Some months are counted in days. Others, in seasons. On André’s hillside, they’re counted in seasons.
Since late August, we’ve followed André and Caramelo step by step: the soil turned over, the cloves carefully separated one by one during l’égrenage, planted by hand through a cold December, then defended against a spring’s worth of weeds — while a certain dog learned, with varying degrees of success, the delicate art of “not pulling up everything in sight.”
And now it’s June. The leaves are turning gold, the earth cracks gently under the summer heat, and on this hillside overlooking the Castres plain, something has quietly finished ripening.
This is the moment every farmer waits for, but never rushes: the harvest. The moment the earth finally gives back what was entrusted to it nine months earlier. André knows it well — you don’t yank a garlic bulb from the ground. You invite it out.
And then there’s the art of the braids — a gesture passed down from father to son for three generations, one no book or tutorial could ever truly teach. A patient gesture, almost a tenderness, that hangs the whole summer between the barn’s old wooden beams.
Follow André and Caramelo — one braiding away, the other, true to form, finding a shady spot under the old lime tree to supervise the work… from a safe distance.
