Peter is currently pursuing a self sufficiency project, living in a cabin he built prior to moving to France nine years ago.

      The hut and potager No.1 in the foreground.

He lives on € 50 a week plus petrol and insurance for the car ( no tax in France ), around € 24 a week. A lot of people talk about self-sufficiency without relating the financial constraints of their lives. One often suspects it is well cushioned. His financial constraints have forced him to make real life decisions on what food can be cut out and how often he can go into town ( 15 miles to do his little bit of shopping ).

His food bill is reduced by the food he grows on what he calls four and a half potagers ( vegetable patches ), using organic growing principles.

Potager No1,1st year, with sun shades.                                                            Close up Potager No. 1

Potager No 2, with sun shades                                                                          Close up Potager No. 2

Approximate diet as dictated by health, little money and productivity of potager in first year.

BREAKFAST

Grapefruit, kiwi, dessertspoon of almond paste

LUNCH

onion, lettuce ,chopped raw spinach,dandelion,carrot,cucumber,tomato, chopped cheese or hard boiled egg yolks, sprouted wheat crackers.

SUPPER

Perhaps boiled potatoes and carrot or vegetable soup ( a favorite ! ).

This diet is fairly unvarying and only occasionally palls. It is designed to be alkalinising to compensate for a lifetime of acidosis.

THE COMPENSATIONS

An incredibly beautiful place in which to live.

The Glacier that formed the Lot valley flows again !                                             Looking North, down the field and across                                                                                                                                                              the valley. Much more exciting

                                                                                                                                                                                                         in reality.

That's it for the moment. Peter is quite happy for seriously interested people to camp in his field amongst the juniper, oak and Montpelier Maple and teach him any tricks they may know over a glass of wine ! The potagers photographed are based on barren virgin soil, just dug. Almost zero plant nutrients.                                                               CONTACT him at  lentisque@gmail.com

The big field at the back of the hut. (  To the East )

Le Causse ( limestone plateau ) . Big field, big sky.

                                                                   Further insights into the life of a ......

Drop Pit Loo                                              Shower, Seedling spray,                Electric lighting, Six windup                                                                         Fire Extinguisher                                    LED  torches                                                                      

3 rd  Potager  with autumn crop, pots, leeks,             Weather end covered in polyethelene                 Kitchen

 haricot, with 1000 litre citerne.                                     sheet, has unexpected greenhouse effect,

                                                                                               heating up the chipbord wall .

Global cooling over sunny Aveyron !     New wheat patch, nothing happening !            Autumn turns the landscape                                                                                                                                                                                      dry ( not always )

Clearing for Potagers Nos 5,6,7           Winter wheat appears at last !                   Christmas   2008  arrives at Les Vieux

                                                                                                                                                                            Genevrievres

Parsnips ( the potato replacement ) in Sept. '09 They suffered              Potager no. 1 in Sept.'09 2nd planting after heat. Lots of little

scorching in July/Aug. and grew a new set of leaves in Sept.                winter   lettuce you can't see yet.

No blight in spite of being surrounded by Juniper !

Bob's Barrel

The Barrel in the backround is nicknamed Bob's barrel after Bob Flowerdew  www.bobflowerdew.co.uk   who reckons he got the idea from the Romans ! It's filled with water, weeds, urine, and wood ash. After a month or two it produces a wicked dark brown liquid and compost which has killed the weed seeds.  Its responsible for the nice well balanced green growth of the parsnips. Recommended  !

In fact in this very dry climate Bob's barrel has rather taken over from the traditional compost heap which spends a lot of its time dry and not composting.

A rare glimpse of hut interior NW corner