, less loam and opens up less easily .  I’m working on that and will continue to do so over the coming season.  

The main challenge is building ‘an edge zone’ along the fences.  I’ve planted sunflowers, lupins, raspberries and other ‘barrier’ plants, but so far so few of them have taken.  Slowly I am working on that challenge too.  Check out my progress in a few weeks' time. 

Baratzea: Week 16

Baratzea: Week 16

The next week I made frequent visits to new plot, just to look at it, measure it, see what is there, and work out way is North (it didn’t correspond a tall with my intuitive feel).   There wasn’t much left but was left was of value.  A strawberry bed, a couple of artichoke plants already as tall as me, a couple of rose and hydrangea bushes, a decent amount of compost and most importantly 5x 200 litre water barrels  rain fed from the roof of the garage and interconnected by a series of pipes.   I met the neighbour who gardens the plot above mine (the garden is split into two plots) who mostly grows flowers, together with a few potatoes and strawberries.  One afternoon I met Jean Pierre bringing over a bundle of freshly cut bamboo stakes as a gift for her to use to train her tomatoes and peppers.    Bamboo grows in abundance around here and is a really useful resource for gardeners and other D-i-Y’ers.  The modesty/wind screen on my balcony is largely made out of bamboo stakes and woven matting.    The stakes that Jean Pierre brings are freshly cut, sturdy and green and look fantastic.  

It’s good to meet Jean Pierre.  He tells me a little about the quality of the garden, the variations in soil quality, that he never runs out of rain water, that he has taken three water barrels but left me five and some compost and the strawberries. I get the impression he is angling for something but feel that that debt, imaginary or real, can be repaid later in the year with some harvest.  He says he minimised his use of pesticides, although some more radical bio neighbours disagreed with that.  I am not going into commercial production so I don’t have to worry about conversion periods or past applications too much. 

And while I am thinking about what resources are on the land I am also thinking about what resources I have got and those I ned to find:  there are some seeds that I sowed in March with the intention of planting them on my balcony and on the tiny plat that I have negotiated on my jardin collectif’s terrain across the border by the airport in Hondarribia. But that plot is much smaller and my first year’s seeding programme was set back by torrential rainfall, which drowned many of the pots and my cat scratching out a large number that remained.  Strong winds blew away many of the labels, so although I can see the difference between the surviving tomatoes, pumpkins and beets – I don’t actually know which varieties are which anymore.   It’s going to be speed date, rather than companion planting this year.

The plan is to do a permaculture garden – minimising the digging and building a productive and aesthetically pleasing garden – the later important as it is in such a visible public space.   At the moment the plot is surrounded by bare chain link fencing so it looks quite unloved.  I want to prioritise planting barrier species along the perimeters to slow down wind speeds, reflect heat, reduce any pollution from cars and make the plot look and feel self-contained.   My first tasks are to locate cardboard, from supermarket skips and to recuperate the two bales of hay left over from preparing my plot in Spain.  The latter proves to be hard work as the hay has been out in the rain for three months.  Normally I can lift a bale of hay easily by myself, but being so wet I can only to lift about a sixth a bale at any one time.  It takes a long time to load it, and unload it.  My car which I had swept out a few days ago before its technical control, once again starts to resemble, and smell like, farm machinery.   

My 'Partner': a perfect fit for four bales of hay. 

By the end of the week I have two of the six plots and a third of the perimeter fencing covered with cardboard and bakers’ sacks (there is new organic bakery immediately opposite the land who is willing to supply me with a limitless supply) and mulched over.  I have planted in a few things that I hope will be fast growing and give me and passers- by the illusion of quick progress:  three rhubarb cutting and a sprig of mint (in an otherwise not very useful step on the wall between the gardens where it can spread as much as it likes),  a buddleia  (to attract butterflies) two fig trees, a laurel and an iris that were volunteers on the plot of land around my co-working space at Cocoba and a dozen or so pumpkin and courgette seedlings that were getting too big for their pots.  Hopefully they will all quickly grow and spread and make the garden look less like a desert.      

My system for laying down 'a lasagne garden': first the cardboard - easy to work and place when it comes in one metre square sheets (though it's better to tack the sellotape off before laying it down) with a 'slice' from a hale bay placed on each which i then spread out.  Later the weeds from my neighbours garden will go on top. One bale covers about five square metres , which takes about an hour and half to prepare. 

Baratzea: week 0

There’s a little patch of land in the centre of my quarter, le bas quartier, a triangle enclosed by three roads that is a beautiful and charming garden.  During the winter I noticed that half of it was completely neglected. It looked like nobody had paid it any attention for a long time.  I asked around the neighbourhood to try to find out who owns it and it if I might not be able to use it.   Two people said that they know the owner who lives in Bordeaux but comes back every so often as he has a house here and the former gardener who wanted to give up the plot for health reasons.  Weeks passed by and nothing happened.  

The week before Easter the previous user of   the garden cut back everything on the plot back ready for cultivating this season and then 'handed in his notice'.  Two days later Elizabeth who works in the épicerie that faces directly onto the plot gave me the number of Michel, the owner ,and suggested I call him.  I thought about how to ‘present’ myself before calling him the next day.  He was delighted to find someone interested in taking over the plot as he was planning to post a notice in the local shops to try to find somebody to take over the garden when he next came back to Hendaye. Even better Michel didn’t want rent – just someone who would keep the patch tidy and keep his good standing in the community.  Then he threw in the bonus, telling me that that I could have access to his garage, attached to the plot to keep my tools in – although he wants to retain access to it to park his car whenever he comes back to Hendaye.  He suggested that we meet next time he came down to Hendaye, probably in three to four weeks’ time.  I said that’s fine but it will be really late in the growing season by then.  Michel said he’ll see what he can do. As I put the phone down I felt a sense of joy that the angels had dropped this present into my lap and pride that I had been able to negotiate a ‘contract’ on a piece of land so easily in French. 

But better was yet to come. Two or three hours later I was passing Panxika’s house and she called me over.  ‘I spoke to Michel and he asked about you’.  Apparently my reputation had been preceded me: she had already spoken to Michel (an old, old, friend of hers) about the Englishman who had joined and was supporting the residents’ association.   Michel put two and two together and asked Panxika if we were one and the same person.  She said yes.  ‘So he’s going to let you have the garden.  But don’t tell him I told you so’.   Later that evening Michel called me saying that he heard about me from the neighbours, that he thought I was responsible and that I could pick up the keys to the garage from Panxika  tomorrow, so I could get on with the garden and we could meet when he came back to Hendaye in a few weeks’ time.    Game on!

Easter Saturday I went round to Panxika’s to pick up the keys to the garage.  We went to check out the garage.  Ample space for my tools and Michel’s car, with enough left over for me to store a bike (my last one got stolen when I left it chained to the same lamp-post for three months over the winter and ) and back up supply of wood for the winter months (I live on the third floor of a residence with no lift, so buying wood in bulk is problematic – whenever I explain the situation the price for a cubic metre of wood  doubles from around 50-60 Euro to more than 100 – not surprisingly given the extra work involved in hauling it all up three flights of stairs).  The only downer is that Jean Pierre, who worked the garden before me, has already sold all his tools. But I have the double benefit of a garden 100m away from my home and free storage space.  Having the tools on tap would be like the winning the roll-over ball on the lottery.   Opening and closing the garage doors is in itself a tactile experience – they are old style, concertina-design, wooden doors, the kind I associate with 1930s black and white movies.  I imagine these garages could have been built when people wealthy enough to run a car also had a uniformed chauffeur:  ‘We’ll need the Roller tonight, James’ .  It certainly feels like a new door has opened.