We are lucky that our Bed & Breakfast in the South of France is blessed with a large garden covered with trees. Magnificent chestnut trees that will provide us with delights next fall (yumm, chestnut jam...), oak trees that already please wild boars, olive trees that have already given oil this winter, plum trees , quince trees... But these beautiful trees don't just have fruit. They also have leaves. Leaves that fall. And that no one had picked up for several years. No one had picked up the chestnuts…
So something had to be done. In Ardeche, if the conditions are good (recent rains, no pollution...), fires are authorized from October to May. So we have been burning leaves for three days to clear the ground!
C'est long, c'est fatiguant, mais le jardin est tout beau tout propre. Nous avons laissé quelques unes d'entre-elles, pour favoriser la formation d'humus et favoriser la repousse, bien entendu. Mais il y en avait trop, les plantes ne pouvaient même plus montrer le bout de leur nez !
It's long, it's tiring, but the garden is all beautiful and clean. Next year, we will do it differently: picking up the chestnuts in October, then burning the bugs. The land will be cleared for the leaves, and we will have less work next year to get rid of them. We may not need to burn them, our neighbor told us he wanted to collect them to make fertilizer!