Provencal Pleasures

A great advantage of living in the South of France is a large choice of local produce like fresh fruit and veges from the markets. Or like us, buying a house which turned out to have Pandora's garden - with fruity surprises all around. The last discovery was the apricot tree which gave us exactly two apricots and which tasted so, so good. Strangely enough the tree has survived our frenzied cuttings when the garden decided to turn jungle on us. We've just learned that fruit trees needs special care and can otherwise die if they are cut in a growth period.

The previous owners left a garden full of whatever plants and fruit trees. It's by all means not a big garden but it's rather packed with a lemon-, pear-, 2 apple trees, a hazelnut-, fig-, plum-, apricot- and a peach tree placed around the house. This might sound a lot, but it's only the peach tree and the lemon tree giving us a good quantity as the other trees seems to have a disease making the leaves black and curled into balls. Considering our gardening skills we'll hand that problem to a gardener this autumn.

Last year the peach tree gave us 14 kg of fruit, this year 16 kg and what on earth can you do with so much fruit apart from making fresh organic peach jam? Luckily my mother in law came that weekend to help us peel some of the peaches. Here are a few photos: From the garden to my Provencal kitchen and into jars.