So much for summer – this week has seen plenty of rain, which is fantastic for all the plants and the well is well on the way to filling up. We’ve also had more friends staying. This time a fully fledged family. My old school friend Simon, his wife Paula and two sons Lucas and Sam. It was great to see them and there was a break in the clouds long enough to go for a very pleasant walk.
Meanwhile, the barn has been finished. Or at least sports a new roof and plastered walls. Just needs a lick of paint now.
barn when we first saw the house
And despite the hectic lifestyle there’s still time to relax…
We’ve now had at least 2 weeks of blazing hot sun with temps in the mid to high twenties. Surely it can’t go on? One thing we are already worried about is our water bill. With no rain in (April!), July, August and September and with loads of thirsty veggies, it soon mounts ups.
We do have a well, but it only stores water and doesn’t access any groundwater. It’s over 5 metres deep but the pipe, which feeds it with rainwater from the roof, comes in quite low down and leaks water out, so my first job was to get down there and cement up the hole. This should mean we can get more water in. Fortunately the ever reliable Luis had a ladder long enough to go all the way down. I can tell you that water was cold!
So with that done, next up was getting the water to the veggies. For that I bought a pump to get water from the well and into a tank on top and then a system of pipes from the tank to the veggies. In addition, I needed small plugs which drip feed the water to the plants. I can tell you, that stretched my Portuguese to the limit (I now know these plugs are called gotejadores – I think. Difficult to spell but impossible to pronounce). Only time will tell whether it saves us any money and whether we get any more rain to replenish the well.
notice the ladder coming out of the well opening.pipes going to the veggies
Still, with all this gorgeous weather, the plants are loving it.
irisespoppy
Couldn’t resist another photo of that great, Naked man orchid!
Naked man orchid
…and other wildlife…
empty dragonfly casesfrog in small pond
We think this is a toad – and toads only go into the water to mate (which is why we kept finding a big toad in the courtyard last year)
toady
The butterflies are also here, this one is as pretty as a picture underneath too.
southern festoon
We also continue having guests over. Jackie knows Rosie and Debbie from her time volunteering with VSO in Malawi so it was great to have them visit for a few days especially as they hadn’t met up for years.
Jackie, Rosie, Debbie and the hairy one
We’ve also been down the beach, which was glorious and not a soul about.
The bees seem to go from strength to strength. I have a look in the hive every now and then and everything seems to be OK. I have even managed to spot the queen which was great. No more stings either which is a bonus.
This photo is quite interesting (for apiarists only maybe). In the top left there are cells filled with honey, in the bottom right, sealed brood (baby bees waiting to hatch out) and in the lower middle you can just about see small white grubs in the base of the cells. This shows that everything is operating as normal. Now the bottom box is pretty full – of brood, grubs, pollen and honey, they should now turn their attention to filling the top box just with honey!
We’ve had friends of mine staying these last few days. It’s been lovely showing them around – everything is green and of course loads of wild flowers are beginning to appear. It was great to discover the wild orchids nearby, and to find we have a naked man orchid Orchis italica in the garden. There are fields of these in other places and so hope that Richard’s strimming hasn’t seen them off. It’s also been lovely to discover the nightingales. They’ve begun to sing and sing all night, and most of the day too – when they sleep I have no idea. Despite their song being loud and clear they’re quite difficult to spot, and quickly disappear into the bushes if you go anywhere near them. I was rather pleased with this photo then. So two new, and somewhat exotic, firsts for me this week.
Spring is often referred to as ‘the hungry gap’. The winter veg have come and gone, and the summer crops are just seedlings. Next year I’ll make sure there are some calabrese and cauliflowers for the table but we do have two delights ready to eat now (having finished off the last of the cabbage last night). At long last the purple sprouting broccoli has sprouted, a year after sowing, and (also a year later) the artichokes – the first two chokes we will have tonight along with a whole bunch of PSB – mmm.
The next big project is renovating the barn. We either had to renovate it or the thing was likely to collapse as there were holes in the roof and the joists were rotten. Basically we just want to replace the roof, plaster the walls and level the floor. We started work by ripping off the roof but then we promptly had to stop.
A year and a half ago the local council told us they were thinking of widening the lane outside and then we heard no more. Anyway, if it goes ahead we may have to slice a corner off the barn so work has had to stop until we sort out the bureaucracy. A pain but I have to admit we have been remarkably free of bureaucratic problems so far, so fingers crossed that we can soon resume.
Another project is to get more chickens – this time growing them to eat. I’m putting off making a new henhouse as it promises to challenge my rudimentary woodworking skills to the max. However, I have prepared an area for them and fenced it off in readiness. The laying hens have tried it out for size and seem satisfied.
staking out the new chicken patch
Now spring is here the garden is green and lush. We’d better enjoy it because in a few short months no doubt it will turn into a dustbowl.
Someone still looks as cute as ever and never far away from a ball ready to be thrown.
Spring has well and truly sprung. The last few posts have been about how rapidly everything in the garden seems to have taken off. With the plants sprouting, so have the number of jobs I have to do. We plan on getting some more chickens – this time to eat, so I need to build another henhouse for them, we need to fix the well and get some sort of irrigation system ready for the baking hot summer, the barn needs renovating, shelves still need to go up, the list is endless. However, some things are getting done – I repaired the potting shed roof and strimmed the garden – a big job which takes at least a couple of days. I have left some areas unstrimmed however. My excuse is that these areas should be left to nature, encouraging the insects, wild flowers, birds, pest predators etc.
We have also got one of our next major projects up and running – bees!
We’d got word from a friend of ours that there was someone in the Dornes area, not far from here, who had bees and hives for sale. We headed down there with great anticipation and came back with a hive full of bees and all the necessary equipment. We were also quite proud of ourselves in conversing with this guy all in Portuguese (we are still very ashamedly poor at the local lingo). As instructed, we set up the hive in a good place at the bottom of our garden and let the bees settle for a couple of days. Only then were we to inspect the hive.
We have a beekeping guidebook and it explains what to do on this first inspection: try to spot the queen (she is slightly longer than the normal ‘worker’ bees), see that she is laying i.e. try to spot eggs in cells and grubs in various stages of growth and also to see if there was any honey. Basically just to check that everything seemed OK. The book also said that when you buy a nucleus – which is a starter colony containing only a queen and a few attendant bees, you don’t need to smoke them as they will be very calm.
We chose to inspect them first thing in the morning as we knew they would be still asleep (or whatever the bee term is). So, Jackie settled at a safe distance, camera in hand ready to record the moment. I must admit I felt a bit like Dustin Hoffman in Outbreak approaching the hive all suited up.
And then our troubles began.
We had not actually bought a nucleus, but a pretty full hive. Morning is not a good time to open up the hive as everyone is at home rather than out foraging. We had Iberian bees which have a reputation (well warranted I will vouch for already) for aggressiveness.
While I was gingerly taking out a frame to inspect it, clouds of bees took off in front of me. I could see them all over my veil. I almost felt they were going to bite through the gauze. However, I maintained my calm. Then, I heard a scream. It was Jackie running down the garden. “It’s in my hair, it’s in my hair. Arrrrrrrrggggghhhhh!” I didn’t see her for a while but she had only suffered superficial wounds. One sting to the scalp which was not painful. I carefully put the frame back in the hive and then replaced the top. Unfortunately there were bees all over the rim, so a few got squidged, which also makes them angry. I then retreated. I didn’t find the queen and am not even too sure what I saw.
But the story doesn’t end there. Later, in the afternoon, I was strimming the garden quite some distance from the hive and I heard a buzzing followed rather quickly by a sharp pain in my hand – one of the blighters had got me after all!
The bees obviously are not going to give us their honey without a fight but we remain determined. Next time we are using the smoke!
We also made a video for our English teaching site podcastsinenglish.com. Unfortunately (perhaps) most of the more exciting moments were not captured on film and the section with me examining a frame is necessarily ‘artistic’ (and accidental) as by this stage Jackie, the camerawoman, had dropped the camera and retreated to the safety of the house.
To anyone who knows about bees there is also a glaring error in the narrative. The queen doesn’t lay the eggs in honey but in an empty cell. After it hatches, the other bees then feed the larva with royal jelly and pollen. The honey is put in cells purely as a store for the winter months.
Both January and February, despite being winter months, weren’t too bad and we were able to eat outside in the courtyard for lunch quite a few times (although a roaring fire was going come the evening). They both had, however, a week or so of almost non-stop rain. Now the weather forecast says the same is going to happen for March, our mantra is always it’s good for the garden! For the chickens it’s water off a duck’s back…
Two weeks ago the first lot of seedlings planted back in February were showing but already it’s time for the sprouts to go in the garden. I’ve already put in a few broad bean plants (although why I have no idea, I wrote in my gardening diary not to do them again at this time because of the aphids but I forgot to get them going in the autumn).
So seeds sown in the polytunnel recently: sweet corn, peas, french beans, courgette, buttercup squash and yet more toms. Seedlings already up are the sprouts (above, two weeks ago and today), cauliflower, watercress, leeks, melon, bell peppers, cauliflower, calabrese, runner beans, cucumber, artichoke, loads of different toms and a range of herbs. Seeds sown directly into the beds outside: parsnips, fennel, beetroot, different kinds of carrots and rainbow chard. Plus three kinds of potatoes have been planted too. I hate seeing the empty beds (next year I’ll do more autumn planting) but am really pleased so much is on the go now. The companion plants, marigolds and nasturtiums, are also doing well.
The last of the leeks were eaten last week, and we are on the cabbage now. Apart from some onions, parsley and celery there’s nothing to eat. We should be eating the purple sprouting broccoli but, although it’s almost my height, there’s nothing apart from leaves (below right). I know it can take a long time (started a year ago now) but we are getting very impatient, no wonder it’s expensive in the shops. It will be our first time to try it, hope it’s worth the wait.
And talking of waiting, many of the produce needs our patience. The asparagus is shooting up but we have to wait for the third year’s crop (luckily that’s next year), a year on the artichokes are at last showing signs of producing something (above left) but I’m not sure if we still have to wait before we eat those, and we can only take a little of the rhubarb too – fingers crossed on that one as there doesn’t seem to be any signs yet…
Meanwhile all the fruit trees are doing well and as soon as the rain stops there are three big projects for us, watch this space!
While Jackie was suffering with the wind and rain at Casa Azul, I was back in the UK where the uniform grey was cheered by snowdrops and the first signs of crocuses and daffodils. Here and now, however, the crocuses and daffodils are already on the way out to be replaced by tree blossoms. Already, one of our plum trees is in full bloom and is being quickly followed by the peach and even the apricot which we only planted last year.
plum tree in blossomplum 2peach blossomapricot blossom
As my sister visited us in September last year, she never realised we actually had grass in the garden (by then it was just a red dustbowl). So here’s a photo for her.
There was a horrid blip towards the end of February when it rained everyday. The mornings were misty, and the spiders were busy. No more frosty mornings, just grey clouds.
Goodbye to the frost, and hello the wet
It meant doing lots of work inside the house (still more painting!), and plenty of baking to use up the eggs and oranges. And then, hey presto, out comes the sun and on come the wellies – back to the garden!
Plenty of seeds have been sown, and amazingly, I have already been transplanting the germinated seedlings into little plugs; the polytunnel definitely makes a huge difference. So there are sprouts and cauliflowers and broccoli and herbs and loads of different tomatoes all in little rows:
I’m particularly pleased as many of the seed packets were over a year old, and some a few years. I have only bought a few new packets this year so that’s been a great investment, especially as I hadn’t always been careful about keeping them in a suitable place. But perhaps most incredible is that already, in February, some of the asparagus has shot up! The sprouts were finished so I cut off their tops which meant their stems have come alive with new growth, enough for some sprout soup methinks…
March starts tomorrow, along with a few new interesting projects. It’s going to be a busy month!
We’ve had the most incredible stormy weather: gale force winds, hailstones and lashings of rain. It was with some trepidation that I set out this morning to walk the dog; what would the storm damage be? Well, actually very little. All the trees were still standing, as was the polytunnel (hurrah) and the chickens still had 4 eggs waiting for me. Only huge puddles gave a clue to the downpour. Or so I thought…
Emptying the rubbish into the compost bins I saw that their corrugated roofing had blown off despite being held down with heavy rocks, and then something caught my eye. What was that hanging in the corner olive tree? A large, black plastic bag? Approaching I saw it was part of the roofing from the potting shed. It been ripped off and blown into the tree, and another large patch was hanging off. So the next 10 minutes or so saw me clambering over the shed and trying to put it all back. Luckily I had just bought a new box of roof tacks, and luckily too the rain had briefly stopped but it was a battle against the wind and dark clouds were approaching. My first attempt saw the whole thing blow off again before I could tack it down but eventually I managed to bang it back on as large drops began to fall.
Now I have lived in a number of developing countries and got used to power cuts but no where, really, has been as bad as here. I knew that the electricity would go off last night when I heard the thunder rumbling overhead. Sure enough the first candle had just been lit when it went off. Back on and then off… and then this morning there was no water – again! I can’t believe that so much was falling from the sky and none was coming from the tap! I can (sort of) understand why the power goes but why the water goes too is a mystery. Ho hum!
