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The Kitchen Garden at Petit Gennevilliers
Here’s another Sunday evening painting for you. It’s by Gustave Caillebotte who was one of the French Impressionists. He painted this in 1882, and it’s a painting of the allotment gardens at his home in Petit Gennevilliers, not far from Paris.
The Kitchen Garden
I wonder what he’s growing in his kitchen garden … It looks like a warm early summer’s day, and I bet it took a lot of watering to keep his vegetables growing well. I love how he’s planted his fruit trees along the sides - I wonder if they’re apple trees? And I wonder how it looks now …
Helen’s Wonderful Garden
This week the Woollies have been compiling a list of our favourite gardening books, with a little help from our friends on Twitter!
We’ve had lots of wonderful suggestions, some old favourites of our own and some we’ve never heard of, let alone read We’ve had some great offers of book reviews, and we can’t wait! We’ll be reviewing a gardening book each week on Wednesday – “Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom”, not ours of course, but from the great and good, as well as other…errr, shall we say, slightly more grubby gardeners, just like us 
One of the suggestions was from@inoutofmygarden , who suggested, amongst others, the book, “On Gardening” by a wonderful gardener, Helen Dillon.
It was a visit in early summer 1994 to Helen’s garden in the Dublin suburb of Ranelagh, where my childhood interest in gardening became an aspiration which I felt could be realised by anyone constrained by an urban space, for Dillon’s garden, stuffed with wonderful planting isn’t huge; it just seems that way. My Irish husband (at that point boyfriend) and I were lucky enough to briefly meet Helen and her wonderful husband Val, who were both so delighted to show us around. Their passion for plants was obvious.
Even the dustbins look glam!
Here’s a recent video of Helen in the living room that overlooks the garden, talking about her latest planting ideas, with some lovely pictures and music.
All this reminds me that it’s been rather too long since I’ve been in Dublin, so next week I’ll be booking a flight for later in the summer. As well as catching up with family and friends, and downing a few half pints of the black stuff, I’ll be able to tour that wonderful urban garden again. Visit if you can…..even if you have to travel Ryanair, it will be well worth the trip.
Photo Credit: The Garden Wanderer
The Week in Woolly Tweets
Saturday: Sitting on the garden bench in the warm sunshine. And looking at my wisteria flowers about to open. Heaven!
Sunday: “@LevensGardener: Nice white wisteria above the Hall back door” < look at this fabulous wisteria 
Wonderful white wisteria
Monday: Invited post: View From Our Plot: The Spirit of ’77 http://www.woollygreen.com/2012/05/15/view-from-our-plot-the-spirit-of-77/
Tuesday: Just compiling list of our favourite gardening books to review. Any suggestions? [And our thanks to @vintageniki @Sofaflyer @kitchgardengirl @strawbini @antonroid @TenStoriesEmma @PatriciaGill_PR @dctoone @MellyChristi @_NotThisTime_ @bircherbeequeen @inoutofmygarden @gillianpulford @HillierBath for all the great suggestions]
Wednesday: We’ve just posted a collection of acer photos tweeted to Woolly Green. Here they are! Facebook Album
Thursday: Here are my first summer flowers – blue delphiniums
Our first summer flowers
Friday: Woolly Weekend Weather: a game of two halves! Warmer in the south but still need woollies up north 
Click here for our Weather Forecast [to which @Ladsmumandnan replied: "Pack up your woollies in your old kit bag and smile smile smile!"]
View From Our Plot: The Spirit of ’77
My mucker Bill and I have been working hard up at the Dulwich “green gym”, (ours is No. 77 – so we have dubbed it “Spirit Of ’77″ as a nod to our musical roots, as opposed to our gardening ones) and testing the new petrol strimmer. It was only £70 – what a deal! This one will be looked after a bit better – and maybe even given an occasional service, unlike it’s poor dead predecessor.
Ready for a hard day on the plot
Bill taking a breather from digging
Our plot is elevated and slopes – so you can see a cracking view of london on a clear day. Slowly but surely we are improving the London Clay soil with the addition of plenty of organic material.
The potatoes are in, beans are coming up – raspberry canes are trained – onions, garlic etc. all looking good. But no sweetcorn this year, as it failed twice on the trot – so we are giving up on it. Zucca, pumpkin, courgette and tomatoes, all on a bright windowsill waiting to do the magic thing… and my wee leeklings are about four inches tall in under glass.
Raised beds ready to go....
The Australian Sheila indoors wants asparagus of course – but we haven’t got around to planting it yet. Maybe I should say she can have it if she grows it…. as yet she has not turned a spade (and this is very unlikely to happen). Bill and I like it too, but it takes forever to get there, and locks up a bed to boot.
I just love this time of year – everything in the plot seems loaded with promise, and if we have prepared our beds well over winter (and get a decent summer) it will be bonfires and beer through the autumn. Here’s hoping that the Royal Muckings (courtesy of the Household Cavalry) continue to be deposited in our allotment yard well into the future. It’s good stuff. (I resist my natural urge to add a Republican quip.)
The 'smoke' seems a long way from here....
At the moment, in the London area there is both a hosepipe ban AND localised flooding. Couldn’t make it up, could you?
Pleasant Coolness in the Heat …
Last week we posted a painting by Pissaro of his allotment garden … He is my favorite French impressionist painter, and here’s another beautiful painting by him called “Chestnut Trees at Orly”, which he painted in 1873.
You can almost feel the lovely coolness in the shade of the chestnut trees, out of the heat of the afternoon sun, and you can see the beautiful dappled light diffusing through the gently rustling leaves of the trees. I wonder what the two farm workers in the field beyond the trees are talking about … And I wonder what recipe the fallen chestnuts are going into … Maybe something like this vegetable and chestnut casserole …
It seems a world away from the rather gray May we’re having! We hope you like this picture as much as we do…
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