Even though our recent tour of Europe was fairly whirlwind, there was time to look at the gardens of the northern hemisphere and compare them to garden life Down Under. There were some wonderful sights and a couple of surprises.
We stayed in Spain, not on the plain but in a tiny fishing village called Leiketio situated on the top of the Bay of Biscay. Flowers are grown in pots on the balconies of the houses which produce a wonderful and colourful display and even cabbage trees are grown here too.
The soil is fairly sandy and vegetables like tomatoes and chillies are grown on allotments outside the village. It was surprising that very few herbs are grown, I thought it would be an ideal climate for herbs of all varieties but, no, they are dried and shipped to the supermarket from Bilbao. And I didn't see any herbs growing on kitchen windowsills as they are here.
The staple diet is protein, protein and protein. In this part of the country they don't 'do' a meal of meat and vegetables, it's all seafood and salad. In fact the supermarkets in Spain have gorgeous fish displays but I thought their fruit and vegetable departments weren't very impressive at all. The produce looked tired and I was surprised because I had always thought of Spain as the citrus centre of Europe but I guess that's all in the southern part of the country.
We skipped over the Pyrenees to France for a quick visit to Lacanau, a little beach resort on the other side of the Bay of Biscay. And the gardens? There aren't any around here because the soil is too sandy so all the fruit and vegetables are imported from Bordeaux. However, as we were driving through other parts of France, the more formal gardens we glimpsed were very pretty.
Over to England and Scotland and it was really noticeable that whatever land is available, even pocket handkerchief-sized sections, are made the most of. Herbs, salad crops and vegetables are grown on the ground and in what to me were very large raised, boxed, gardens. They make the most of the productive summer months for obvious reasons, it's too cold to grow much outdoors in winter. We stayed in Hereford, near the Welsh border, and a lot of the local produce is available in the local supermarkets.
The farmers' or produce markets in both the UK and France have everything from local food produce to clothing, crafts and knick-knacks. It's as much a social occasion to visit these markets as an opportunity to buy things.
At the end of a great trip it was good to return home to my garden and realise just how wonderfully productive we are in this end of the world, especially now that spring has made her appearance once more.