Picking fruit in September

September 2006, there were stil a few dozen plums on the tree and the fig was covered in sweet, dark fruit. This is the time of the Vendage, when everyone is busy gathering in the grapes on the hillside. There seemed to be a lot of flies this year, and my neighbour thought perhaps it was because it was a very sweet cropping year for the Vendage. To reduce the number of insects in the garden, I picked all the remaining plums and a lot of the figs. Plums went to Suzanne who made a German plum cake, and to Louisa who makes vast quantities of confiture. The figs are just devoured for they reach the kitchen door. I also left out a fly trap as directed by Louisa - small containe with sweet syrup water inside, this, along with the fruit picking, seemed to help, but as I discovered later, the fly problem had nothing to do with the fruit or the Vendage: an old, feral, cat had died at the back of the garden. When I told my neighbour, Mickail, that I had found the source of the flies, he immediately denied any part in poisioning it!! Stephane tells me that when he was young, neighbours routinely did away with feral cats and stray kittens. I thought of the multitude of cats, foxes & squirrels that cross my back garden in London, relatively safe and secure. Within a matter of days, the garden became free of Les Mouches, but we have only just begun to enjoy the plum jam from Louisa.