Hi everybody, I live in SW France and am only just starting to set up my veggie garden, which is hard work as I have clay soil full of stones.

Will be needing lots of help and advice

Bonjour,
You will get plenty of great advice and help on here. I am only just getting started to and already hooked

Welcome to the vine Solitaire.
Any questions needed, just fire away. There are a few grapes who live down your way, so may well be able to help with specific questions, as well as the general info you will gain from here.
Good luck with the stones, I think thats the case throughout France, not just where you are.

Welcome to the Vine Solitaire. Bob is right about the stones, I think it's just a case of how many rather than will there be any

Once you get the soil in a better condition it will make it easier to dig next year

Have fun with the veggies.

Thanks for the welcome I have lots of questions, books are all right, but other peoples experience is better.

As for the stones I have a massive pile, not really certain what I'm going to do with them

Welcome Solitaire and you have my sympathy as far as the stones go! I've used them as drainage in pots of course and to weigh down pots of plants in the pond. It curtailed my ability to grow root veg in the first few years, but with more and more manure and compost, less stones are coming to the surface.

'dem stones, dem stones them dry stones......'

Printemps I can't beieve how many stones and rocks there are everytime I dig over I find more

Solitaire, get used to it. 4 years I've lived here, and still digging them up.
I recently found an entire tree, that had probably been bought onsite to build the original roof of the house, and had been surplus to requirements and just left on the deck.
The first records of my place are late 1600's so there is every chance that the tree was living during the crusades etc. Would love to get it dated though, just to know.

I've found all sorts buried in the ground, even some broken roofing tiles, which is strange as the land I'm working never belonged to the house, it was bought from another person and was a hay field .

I've always said it's like a Time Team dig over here , you never know what you will dig up

Welcome to the madvine Solitaire, maybe you'll find a dinosaur

Hi there- and welcome to the Vine!!

Our area was used as a WWII ammo store - pre Falaise attack hundreds of ammo trucks were stored down our road....we were warned to be careful when digging deep as a few bits and pieces of ammo have been found about the place- presumably 'fell off a lorry???'

Good job we have a metal detector- only managed to find the old fosse septic and some bits of barbed wire- and old nails.

Our area has granite boulders- up to 3 m in diameter- dumped all over the place from a previous ice-age - most of the farmers have moved them to the side of the fields...must have been difficult to farm the area with just horses- no wonder it's mostly a dairy region!!

Hi Sollly!!!!!!
I'm in SW France too ....but further east than you............welcome

Hi Solitaire,

Sounds like you have the same location(SW France-I live 20km from Montauban) and the same soil(clay),stones and rubbish underfoot.I too am just about to embark on a bit of self sufficiency and being a virgin gardener will be needing advise and guidance. I have a field of couch grass which I have treated with weed killer.After removing the weeds by manual labour(digging over and hand picking the roots out) I am going to remove the stones by rotavating. Maybe we can exchange methods,results etc.

Hi fellow Frenchies there are a lot of you on here

Andy, I don't envy you with couch grass it's horrible stuff and trying to get all the roots out is murder