spj

Hello Noisette. Thank you. As there are so many I did wonder if they might thin themselves!

One of our apricot trees this year has set a ton of fruit. I've clusters of 3 / 4 fruit on the same spur. At the moment they are still tiny. Would you thin them? If so when?

Thanks Patf. Looks interesting. And good practice for my French!

I've started including the "black" leafed morning glory (grown for its leaf rather than its flowers) in my summer pots because it makes such a glorious background to other flowering plants. Ours have just died back and I've been digging them out of the pots. Each root ball comes with a load of big fat tubers and I wondered whether anyone has had any luck overwintering the tubers and getting them to sprout into plants the following year? Seems such a waste just to throw them away.

Hello Gavin, all of this sounds horribly harsh, but better to enter into such an initiative with your eyes open. The young people around us who have made a go of it are those who have building skills and who largely target the English community. I do know a woman who came here as a teenager, went to school and college here, is bilingual, likely to marry her French boyfriend and is gradually building up a clientele as beautician, with all the necessary French qualifications. So this has taken her years. In our local town (population about 10,000) there are something like 15 beauticians and hairdressers, so competition is fierce. It will be a real challenge to persuade French people to become your clients. You may like the Pyrenees - so visit them on weekends and put your business bang slap in the middle of somewhere like Eymet in the Dordogne where there are a lot of English. Such an area may also be somewhere where you can use your property development skills and make an attractive gite for additional marginal income (again these days competition is fierce). I now go to a French hairdresser (a salon attached to a Leclerc). When I first came here and only spoke a little French, I used to go to English hairdressers, working from home (probably on the black) earning pin money while their husbands worked as builders. I now pay more than double what they were able to charge. A reconnasissance trip is essential if you seriously want to take this forward.

Thanks for the latest suggestions. I'll try the Mona Lisa then, but I'll also see if I can get some King Ted's from one of the online companies. Who knows, might work, if the summer's not too hot and dry.

Thanks for the extra thoughts guys. No it's not the cooking, it's the raw material. Waxy yellow potatoes are too dense and don't break up enough or get dry enough for either mashing or roasting properly. Yes, you can mash waxy potatoes but they stay heavy, nothing like the milky white light fluffy texture of a good masher. Just needs beating with a fork and him indoors doesn't like milk, makes them too wet. Creme fraiche is better. And for roasting, parboil king teds or roosters til their flesh breaks slightly, toss them in fat, salt, pepper and rosemary in the saucepan and tip the whole lot into a hot pan. Delicious!

Thanks for the thought Pat but I've not found anything here to match the lovely way that Roosters and King Teds get that broken up beautifully crispy surface.

Wildhorses I agree! We've been here 11 years and have yet to find a really good roasting potato. Thanks for the offer, but I'll hope someone comes up with an idea here.

Not sure they are Betty - they look suspiciously yellow fleshed to me!

Yest again I have failed miserably to buy potatoes in the supermarket that will make decent roast or mashed potatoes. As usual they are solid waxy lumps! So I'm wondering about growing a few next year if I can get anything locally that is the equivalent of King Teds or Roosters. NB: we're in Lot et Garonne - maybe only waxy potatoes grow well here. I would love to be told otherwise. Anyone any suggestions please?

Thanks Noisette. Don't know about you but I'm getting really fed up with this weather! Grass and weeds unbelievably long and lush and almost impossible to mow / strim. A few dry warm days would be good.

I'd be grateful for some help / advice please about how to get that tight ball look with the foliage of two youngish olives trees, each about 5 foot high, which at the moment just have a normal spreading canopy. I want them as feature plants, not as trees that will be fruiting and most of the advice on the internet is about pruning with a view to getting them to fruit. Can anyone point me in the direction of a video or article please. Or alternatively describe here what I need to do. Thank you Sue