Bread for my wild pigs

In my wood I have cyclamens - a purple glow in the dark autumn understory. They belong to the family of Primulas, and it's easy to think of them as autumn Primroses.

In many languages they are know as pigbreads - I guess because the storage organ is an underground tuber, which pigs might like to snuffle. There are around 20 species, most of which are found in southern Europe. In the Dordogne we have the hardy Ivy-leaved Cyclamen (Cyclamen hederifolium) - hedera being the latin for ivy. I'm not sure if it has spread here naturally, or has been introduced by gardeners.

Cyclamens are known to self-seed and spread quite easily, but I only have a few small patches. Maybe the wild boar are keeping them at bay, as I see their snout marks round about. My neighbours are faring much better in their front garden.

I read that Cyclamens are one of the species eaten by caterpillars of the Gothic Moth (Naenia typica). I will put out my moth traps this year, with the hope of catching some.

Delayed gratification

My apple scions have taken well in their first year, and now rest for the winter. Looking at them, you might wonder why they have no branches. The reason is I have cut them off. My trees are on vigourous franc seedling rootstock, and are expected to grow to at least six metres. This enables the trees to have lower branches that are high enough to walk under and allow management of the meadow below using machinery (or livestock). I would like them to be at around 1.6 to 1.8 metres off the ground, so the trees need to grow to over two metres before I allow branches to grow. I will also need the trunks to be sufficiently thick and supportive.

The process of trunk formation goes as follows: in the first winter the scion branches (known as feathers) are cut back to two or three buds (a technique called snagging). Snagging allows foliage to grow the following the year to produce energy to thicken the stem. The following year, these branches can be cut back to the trunk (lopping) to prevent them growing and competing with the upward growing stem (the central leader). The feathers from the new year's growth are then snagged. This process, a balance between providing energy for the trunk to grow broad whilst not competing with the central leader so it can grow high, will continue each year - until my trunks have reached at least two metres and are strong enough for three or four staggered branches to be selected to grow and radiate out from the trunk at the required heights. If a stem grows too vigorously, and is too thin, it can be cut back to a side shoot which can grow into a new central leader. Trunk formation may take three or four years, so it will be some time before I enjoy apple blossom. It's what psychologists call delayed gratification.

Island gardening

My friends in neighbouring villages often complain about how hard it is gardening here - they push a spade into the soil, and hit hard stone just below the surface. But my experience is one of deep soft soil, in which I have been able to plant 26 trees - and all the tree species currently there seem to flourish. I wondered why the difference? On the map I see we live on a raised area of land at the head of the streams that run down to the Dordogne and Vézère Rivers. Maybe that explains it.

We moved here at the right time. Had it been 100 million years earlier, we would have found ourselves submerged in the warm shallow sea which then covered most of the area now called France.

That was the age of the dinosaurs, who waded through the marshy landscape. In Angeac, 100 km north-west of us, excavations over the last 12 years have yielded the bones of the largest dinosaurs to be found in Europe - estimated to have been up to 33 metres in length and weighing up to 85 tonnes.

The dinosaurs walked the land for the next 34 million years, in the period known as the late Cretaceous, whilst in the shallows microscopic animals lived and died and left their calcium rich remains on the beds - solidifying to form layer upon layer of limestone. This scene was brought to a catastrophic end 66 million years ago, when a huge meteor struck the earth, where Mexico now is, resulting in the destruction of most of life on earth - known as the 'Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction'. The dinosaurs disappeared (with the exception of some of those which had evolved feathers, and went on to evolve into a diversity of birds) but there survived primitive flowering plants, insects, amphibians and small reptiles and mammals.

Continued movement of the earth's crust and its collisions caused areas of Europe to be lifted up, including a broad flat plateau now known as the Massif Central. Erosion of these lands formed sediments which, during the Eocene period 56 to 34 million years ago, were washed into the shallow seas of Perigord and blanketed the limestone. France began to have mass and take shape, and on this the flowers, birds and mammals flourished and radiated.

The earth grew cooler, sea levels fell, and erosion continued. Rain washed sediments towards the sea and cut into the soft limestone forming rivers, cliffs and caves - leaving between them plateaus known as causses.

Away from the reaches of the rivers and streams, the surface layers were not washed away. A look at a geological map shows that the area between the Dordogne River to our south and the Isle River to our north is a patchwork of Eoecene sediments, surrounded by Creataceaous limestone. We live on an island of sediment at its southern edge - an island of soil for gardening - with limestone below. 

I decided to look at the composition of our soil. I first analysed soil from the edge of the orchard which slopes down to the road, where I have planted my plum trees, which seems sandier than elsewhere. Maybe years of rain and erosion have leached the finer soil particles out and down the hill, or sand from the higher part of the orchard has been washed down (as clay particles can bind more tightly and resist erosion). The soil in the upper part of the orchard is indeed heavier, being more moist and even waterlogged in winter. I collected a trowel full from a mole hill, shook it up with some detergent in a jar of water and put marks where the sediment settled after 1 minute (sand), 2 hours (silt) and 48 hours (clay). A simple calculation told me that this soil is 85% sand, 12% silt and 3% clay.

The United States Department Of Agriculture triangle can be used to clasify soil texture. It shows this soil to be a loamy sand - a light soil which drains quickly and is therefore low in plant nutrients. I will need to watch the trees here during droughts, and add fertilizer as required. I guess the soils in the higher and main area of the orchard, and the rest of the garden, are probably sandy loams or sandy clay loams - good well balanced soils which avoid the extremes of hardening from clay and infertility from sand, and are regarded as the best soils for gardening.

Another important feature of soil is its pH - a measure of its acidity or alkalinity on a scale that goes from 0 (most acidic) to 14 (most alkaline) with 7 being neutral. Here is my simple understanding of pH: water molecules contain two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom (H2O). These molecules randomly bump into each other resulting in some losing the 'postive' part of a hydrogen atom to become negative -HO, whilst others gain a postive part of a hydrogen atom to become positive +H3O. Acids are molecules that are postive, and can donate hydrogen; alkalines are those which are negative, and can accept hydrogen. In pure water these charged molecules are in equal concentration, neither acid nor alkaline - a neutral pH of 7. Rain water is not neutral. As it falls through the atmosphere carbon-dioxide, among other chemicals, dissolves into it and increases the proportion of H+ by forming carbonic acid - decreasing the pH of rain to around 5.6, medium acidic. The reaction of the chemicals in the soil with rain water will also affect pH, and this will determine the amount of elements in a form available for absorption by plants. For most plants a pH just below neutral is optimum for the availability of the elements they need to grow and reproduce.

I tested the pH of the soil, and I interpret the colours on the wick on the far left as representing a pH of around that of rain water at 5.6. This might be expected for a sandy soil, as it is very porous and small particles which might increase alkalinity will be leached by rain. The measure here is basically the pH of rainwater around large particles. Maybe the heavier soils in the main part of the orchard have a higher pH - which would be ideal. 

I will analyse soil from other areas of the garden in Spring. In the meantime, I'll be content gardening on my Eocene sediment surrounded by my Eocene flowers, birds and mammals, looking down at my Cretaceous dinosaur neighbours in the valley below.

Meadow management

Our land consists of around 0.9 hectares of meadows, which need to be managed. In summer, usually mid- to end-June, the local farmer cuts about 0.6 ha for hay. Freshly cut, the hay contains about 85% moisture and would spoil by fungal infection if left in piles - so it's spread and 'tedded' to dry to about 20% humidity before being compressed into watertight bales for storage. (Moist hay can be fermented into silage - a bit like saeurkraut - and is often seen as bales covered in plastic). Unfertilized meadows such as mine stuggle to produce more than 3 tonnes of hay per hectare, so the farmer probably takes a maximum of 2 tonnes - though that's still enough to feed one cow for one year. He then leaves the grass to grow until the following summer.

In traditional farming, livestock are introduced into meadows after the hay cut to graze until winter (when they will feed on the stored hay). The happy side-effect of this system is that spring flowers are allowed to grow and seed before cutting, and the subsequent grazing provides space and light for their germination and growth. Over hundreds of years this has created semi-natural meadows with a great diversity of flowering plants. I do not have livestock, so my grass grows thick through the summer and the diversity of plants remains low. At least the umbellifers thrive and provide a place for insects to alight and feed.

The small hay meadow behind the house is just under half of the area cut by the farmer. I have decided to graze it after the summer cut to increase plant diversity. I am converting two-thirds of the meadow into an orchard. Here I leave the grass cuttings along the tree rows to allow their nutrients to seep back into the soil to feed their roots, whereas in the meadow between the rows I take away the cuttings to maintain the low fertility which restricts the fast-growing grasses that compete with flowering plants. In a few years, when the trees are big enough, the farmer will abandon the summer hay cut here - and I will need to do this the traditional way using a hand scythe. I could give the hay to a neighbour who has horses or goats.

I am left with 0.3 ha of meadow which the farmer doesn't cut, which was kept as a lawn by mowing throughout the year. This year I let it all grow, to see which flowers are present. I identified areas of diversity, and have selected those which I will grow in future as islands of flowers within the lawns.

To 'graze' all these meadows I purchased a surrogate big red cow of a beast - the tractor mower.

Each year I will need to remove the cuttings from the 0.3 ha area of orchard and lawn in which I want to enhance plant diversity. Although in half of this area the bulk of grass is removed by the farmer's summer cut, there's still a lot of grass to dispose of - I guess 0.2 ha of full season's growth. That would yield 0.6 tonnes of summer hay, based on my earlier estimate, and the subsequent growth added could bring the total to over one tonne of dried cuttings. I read that one tonne of loose hay takes up about 15 m3. My grass is not left to dry but stored moist, so the extra water will add to volume. On the other hand, the weight of the moisture will compact the grass more. So, 15 m3 per tonne is probably a good estimate (that's 15 times the volume of pure water which, as you know, weighs 1 tonne per m3).

My storage solution was to build bays out of wooden pallets; a series of three, with a total volume of around 17 m3 - in theory enough space to store all my meadow cuttings. Unlike the farmer, I do not mind if the moisture causes rotting - that's how I can reduce the volume. However, to avoid a sludge forming I cover the heap with tarpaulin and regularly add shredded cardboard waste to provide some structure. 

The result was beyond my expectations. A few weeks after filling the first bay the volume had reduced dramatically - presumably from compaction, moisture evaporation and ingestion by organisms - such that there was room to put in the cuttings from the following cut. I now have a system where I can stagger the areas cut through the season (which spreads the work load) and use the degradation to manage the level in only one bay - with the option to spill over to a second bay if necessary. This has freed up space for the other meadow waste - the leaves that fall from the trees. Although I do not collect the leaves that fall in the wooded areas, to encourage fungi and microorganisms, I remove them from the areas where I want to keep a lawn aesthetic. I collect them with the mower, which shreds them, and put them in a bay, where I further shred them with a stimmer - like making soup. This all helps, as the degradation of leaves to mold is a slow process relying on fungal activity. As fungi require moisture, the bay is left uncovered.

I use the shredded leaves and mold as mulch for my fruit trees, to suppress the grass that competes with them for water and to reduce soil evaporation.

One day I may use the decomposed meadow cuttings as compost, to fertilize vegetables in a yet unbuilt vegetable garden. I am reluctant to dig up the potager meadow, and lose the flowers and the wildlife they support, just to grow food I can afford instead to buy - but if man's instinct to forage his own food doesn't force a decision, Marianne's desire to cook delicious homegrown food definitely will.

Trespassers

We have no gate or fence at the front of our garden, so anyone could stroll in unvited - and that's exactly what is happening! I set up my night camera, and caught these two youngsters hanging around outside our kitchen window.

They are Roe Deer (Capreolus capreolus).

A Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) also strolled in and marked our box hedge as his territory.

This Hare (Lepus europaeus) seemed rightly nervous at his incursion.

The Marten seemed much more at home. I don't know if it's a Beech Marten (Martes foina) or a Pine Marten (Martes martes). The latter has a more continous and creamy coloured breast patch, and a darker nose - difficult to see under infrared light.

Martens also enjoyed frollicking on our lawn.

Adult Roe Deer 'bucks' nibbled our roses.

A mother Fox brought her young cubs along - one of them learning to hunt on its own.

Badgers waddled in to scour for worms.

If life is so tough outside the garden that trespassers need to come in - then I take the approach that a little charity would not go amiss.

Foxes feast on the dog biscuits and water I leave out for them.

Martens also quench their thirst, though they seem suspicious of the Hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus).

Some trespassers are more brave, and walk through in broad daylight. We eye each other, knowing this is as intimate as we can ever become.

Flowering insects

Why do people get so excited about orchids? They will point out a wild orchid whilst ignoring a larger and more colourful flower growing nearby. Orchids are not unusual - they form the largest group of flowering plants, with over 25,000 species. They can be locally rare, but of the 50 rarest plants in the UK only three are orchids. There must be something else which enthralls us.

Once, the earth was covered with plants only of shades of green, brown and orange, with simple flowers - like 1970s wallpaper. Then came a psychedelic revolution. Insects began searching for protein-rich pollen for food and carried it from flower to flower on their bodies, increasing pollination which before had relied on the wind. The most successful flowers were those which attracted most insects and maximised pollen uptake - resulting in the evolution of bright colours, scents, and intricate shapes and patterns. This is where the orchids excelled - they became the extreme essence of flowers and advertised the promise of sweet nectar or sex. However, orchids can be great deceivers, and they may not provide food or sex to thank the insects for their efforts. I think orchids draw us in because they exude something familiar beyond beauty - an abstraction of the animals that move through our lives. It is as if they could move without the wind.

In our first Spring in the house, at the end of March, we noticed an orchid on the front lawn: a Green-winged Orchid (Anacamptis morio). We were very excited, and thought of ways we could protect it. But as March turned to April more and more appeared in the garden, until there were hundreds around the house - particularly in the small hay meadow (where in future they will grow between the rows of fruit trees). By flowering early, they are one of the few flowers available for emerging queen bumblebees to visit and pollinate - but they deceive them and do not provide nectar.

As April progressed, patches of Tongue Orchids (Serapias lingua), a Mediterranean species, appeared in front of the hill meadow and among the trees by the small hay meadow. They are pollinated by a small black bee, Ceratina cucurbitina, which they sexually decieve by producing chemicals similar to its mating pheromones.

At the edge of the large hay meadow, a small group of Burnt Orchids (Neotinea ustulata). They attract Tachinid flies for pollination with a scent like honey, but again deceive them by not providing nectar.

Tucked away in the trees by the small hay meadow, a woodland orchid - Narrow-leaved Helliborine (Cephalanthera longifolia). It is pollinated by deceiving solitary bees such as Halictus and Lasioglossum for food.

April turned to May and, in the oak wood, a single Greater Butterfly-orchid (Platanthera chlorantha). This orchid does produce nectar, but it is found at the bottom of a 30mm long tube, and it produces a vanilla scent, but at night. Both of these facts have lead to the assumption that the orchid is pollinated by insects with a long proboscises, at night - moths.

I did not need to search for Pyramidal Orchids (Anacampus pyramidalis) as they were growing in the gravel under a tree in the courtyard. They are also pollinated by lepidoptera, which they provide with nectar.

Then appeared some orchids which take sexual deception to incredible extremes - the Bee Orchids (Ophrys). They are mostly Mediterranean and, despite looking totally unique in their complexity, there are around 200 species - making them the largest group of orchids. The flowers mimic the form and sex pheromones of female bees, and male bees will pollinate the flowers whilst trying to copulate with them. Each species mimics a different specific pollinator. The bees do become wise to this trick, and only around ten percent of flowers are pollinised each year - but each flower will produce thousands of seeds.

On our front lawn grow a number of common Bee Orchids (Ophrys apifera). They attract the solitary bee Eucera longicornis.

Take a closer look. It really is a little furry lady bee.

On a bank at the edge of the small hay meadow a bunch of Early Spider-orchids (Ophrys sphegodes). It's pattern is very variable over Europe, and 16 sub-species have been described. It is not pollinated by spiders though, but by the miner bee Andrena nigroaenea.

Anyone can see it is a cuddly little solitary bee, not a spider.

Like the Spider-orchids, other orchids are described by the animals we see in them - not the insects they attract. Growing out of the bank of the front drive I noticed a Man Orchid (Orchis anthropophora). It is mainly pollinated by small beetles and sawflies.

Indeed the flowers do look like little men - with cycling helmets.

Entering the height of summer, in June, a few Lizard Orchids (Himantoglossum hircinum) sprouted next to the ageing Bee Orchids on the front lawn. They are not pollinated by lizards (though there are plenty close by) but are believed to be food-deceptive, given off an attractive scent to attract mainly bees - but not providing nectar. The latin name hirsinum means 'smelling like a goat'.

The flowers really are reclining lizards. But with cycling helmets?

Just when it seemed summer was over, in September, large numbers of Autumn Lady's Tresses (Spiranthes spiralis) spiralled their way out of the front lawn and garden. Their fragrance, close to vanilla or almonds, attracts a wide variety of bees for pollination - and they are rewarded with nectar.

I used to think orchids were plants of nature reserves, requiring a special trip to protected places - but they are all around us. We have enjoyed eleven species in our garden alone. What will we see if we walk outside...?

Going native

Our land is now free of christmas trees. Time to plant some natives. At the side of the small hay meadow I planted an Elm (here in the foreground) and a Silver Birch (Betula pendula). 

Elms are a much rarer sight than they used to be. In 1910 they began to die. By the end of the century France had lost 97% of its trees. My elm tree is a symbol of 'girl power' in science. I have planted it on the centenary of the discovery of the cause of the disease that was killing the elms - a fungus called Ophiostoma - by an all female team in the Netherlands (thus 'Dutch Elm Disease`): Johanna Westerdijk (the first woman to become a professor in the Netherlands - in 1917, two years before she was allowed to vote), and her two PhD students Bea Schwarz and Christine Buisman. (I was once interviewed for a job at Glasgow University - the successful candidate was a woman working on the molecular taxonomy of elms, and I now wonder if she knew about the female Dutch pioneers).

The Dutch made an Ophiostoma resistance programme from 1928 to 1992, resulting in three highly efficacious cultivars - one of which is 'Nanguen', raised in Wageningen (the Agricultural University where I worked for two years). It is the cultivar most closely resembling native European elms. It was screened in France, where it is now sold under the name Lutèce ('Nanguen' is a contraction of Nancy & Wageningen). I have planted a 'Nanguen'. This cultivar is now being planted for butterfly conservation, namely of the White-lettered Hairstreak (Satyrium w-album) which only lays its eggs on elms. I'm not sure a single tree will attract them, but who knows.

Nearby I have planted a Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia). It should delight with its white flowers in summer, providing food for insects, and in Autumn its red berries will provide food for birds (aucuparia comes from the latin words avis for bird and capere for catching). 

Marianne wanted a Walnut tree. We do have a small one trapped in a hedge in the shade behind the house, but it will never realise its potential - given enough space and light a walnut tree can reach a height of over 30 metres with a trunk over 2 metres in diameter. I have planted a Juglans regia, the so-called Persian Walnut, a native from Europe to China, in the most open space of the front garden, in front of the large hay meadow. We are not alone - in France walnuts are the second orchard crop by area, grown on around 20,000 hectares, and we live in the most important region. I doubt we will be a major supplier of nuts, but we may sit on a bench under the shade of a magnificent crown.

I've also planted some fig trees (Ficus carica), each a different variety - the flavour and smell of the Mediterranean and Middle East. Figs like it sunny and dry. I've planted one by a south facing wall, next to the large hay meadow.

Another two figs are at the side of the potager meadow. I don't know if its the best site, but I live in hope.

Delicious fruit is not a reason to grow figs - because the part you eat is not the fruit, it's a fleshy pod inside which little male and female flowers bloom and form little true fruits when pollinated. The wonder of figs is their need to be pollinated by a fig wasp, Blastophaga psenes.

At the base of the flower pod is a hole. A female fig wasp will fly into the hole, carrying pollen from another fig, and lay her eggs in some of the flowers - whilst at the same time pollinating other female flowers. The wingless males will then hatch first and mate with females before they have hatched. The males will then dig holes in the pod for the females to escape, and then die. Male fig wasps never see the world outside a fig pod. The females fly out, having collected pollen on their way - and the cycle continues. You couldn't make it up!

Postscript:

Back in Basel for Chistmas, I take walks in my local wood - an ancient wetland, now canalized. There, lining a stream, are a number of large elms. One of them has recently been labelled. It says the tree is a White Elm (Ulmus laevis) that is between 200 and 250 years old. This is a species of north-eastern Europe, that reaches its western limit in Switzerland. It is one one of the few elms that can tolerate watterlogged conditions (as this area would have been when these trees were saplings) and it even relies on flooding to transport its seeds. 

A characteristic of the species is that the leaf veins beyond the lobe are undivided.

I can hear you shouting at your computer screen "but Dutch Elm Disease killed all the big elm trees!". Well, many White Elms did not suffer from the disease - not because they are resistant to Ophiostoma, but because their bark contains a chemical called Alnulin which is distasteful to the Elm Bark Beetles (Scolytus species) which carry the disease. The beetles would rather feast on Field Elms and Wych Elms.

The answer to the question 'when is the best time to plant a tree' is 'twenty years ago'. But really, it's never too late to plant a tree - as long as it's a native.