From the veg patch we have the first of the purple sprouting broccoli joining the asparagus:
In the countryside the early purple orchids (orchis mascula) are out and, if you look in the dappled light along walkways, tiny dog-violets (viola riviniana) are hiding:
We have a friend who sometimes says on her Facebook page that she has lost a day. Well, for me I lost a whole month. I mean, where did February go? January seemed endless and yet here we are mid-March. The horta, however, has not weeded or pruned itself so I must have done something down there! Richard recently strimmed everywhere and it does look so much better, with lots of cleared, empty beds waiting to be filled.
But, as always in the gardening world, it’s win some, lose some. I dug up the horseradish recently. It has never done really well, and no fear of it spreading, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been too surprised to discover that the roots had gone rotten. It was just beginning to sprout but there was nothing edible. It seems to be one of the easiest plants to grow but, unlike most of the plants I shove in the ground, it wasn’t happy. There is a slight dip in the ground where it was planted and despite the good drainage perhaps it just got too much water. Ah well. I did manage to save a couple of small roots that looked okay and have put them elsewhere. We’ll see.
So on a more positive note the asparagus is shooting up, a mixture of great stocky stalks and thin lanky stems, all very tasty though. Plus, although I have always known that broccoli (calabrese) gives out extra shoots having had the main stalk cut, I hadn’t realised how long they do this for, and just how big the off-shoots become. We have been eating from plants put in the garden from the summer, a real cut-and-grow-again veg.
Meanwhile the temperatures are hitting the high 20s, during the day of course. But those lovely clear skies are still giving us frosts at night, and more than just ground frost. This has meant every evening all the seedlings have to be put away at night, not a small task now that most things have germinated and been potted on. We bought one set of plugs, some beans, and I chose to leave those out. Well, the outer leaves have been frost bitten, I’m just hoping they’ll be okay. Then of course every morning out everything comes again. There’s something very exciting about this time of the year though, all those little seedlings bursting through the soil. I look at a tiny purple sprouting broccoli and glance over at the four sown last year, over a metre tall and almost ready to eat, and am always amazed.
Oh and we have also bought some more ‘roasties’ and 4 more ducklings, but they’re another story…
March is upon us and we are starting to feel the warmth on our faces and the shorts have made their first appearance of the year (the legs won’t be shown on the blog for a while yet mind, thankfully). However, one of the gang hates the warmer weather and is always looking for an opportunity to cool off…
However, in addition to Betty, she has a new companion on our daily walks. Teddy II, who lives in the village has decided to join us. He’s always waiting for us when we set off and then after the walk he goes back home! Here he is doing one of his favourite activities.
On the walk last week we spotted a Giant Orchid, a telltale sign that spring is finally here.
Meanwhile in the garden, although we have had daffodils for ages, more are popping up every day and they are now being joined by the irises. Most pleasing of all, however, is the appearance of the tree blossom – blackthorn, peach, apricot, almond and here is the ornamental plum.
The courtyard has a new member. Jackie planted an avocado stone in a pot a few years ago and we kept it in the bathroom. It grew and grew and grew. And despite constant pruning to limit its size, it has simply outgrown its surroundings and so now has to survive outside. It should be OK for the summer but I can’t see it lasting the winter. We shall see.
The orange trees in the courtyard are still going strong and despite me making litres and litres of juice, the oranges keep coming!
Finally a few more shots of the hairy ones.
Admittedly the locals call Jussi “el gordo”, the fat one, however, I don’t know why she looks quite so lardy in this shot – she’s not that bad! It’s just her thick coat she says.
Last summer some friends of ours recommended us to a film company who was looking for people who had renovated an old farmhouse in central Portugal. They emailed us asking us if we were interested in appearing and then the producer and director came round to the house for a look round and to ask us about our project.
The premise of the show was that a couple from the UK wanted to buy a similar place to ours and renovate it. The people at the film company then showed the couple three or four suitable properties. They also wanted a short segment showing a couple who had already done it – that was our bit. So the producer returned again later that week with the film crew and spent two hours interviewing us and filming at the house.
Last October our moment of glory arrived and the show was broadcast on UK TV’s Channel 4. Two hours filming reduced to… one and a half minutes! Ah the price of fame. Anyway here is our bit.
This year we are hoping to spend more time at River Cottage, our little ‘project’ by the lake. The walls and roof are pretty much done so next up are the woodworking projects – doors, a veranda, and places to sit and admire the view. So here are my newest Adirondack chairs – version 3. They’ve actually changed so much they are not really Adirondack chairs at all. Made out of old pallets, of course, they are comfy and a welcome addition to the collection.
I ended up with a few extra bits of pallets so I also made a frame for our bathroom mirror.
Of course we keep all our food scraps for the compost so I’ve also been busy in the kitchen making this ‘sort of’ cupboard which keeps everything out of the way. It hinges at the bottom which makes it easy to use and it doesn’t take up any room. It’s also home to our bottles for recycling. A neat idea which I have to admit Jackie found on one of her favourite websites: pinterest.com
Mr Jack Frost has been nipping at our noses for long enough. Pretty the mornings may be but the constant sub-zero temperatures are giving many of the plants a hard time. The bougainvillea, flowering not so long ago, has black, shrivelled leaves. The lavender tips are drooping. The cactus plants don’t seem to be the right colour any more. So enough, no more! (I’ve just glanced at the weather forecast, looks like he’ll be around for a tad longer).
The chickens seem nonplussed, giving us 3 or 4 eggs a day. Huddled together in their hut at night their feathers keep them snug, it’s the high temperatures they dislike. Topping up their feed and cracking open their water leaves my fingers numb. The other day I realised I’d left my wellies outside the front door all night, frozen feet in an instant!
There is always a silver lining. Cloudless days have also meant lunch outside, walks on the beach and gardening in the sunshine.
Which has got me thinking about the plant of the year award (I know many of you are waiting with baited breath 🙂 !) The garlic call out to be nominated. This year, or rather last year, I didn’t buy any new bulbs but planted the ones which were beginning to sprout from those pulled up early summer. I’d planted loads, some were hung up to dry and others (I must remember) were frozen. We’ll be having them for some time yet. So 78 of the 80 planted are well up and good candidates they certainly are but I’d already chosen leeks for 2012, (you can find out why here) and I didn’t want another member of the alium family.
The buttercup squash also wanted the award, we have three left from a good crop, doing well despite the wet weather 2014 threw at us. But as I was pruning the redcurrants, black currants and gooseberries (good with mackerel!) I was reminded of how well they all did over the summer. The raspberries, now either cut down or tied up depending if autumn or summer varieties, also did well. They have spread and given us extra beds for free. The strawberries were large and luscious. We still have bags of most of them in the freezer (I must remember) including blackberries. So the award goes to the soft fruit. You need a little patience but once established it’s only a touch of pruning and mulching to keep them going. And what is nicer than eating raspberries straight from the bush?
I think the sloes are also included in this category (I know blackthorn is a member of the plum family but it’s a shrub rather than a tree) so will toast the fruit with a glass of our pink sloe gin. Cheers!
We’ve had a much drier and sunnier winter than last year and long may it continue. However the 29th December brought our first frost, followed by another on the 30th resulting in a frozen pond. As you can see it also almost finished off the few remaining leaves of our plane tree which looks transformed from the photos of our last post.
Anyway, we hope you had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our readers!!
It’s a tree, our plane tree! Two years ago we decided to buy a tree for the courtyard. We wanted one that was deciduous so that the winter sun would fall on the other plants, and we wanted one that we would shelter us from the summer sun. It was to be, without doubt, a long term plan. We plumped for a plane tree. We’d seen many around and noticed that they seemed happy to be planted in pavements or cobbled squares, and that their roots didn’t didn’t create bumps on the surface. Well, if any of you are thinking about getting a tree and have little patience this is the tree for you – it’s grown amazingly!
A year ago, with our RHS guide in hand, we pruned the lower branches. Not all the branch mind, only half, the idea being that young trees need as much leaf coverage as possible to help them grow.
To be honest it became a bit of a pain. The branches grew so long and low (despite the pruning) that this year walking from the kitchen to the barbeque area has meant walking off the raised courtyard bit and onto the gravel. There wasn’t room to sit underneath it. It wasn’t so much a tree but a kind of Jack in the Beanstalk reaching every way which.
However, we are pleased to see birds in it and witnessing the new bright green leaves forming so close up is always a treat. Come winter when the leaves turn orange and fall off little poms poms are revealed.
Now we are at peace. The lower branches have been cut off completely and we know that next year we will have a proper, grown up tree in the courtyard – in just 3 years!
…but the ducks are no longer with us to enjoy it.
Yes, Richard has been brandishing his sharp knife and, making the most of a sunny morning, did the deed. D-day for the ducks. One we have had already, friends from Paris popped by last weekend and we enjoyed roast duck and some of our buttercup squash. The other two are in the freezer and one will be on the table for Christmas. Richard has also dispatched two of the fat ‘roasties’, one which we had last night. Seven to go and then that’ll be it until next year. The duck experiment was definitely a success and we will get more now.
Meanwhile the rain, most days, is with us. Faithful readers may well remember that this time of the year we talk about the olive harvest. Well, if there’s one sure thing about living here it’s that there is no such thing as a sure thing. Our olive trees have no olives, nada. Either they fell off during the summer storms or, if they survived that, they rotted on their branches. Not just us of course, most of our neighbours have the same problem so the familiar sound of olive branches being bashed, the familiar sight of those large green nets on the ground and precarious ladders, and the familiar smell from the oil factories is not with us this year. We still have a little oil left over from last year but, for the first time since we arrived here 5 years ago, we’re going to have to buy some oil. Unthinkable! The vineyards roundabout have suffered the same fate so no vino for the locals to drown their sorrows either.
But, talking of roundabouts, there are swings too. The rain has come with mild temperatures which has fooled, yet again, nature. The bulbs are up and the wild iris have flowered. Our buddleia is looking lovelier than it ever has, and the bottle brush is blooming. There is blossom on some of the fruit trees. There is green, green grass.
Our new hens are no longer allowed on the patch of land where their hut is to allow the grass to grow. Richard has set up a tunnel system whereby they go into the next door field. That’s worked well. One has been moulting quite badly and lost its tail, it got very offended when we laughed at it.
We end on a slightly sad note though. This photo was taken exactly 4 years ago, our very first hens. Our new hens have no names but the first lot soon became known as Nervy, Pecky, Blind Betty and Brownie. They have all gone now, the last two this week. So the new hens are now just the hens. Long live the hens.
We’ve had the ducklings a month now, although ducklings they no longer are. They’ve shed most of their fuzziness and have matured into rather large, and tasty looking, birds overtaking their fellow fowl in size. The pig drinking trough has become a mini-pond cum bath for them and with the good weather they’ve been able supplement their chicken chow with an array of grasses and plants, not to mention the slugs, snails and puppy dog tails. Well, they would probably not take to the latter but Betty has certainly taken to them, standing and staring but I think she’s met her match this time.
The ducks and chooks seem to be getting along well. The ducks are always together and less uneasy now when a chicken comes along for a cuddle up in the afternoon sun; they seem to be more aware that they’re different. I think they’ve been a good influence on the chickens. The ducks love wandering around the whole plot and the chickens become brave enough to follow rather than staying near their house. And then at night it’s vice-versa. Apparently ducks don’t put themselves to bed like chickens do but our three are happy to return to the house in the evening along with their feathered friends.
So it’s been plain sailing so far. Ducks are meant to be less disease prone than chickens, and able to cope with extreme temperatures better. They cannot fly (never knew that) so no CHeeky Charlie escapades. Our three have been a doddle, or should that be a waddle? Of course the next excitement will be Richard doing his bit with the sharp knife…