My two new babies

Delivered this morning, by GLS. They are two little cherry trees, one is called ‘Cerisier Bigarreau Hatif Burlat’, and the other ‘Cerisier Summit’. They were delivered without labels so I don’t know which is which, but it doesn’t much matter as they will both yield luscious dark red cherries, one a bit darker than the other if the supplier’s photographs are to be believed.

I’m slightly miffed because they were both supposed to be one metre high but one of them is only half that, as can be seen in the following pics.

Tree 1.

Now tree 2, which is much smaller than the other one.

And not only that, both were in rather poor shape when they arrived due to lack of water. The soil around the larger one’s roots fortunately held together when I planted it in a hole that I’d packed with mulch that I obtained from the old oak leaves that I collected and dumped last year and which is now maturing nicely. The soil around the smaller one’s roots all fell away, though, when I removed it from its pot, so I had to take special care to repack its roots with soil and mulch when I planted it.

I gave both trees a really good watering this morning after I’d planted them and have just given them a repeat soaking a few minutes ago as once again we’ve had a temperature in the region of 34-35 degrees Celsius. So not exactly the best conditions in which to be planting out young trees, but all I can do now is keep a close eye on them.

Our weather was particularly vicious again last night, not surprisingly really as the temperature on both of the past two days went up to 40 degrees Celsius, the highest I’ve experienced it since I’ve been here. The French government has been giving out weather warnings because of it. Because of the extreme temperatures, we had another violent storm last night. It wasn’t forecast to be much but I put waterproof covers over everything in the two ‘tonnelles’ anyway, which were blown off and had to be secured in place.

I was actually out in the dark doing my best to keep everything battened down and dry when there was the most extreme gust that ripped off two tags that secure a side curtain to a metal upright on one of the tonnelles and one in the corresponding corner of the other. I couldn’t get around to repairing them today so I’ll have to do it tomorrow as more extreme weather is forecast for later this week.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. As I’d done previously, I had put a small wooden strut up into the roof of one of the ‘tonnelles’ to encourage the water to run off instead of accumulating like a huge blister and possibly eventually ripping the fabric. Usually, if there has been a large gust, the strut has collapsed, but not on this occasion. It appears that the violent gust was some kind of downdraft because this time it forced the roof fabric down onto the strut and put a 30 cm rip into it.

So so far since erecting my ‘tonnelles’ I’ve had one totally destroyed by violent weather and the other two damaged. I can’t remember early summer weather as violent as this since I came here and at this rate I’ll be lucky to get through the summer with both of my two remaining ‘tonnelles’ intact. And there’s not a lot I can do about it if the weather continues like this because they are just not designed and made to stand up to it.

And my ‘tonnelles’ were not the only things to succumb to the violence of the wind. There are several walnut trees on the land next to mine and as you can see below, one of the smaller ones just couldn’t stand up to it either, probably the same gust that did for my ‘tonnelles’. It wasn’t even just blown over – it’s trunk was totally snapped in half. Amazing.

Yet more thunder and light rain are forecast for tonight but with winds less violent than last night. Gusts up to 20 kmh are forecast for around 5.00 am tomorrow morning but I just hope that I get more sleep than I did last night and my little encampment comes through it unscathed 😐