Hello from Vendée

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I've been lurking for a little while and have decided to take the plunge here.

We live in the depths of rural France with a little land. We keep a selection of chickens and grow a fair amount of fruit and veg, but I reckon we could do a lot more. We're also just about to start a serious reduction in the environmental impact of our house and I've already found some very useful stuff on this forum.

I find the amount of info here somewhat overwhelming, so I apologise in advance if I ask questions that are either really dumb or have been asked 300 times before.

[Kevin]

There is no such thing as a dumb question ,a question that has hundreds of times before just means that more people want to learn more.

Never been to france whats it like for growing plants and vegetables.

Kevin

[Annpan]

Welcome to 'ish

We are all happy to help on here Just don't forget to answer questions for us too... there is no such thing as a stupid question, not on ish anyways

[Shirley]

Hello, and welcome. Glad you decided to take the plunge and start posting :D

Love the username!!

[red]

I love the username too!

welcome

[Millymollymandy]

Bonjour from Brittany!

[old tree man]

hi and welcome

Russ

[chadspad]

Hello from the Vendée also!!

Have just been looking at your site and we are practically neighbours! I live about 20 mins from Fontenay and 10 mins to Chantonnay. Small world eh?

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Never been to france whats it like for growing plants and vegetables.

Kevin

Thank you all for your welcome.

Kevin, I can't comment for France as a whole, but we're about half-way down on the Atlantic coast and have a warm and sunny climate during the summer - enough to be able to grow tomatoes, aubergines and peppers outside without problems.

However, we also get more rain on average than Manchester. The difference is that we get it over 90 days and mostly in the winter while Manchester spreads it over about 180 days.

We've got about an acre. The soil is nicely drained loam over limestone. It's a bit on the shallow side (about a foot deep), but I'm trying take care to avoid errosion.

So far my results have been pretty good, but more by luck than judgement, so I'm hoping to learn quite a bit from this site.

[Green Rosie]

Bonjour from Calvados

[gigglybug]

Hello and welcome

Amanda

[oldfella]

Hello from Lot and I think you will find this a rewarding lurk, welcome.

[theabsinthefairy]

Hello more people in France!

(no wonder the the UK news is full of English households complaining about their waste not been taken away on a weekly basis and having to recycle, most of the enviro aware people seem to have moved over the water!)

Monika

[Frog Lips]

Bonjour