Literal translation
to smoke the mallows
Meaning
to be dead and buried
Explanation
The Provençal equivalent of pushing up daisies : being dead and buried. The image of the deceased accessing plants from below is classic, here with mallows, small purple flowers once common in cemeteries before chrysanthemums became the custom. Double irony : the dead man smokes their roots like cigarettes while also feeding them, the other sense of fumer being to fertilise the soil.