Organic squash and errant crayfish at Le Manoir
I don’t think I have perched a glass of champagne on a compost bin before. But I did today on a visit to the organic vegetable garden at Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons at Great Milton outside Oxford. The occasion was a tour of the vegetable gardens led by their star gardener David Love Cameron (who spoke at the Garden Organic AGM in May) and garden designer Anne Keenan, for a group of Garden Organic’s major donors and Trustees. It was a warm September afternoon, ideal for a garden tour – a fact that I noticed as I cycled out from Oxford, hoping to do the trip in 45 minutes and finding it took 55, including getting lost in Great Milton. Unfortunately I’m not such a regular visitor to Le Manoir that I could find my way unerringly and needed directions from three young people sitting on a bench on the village green.
What fun it was as we were shown the vegetables, the poly tunnels and greenhouses, the areas planted up for the dinner table and those mainly planted up for visitors to look at, to demonstrate the success of an organic kitchen garden in action. 
Quinoa, amaranth, chard, pumpkins and squashes, beans, the herbs, tomatoes, peppers, chillies, a huge range of Japanese salad crops, and much more besides, including of course the composting systems… leaf mould, wormery, bin system. 
The garden has it quirks. There isn’t much in the way of flowers as companion planting, a fact remarked upon by some of our party. Over tea and that champagne, one of the gardeners explained that ‘Mr Blanc is a bit of a purist. He doesn’t like flowers in the vegetable garden…’. Yes there are signs of Mr Blanc’s unique stamp all over it. Admiring the large pond by the main house with lilies and bird sculptures, something that has been there since the 15c to raise fish in, one of the gardeners explained that crayfish were introduced not so long ago… by Mr Blanc himself. Unfortunately they were the wrong sort, not the innocent English variety but the far more aggressive American species. An accident, and one with consequences. They rapidly burrowed through the pond lining and into the stone walls. The pond drained away alarmingly and an urgent cull was launched. Nearly all have been caught and no doubt served with a great flourish in the nearby dining room, but a few remain. Thank goodness it a French man and not a member of staff, who mistook American for British.
