Start gardening (wait…)…NOW

French calendar of saints.I’ve been introduced to this helpful French proverb, in poem format:

11, 12, 13 mai : Les Saints de Glace
Les trois saints au sang de navet,
Pancrace, Mamert, et Servais
Sont bien nommés les saints de glace,
Mamert, Servais et Pancrace.

…which translates to:

11, 12, 13 May: The Ice Saints
The three saints with blood from a turnip,
Pankration, Mamertus and Servais
They’re well named the ice saints,
Mamert, Servais and Pankration.

French calendar of saints - close-up.You might now be wondering how that’s a helpful proverb. There’s an old calendar, with each day named after a different saint throughout the year. These three saints span from the 11th to the 13th of May. They represent the last of the cold weather, so that vegetables can be planted after these three days in May without frost attacking them. I haven’t checked in past years, but this year, the prediction was spot on. The weather was cold on all three days, and snow fell all the way down to 900 metres on the 13th.

Today isn’t much warmer, but the overnight temperature isn’t expected to drop to just 1°C like it did last night. So, gardeners in France, get planting from today because the cold weather has officially finished.

If you’d like to find out more, the calendar thumbnail above links to the full-size saints calendar, and the lower image links to the Wikipedia page for weather saints. Happy gardening!

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About

I'm a technical author, journalist and writer from Australia who has been living in Europe since 2000 and exploring the world from there. My passions are writing, snow sports and travel.