South of France

[antipodes]

Well, back from my holidays in the south west of France, Toulouse area. We had such a hot spell, 40 deg on a couple of days! Even for an Aussie, that's ungodly heat. Just as well there was a river to lie in, beautiful.
I spent many hours in country markets, looking at (ond often buying) home grown peaches, melons, plums, grapes, garlic and of course tomatoes! Every shape and size, I did a lot of seed saving, Marmande, Green Tiger, huge Italian plum tomatoes, Ox Hearts, Black Russians and a curious red and yellow striped one whose name I must look up.
Toulouse and Albi are beautiful, full of red brick houses and great sites to visit. There are lots of medieval villages in the area too, great to wander round.

Came back, harvested 2 boxes of my own tomatoes, but the plants quickly succumbed to late blight - in 3 days they had shrivelled up, all the fruit suddenly rotting and turning brown. I had to dig them all out, not what I wanted to come back to.  :'(  :'( But the plot is still flourishing, with a bumper crop of late beans, crops are much  better now as we have had plenty of rain, raspberries, some late strawberries, courgettes, the last cukes (vines finally died off to mildew), spuds, and loads of lovely green bits - parsley, wild rocket, mint, purslane and even some lettuce, which I never manage to grow and has done all right for once. The bloody vole has eaten all the beetroot, on the whole allotment site. Everyone is fed up with it. Mine are full of little munched out holes. Bardstarts.
And the pumpkins are a delight, 3 Atlantic Giants, 2 Qld Blues, and what I seem to recall is a Black Futsu, which has several fruit on it!!! And there are already 2 Turks Turbans picked. And for the first time, my own melon! OK 2 of them, and the third one was eaten by bloody vole! Still, I felt highly victorious.

Nice to catch up with everyone, and be back on A4A.

[antipodes]

[betula]

Sitting here on a windy English day and your story transported me to those wonderful places....Good food and sunshine....how lovely.

Welcome back..............always a thrill when you have been away to see what the lottie has done for you  :)

[Mrs Ava]

We were just down the coast from you in Coustouge. Beautiful, and agreed, the weather was stunning.  Very depressed to be home.  :(

[Alex133]

Toulouse area sounds lovely, makes England seem so cold and grey, at least you're still in France.