Food & Place
Every spring, in two large flower pots in my Saint Montan garden, I grow the attractive climbing plant dipladenia, bearing red, pink, or white, trumpet-shaped flowers. Dipladenia grows quickly in the south of France and each plant soon twists its stems around the 2 metre-high tripod in its pot to make an attractive display. By…
Read More
In my first book on herbs, RECIPES FROM A FRENCH HERB GARDEN, I list the twenty herbs from basil to verbena that often play a role – sometimes as stars that top the bill plus others as minor or supporting actors – in the kitchens of France. All culinary herbs have an individual character: in…
Read More
Paved paths and neatly-mown lawns provide ready-made and attractive edges to beds and borders in a herb garden. But in the Saint Montan Jardin du Curé we use gravel on the paths – it’s local, inexpensive, and part of the landscape. So the junction between cultivated ground and consolidated earth wanders somewhat each year depending…
Read More
By 8 a.m, there’s already a queue at the plant stall in my local street market. Boxes of seedling lettuces and pencil-slim leeks, hand-high plants of aubergines and sweet peppers are disappearing fast while pots of young tomatoes, cucumbers and artichokes are carried away by keen gardeners to be planted out in potagers and vegetable…
Read More
GERALDENE HOLT 