Harvest – Page 3 – the story of Casa Azul

Second spring?

October 29, 2015 Jackie Comments 4 comments

It’s been a surprisingly busy month, this October. Where to start? Well, with mostly sunny days we’ve been able to do lots of gardening, walking and harvesting. So into the veg patch first and, hurrah, things are definitely looking up. The cauliflowers and broccoli which I’d said had failed have in fact done very well. After cutting off the rather pathetic broccoli heads there have been loads of side shoots which will keep coming over the weeks ahead. And the cauliflower has, after months and months, decided it will grow after all.

So at the moment we have those two crops, plus squash, sprouts and the last of the runner beans. We will start on the leeks now and we’re looking forward to trying the jerusalem artichokes, a first for us in the veg patch. Slightly worried about their side effects and their nickname fartichokes… The horseradish which I’d said had gone rotten has also completely come back to life so that’ll be dug up soon too.

Meanwhile the chooks have kept us busy. We moved the hens from one patch to another, where we have a spare coop, as they’d scratched up all the grass. They are still giving us 3 or so eggs a day. And we bought some more ‘roasties’. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get any more ducklings. The man in the market didn’t have any and as far as I could understand he wasn’t going to get any more because there wasn’t the demand. Hoping I’m wrong about that but if not will have to look elsewhere, the duck we had for Christmas last year was great. Instead of ducklings we got 6 white chicks which I’m not a big fan of, they grow much fatter more quickly than the brown ones (we got 8 of those) but become quite pathetic as they put on weight and struggle to walk. They seem to be enjoying the green grass in the meantime.

We are lucky to have a quince tree in the garden, for some reason there are no others in the village. It was a good harvest for them and we have made loads of quince jelly, quince cordial, quince crumble (made with star anise this has become Richard’s fave dessert) and frozen some batches as well. The chillies too have been made into jam, oil or just dried.

The springlike weather has also been great for the wild flowers. We discovered this tiny little orchid on a walk and then were delighted to find it growing near the house. The common name is autumn lady’s-tresses (Spiranthes spiralis) so that’ll have to go on our orchids page. We also have autumn crocuses in the garden too.

The hedgerows have been fooled by the temperatures. The blackthorn, where we get our sloes from, is in flower and in the veg patch the autumn raspberries are half a metre tall when they should be dormant.

However, the big task of the month has been the olive harvest so it’s been lovely having the springlike sunshine for that. The garden seems to be full of robins who sing while we work. The dogs too always join us and are happy to supervise, although after a while slink off to the sofa or in search of walnuts.

Last year’s spring deluge meant we had no olives at all in 2014 but this year’s bumper harvest meant it was fairly easy to get enough for the year ahead. After a few days we’d collected 188kg of olives and we got 15 litres of oil for that (the going rate is 8 litres per 100kg). We could have got a lot more. Our neighbour spends weeks collecting his olives, he loves it, but we are rather lazy! He has built this amazing structure which sits on the shovel part of his tractor so that he can be raised up and reach the topmost parts of the trees, it’s a frightening sight as he’s well into his 70s! (While driving to the olive oil factory we lost count of the number of people in their olive trees brandishing loppers or saws.)

He very generously lends us his cleaning machine every year. It separates the leaves and twigs from the olives and despite making a racket does the job quickly and efficiently:

So that was October, I haven’t even mentioned all the strimming Richard’s had to do (and will need to do again soon), the baking, breadmaking etc etc. What have you done this month?

The spice of life

September 29, 2015 Jackie Comments 6 comments

It’s the end of September, and it should be feeling like the end of the summer, but we have returned from our annual holiday to hot, sunny days with temperatures over 30C. The mornings are certainly indicative of the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness but come mid-morning it’s back to the heat and the flies.

Autumn chores are calling nevertheless: leaves need to be raked up, beds dug over and composted, and logs cut up for snuggly winter evenings ahead. Richard has dug up and divided the irises and the rosemary, lavender and santolina have had a trim.

There are four main harvests this time of the year. Just as we were leaving for our Andalucian adventures the figs were plumping up nicely, both green and purple they are soft and honey sweet. There were plenty enough left though on our return to make fig and sesame seed jam plus some fig chutney (with green toms from the garden and scrumped apples from local orchards).

This year a change from the cinnamon and ginger spice route, this time it’s cardamom and coriander seeds. I love cardamom. Earlier in the year I came across a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe for plum and cardamom ice-cream never dreaming anything would taste as nice as vanilla but it is divine. We often have it in our morning coffee (cardamom not ice-cream), a reminder of our Jordan days.

Also included of course some of our chillies. They have done really well again this year. The coriander seeds are easy ‘to grow’ too, our plants readily turn to seed. I shall see if it’s possible to grow cardamom here 🙂

Meanwhile the walnuts, harvest number 2, have been plentiful this year. It’s both relaxing and frustrating shelling them, I spent half an hour sitting in the sun getting walnuts for some home made bread and managed to get 50g! Richard has since had a good bash at them, luckily they’ll keep for ages.

Next up is the quince harvest, quince jelly is probably my favourite – quince and cardamom, perhaps?

Finally, after a non-existent harvest last year, we are hoping to have lots of olives. There are certainly plenty on the trees but not as fat and as juicy as we’d like but that’s not surprising after the soaring summer temperatures and one of the worst droughts the country has seen. Cardamom flavoured olive oil?

Wild bounty

September 9, 2015 richard Comments 2 comments

Despite all the doom and gloom of Jackie’s last post, plenty of plants have in fact done very well this summer, many of them without any help from us. Our little plot of land doesn’t have a fence to keep the wild things at bay but we are completely surrounded by a wall of brambles. And, despite this summer’s heat we have had another bumper harvest of blackberries. It’s the one thing Jackie hasn’t made a preserve of but I love to make my favourite dessert – blackberry and apple crumble. We get the apples from our own tree but there are also loads of apple trees around here on the dog walk. So I managed to scrump many more, enough to make some cider. Last year it was pretty good so fingers crossed.

Despite the grape vines on the pergola not doing so well, there is an old vine growing over one of the walls. As opposed to the ones we planted which produce large grapes for eating, this one has produced loads of small grapes.

Most of the locals only grow two things, grape vines for wine and olive trees for olive oil. Their grapes are all small so I guess the one we have must be of the same variety and also good for wine, so I’m having a go. In essence wine making is extremely simple (certainly as practised by our nearest neighbour Luis). Just crush the grapes, filter out the gunk and just let it do it’s stuff. There is enough wild yeast on the surface of the grape to ferment the juice. You just need to keep the fruit flies out or you will end up with vinegar. As you might expect, some people take a bit more care than Luis and I am being guided by an excellent little book: “First steps in wine making” by C.J.J. Berry. The price on the back is 6 shillings but as they have been making wine for centuries, I’m sure not that much has changed since this little gem was published. If nothing else, it is an interesting read. As opposed to Jackie’s elderberry wine, which is ready now, after a year in the bottle, the grape wine should be ready in weeks. Again, fingers crossed.

Probably the biggest surprise has been the peaches. We’ve got three peach trees on our land, all of which have just grown on their own and although peaches have always made a start they have never come to fruition, until now. There is quite a large tree next to the well and every day a load more fruit fall off it. I have to say that 99% of the peaches have worms inside, so it’s taking a bit of a chance to eat one straight away but it’s no problem to cut out the bad bits and be left with plenty of good flesh.

This time, I decided to get involved in the dark arts of chutney making and I’ve made three jars of peach and pepper chutney (with our own red peppers). Jackie couldn’t resist of course and has also made some chutney – peach and chilli (with our own chillis). We will find out in a few months who is the peach chutney king or queen. And there are still more peaches left, so as well as bottling a few, I’m making an experimental peach and blackberry crumble this afternoon and no doubt a few more will make their way into a peach cordial.

Fig trees grow wild round here and have had another good season. So far we’ve only had them fresh off the tree or in fig tarts. We’ve got loads of jams of various flavours already and I think Jackie is preserved out at the moment but we’ll have to see what else we can do with them.

So never mind being busy with the veg patch, there is plenty of wild fruit to be collected as well. I cast an eye over the garden and note that next up, it’s the walnuts…

Up to our necks in plums – again

July 20, 2015 richard Comments 2 comments

Regular readers may remember a post of the same name from this time last year. A slightly different scenario this time around however. Last year we were overwhelmed with yellow plums. They have come and gone already, in much smaller numbers than before. However, this year, the greengages have taken up the slack. Jackie is especially pleased as these are her all time favourites.

Following up closely behind the greengages are the damsons which are just ripening now – so more damson vodka for Christmas,

…and just behind them are the Stanleys.

It should be interesting as we’ve got a proper crop for the first time this year. In previous years we have only had one or two and they didn’t taste that great. They come from a plum tree we bought and planted in November 2009. Here are two photos taken from almost the same spot. The plum tree is still in the black plastic bucket. The Christmas tree is just behind a large rock. You can see the same Christmas tree in the recent photo, but look how the cypresses have grown!

..and after the plums will be the sloes. More Christmas sloe gin!

So of course, we’ve been eating lots of plums in various guises, mainly in desserts – plum crumbles and plum tarts

…and Jackie’s recent favourite – plum leather. It doesn’t look great but it’s an excellent little snack to take on walks.

Meanwhile Jackie has been playing with her new toy (Thanks Sue, Jim and Dick) and taken some great photos of pond life:

You can never have too many seating areas in the garden and here is the pergola I recently made for a corner of the threshing square. I only made it in May but already we have a mature grape vine crawling all over it and providing much-needed shade. Also notice that the apples are coming along nicely as well, but that’s for another post.

Berry nice

June 23, 2015 Jackie Comments 0 Comment

The heat is on, temperatures have soared well over 30 for many days (and over 40 for a couple!) making gardening a morning task only. But while the weeding remains chore number one collecting raspberries with the sun on your back is not. The so-called summer raspberries are coming to an end although I’m still getting a large handful most days. The birds also appreciate them, huge locusts like a nibble too and the hens go mad for the manky ones I throw them. Most of them are frozen, they still make excellent jam. We’ve had them with our porridge, Sunday pancakes and with yoghurt. My favourite though, just nudging out raspberry ripple, is clafoutis, a simple French recipe that I look forward to making each summer.

Luckily, we also have autumn raspberries and we’ll be having those in the not too distant future. Fairly fuss-free, reliable and spreading each year they are the perfect soft fruit to grow.

Our first flush of strawberries have come and gone although the later lot are tastier. And this year another good crop of gooseberries. We bought a small bush from a stall at a local monthly market quite a few years ago now. Only after harvesting the first lot did I do the research – there are dessert gooseberries and cooking gooseberries; the former sweeter and can be eaten from the bush, the latter more sour. Well, it seems we have the dessert ones which is just fine. I like making a sweet goosegog relish to go with our barbecued mackerel but this year most ended up as gooseberry and elderflower jam.

The redcurrants, after being fantastic last year, were disappointing but we still have the blackcurrants to come. I managed to propagate some baby bushes from last year’s pruning. So now we’re waiting for the big one: the plum harvest. Meanwhile I bottled some peaches from fruit growing over the wall (yes, I stole them from our neighbour’s tree) but that was How a Small Task turned into a Big Faff and is a story for another time…

The fruits of our labours

May 31, 2015 richard Comments 2 comments

Although the fields round here are still crammed with spring flowers, summer is just around the corner. We had a downpour in the first week of May but since then it has been unrelenting sun with most days peaking at over 30 degrees. But never mind summer we also have half an eye on Autumn and the coming harvest.

The cherries are the first to arrive and have in fact already done so. We bought a young cherry tree a few years ago and it has always been a bit odd and remained very small but it has produced its first cherry. And second cherry. But that was it! Meanwhile our old tree is full of little gems which should be ready very soon. Around the time we bought the cherry tree we also got an apricot tree. Unlike the cherry, this tree is magnificent. Last year it produced its first fruit but none stayed the distance. This year we have two. Lets hope they will hang on and grow to maturity. Our garden is full of plum trees and fingers crossed it will be another good year for these fruit of many hues. Also it looks like a good year for the walnuts and the apples but we will not have a single pear. We also have a number of peach trees. They start off with loads of fruit but they either fall off too soon or if they ripen they are full of worms and/or are inedible. It’s strange how these things work out. The first of the soft fruit, the raspberries, are also ready but I’ll leave Jackie to fill you in on veg patch news next time.

Cherry number 1 and first of the yellow plums

At the moment, whenever we walk through the garden or indeed wander the village, with the gentlest of breezes we are engulfed in snowdrifts of confetti. The olive trees are now in flower and after last year’s disaster we are hoping for a good crop this time around.

On to another type of harvest. I can’t believe two years after we killed the pigs they keep on giving. Last week I found a liver at the bottom of the chest freezer and that means pâté. According to supermarket practice the liver may have been well beyond its sell-by-date but I can assure you the pâté was delicious. I’ve also killed this year’s first crop of roasties and so made some more pâté out of the chicken livers. Much smoother than the pig liver pâté but just as delicious.

pig liver and chicken liver pate — pig liver and chicken liver pâté

Soon we will be getting to the end of the spring flowers but the orchids keep on coming. Here are a few more found within metres of our house.

Broad leaved Helleborine and the Bug Orchid

The orchid on the left is a hypochromatic form of the woodcock orchid (normal one seen on the right). This is a genetic abnormality and there is much discussion in the orchid world about why it happens!

More controversy! The flower on the right is a Mirror Orchid. We thought the one on the left was also a Mirror Orchid but recently it has been identified as a species in its own right – the Iberian Ophrys. It is quite rare and only found in Portugal and some parts of Spain.

And our final orchid is Ophrys Lutea. Very pretty.

And finally a photo of Jussi – sporting her socks in an attempt to stop her licking her paws!

It’s the weather, stupid

September 18, 2014 Jackie Comments 0 Comment

We are often asked, What’s the summer / winter like? Our answer is always, It varies from one year to the next. We have just passed our five year mark and it remains true: the seasons have been different every year. However, there has been one constant: September. A few off days maybe but in general hot and sunny, perfect for the seaside or river beach. But now even September has let us down. We drove off at the start of the month in rain (a short sojourn in Spain) and for the 5 days we’ve been back it’s rained and rained. Sometimes a downpour is followed by blue skies, other times there’s relentless greyness and drizzle. Ho hum. The grass is green, there are field mushrooms galore and the fat hairy one is enjoying the puddles again. There’s a distinct smell of autumn in the air, and we’ve not seen one plume of smoke from forest fires over the whole of the summer, a first for us.

And the veg patch? Well, September is pepper month for us. This year I planted 5 different types, safe in the knowledge they’ll do well come late summer. We did have, before the hols, some large green, and even red, bell peppers which were wonderful. They were large enough to stuff (the red ones with cubes of potatoes and feta in pesto sauce, mmm). We also had a couple of dishes of some new types. Visitors to Spain may well be familiar with a popular dish: pimientos de Padrón. They’re smallish green peppers which taste wonderful fried in smoking olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt. However, their fame rests on the fact that occasionally one is fiery hot – and you can never tell which one is going to explode in your mouth! I was really chuffed with those.

The others, alas, are suffering from the rain. There’s another variety of sweet red peppers, some hungarian wax peppers and some fiery red hot chillies. I’m hoping as I type this, and listen to the heavy raindrops on the vine leaves outside the study window, the weather forecast holds true and there are some sunny days ahead. That means we’ll have some more peppers and I can make some roasted chilli oil.

Meanwhile, the Cheeky Charlie saga still continues! We came back from (sunnier) Spain to discover the nice Kiwi couple who looked after our house and animals had caught him (her) and put him with the 4 new hens. Unfortunately, we got to see first hand how horrid chooks are to newcomers. Poor old Charlie was stood on and his neck, always featherless, was bled from being pecked. (It’s dog eat dog in the chicken world, as Richard would say). So I put him back in the old pig pen and made a fine hideaway in the field to encourage him to stay and not jump out and into the brambles. This did not work. He wasn’t interested in the brambles anymore, he wanted to be out and about.

So right now he’s in the third, spare hen field, next to both sets of hens for company but protected from them. He still jumps out at night into the 4 hens patch (while, they’re tucked away) but he seems ‘happy’ in his new field which has plenty of brambles growing through and plants for coverage. I have no idea why I spend so much time fretting about him when he should have been killed and with his old mates in the freezer. There’s something about his audaciousness and pluck (ha ha) which was lacking in the other ‘roasties’. I’m sure we’ll have Cheeky Charlie chicken casserole one day…

Up to our necks in plums

July 23, 2014 richard Comments 3 comments

After last year’s dearth, the plums are something of a mixed blessing this time round. The yellow plum tree has gone mad. We’ve made plum crumbles, plum jam, plum jelly, plum cordial, frozen whole plums, frozen stewed plums, bottled plums, plum chutney and even dried some for prunes.

Oh, and a new one for us – plum leather! To make plum jelly you only need the juice so the remaining pulp we laid out in a thin layer on a baking sheet which dried in the sun – 3 days later you’re left with plum leather. It’s basically just a healthy snack. Not bad to chew on. Has anyone else tried this?

We are exhausted but they are still falling from the tree and rotting on the ground faster than we can put them on the compost pile. Even the chickens and dogs have had enough – and that’s just the yellow plums!

The red plums have also finished but there weren’t too many of those. Next up is the greengages. There aren’t quite so many of those which is a bit of a shame as they are Jackie’s favourite. She’s already made a greengage and vanilla tart from those. There are also quite a few damson trees around here – a number on the plot of land next to ours. So we’ll be grabbing those shortly as well.

Above are greengages and damsons, left are the Stanleys – they are still pretty hard and will be the last to come on line. They’ll used for the plum liqueurs which’ll be ready for Christmas.

Meanwhile, I’ve also been busy on the woodworking front and have made a new bench and table (left, below). Perfect for breakfast outside in the morning sun.

Good news and bad news

May 5, 2014 richard Comments 0 Comment

The good news is that our two year old apricot and almond trees produced fruit for the first time. The bad news is that they have all fallen off while still very small. We’ve had this happen with other young fruit trees. The first year we had fruits on the lime tree they fell off, but the following year we got some more and this time they stayed on and turned out really well. So there is hope. Similarly, last year we had loads of figs on a young tree but they all fell off before they matured. This year they are coming on nicely – hang on in there!

apricots - before they fell off — apricots – before they fell off

The other fruit trees have done really well. It looks like being a bumper plum crop. We’ve got about half a dozen trees, young and old and a variety of types, so that will be good. And we’ve never had so much pear blossom so fingers crossed for them. Meanwhile, we only picked the last of the oranges last month and now the two trees in the courtyard are full of blossom and the smell is divine. Added to that, a couple of linnets have decided the big tree is a great place for a nest but more of that later.

The fruit bushes in the veggie patch are also doing well. Hopefully we will have increased crops of gooseberries, redcurrants and blackcurrants.

I mentioned the linnets – I saw 4 little blue eggs in their nest the other day and now they’ve been replaced with 4 hungry mouths. We’ve also already had two baby blackbirds fledge and leave their nest in the garden and we also have a couple of blue tits feeding their young in one of our nest boxes. There’s also been at least one hoopoe hanging around. But the most exciting sighting was a neighbour of ours. We often hear the barn owl which lives in the ruined house next door and we have caught glimpses at night, but only recently have we seen it during the day and I managed to have my camera handy.

We’ve been a bit slack on updates over the last month or so and in that time we bought a dozen baby roasties and I’m already killing them. At least there is now plenty of room for them in the freezer. Slowly but surely we are getting through the two pigs we reared and slaughtered in 2012. I recently found another pork belly at the bottom of a freezer. It was from the so called thin end so wasn’t good for roasting but it was excellent for making bacon. And this is where your supermarket streaky bacon comes from. We just cover the belly in salt, leave it overnight, then drain the liquid that comes off. Reapply the salt over the next 5 days and the result is dry cured streaky bacon. Perfect.

Of course we still take the dogs for a walk every day and Jackie has been keener to do it these days as it’s orchid season. She wrote a post about it recently but since then she has spotted quite a few more. Maybe another orchid post soon and of course May is peak time for the wild flowers so watch this space.

Plant of the year award 2013

January 1, 2014 Jackie Comments 5 comments

A year ago it was the humble leek that got the prestigious casa azul plant of the year award, for reasons too numerous to list here. For 2013 there is another clear winner, more exotic and almost as prolific; a beringela, the aubergine.

Since mid summer there were plenty to pick, plump and purple, right up to the end of November. Every time I picked what I thought was the last batch I left the plants and their nodding violet flowers to die, only to discover more fruit a few weeks later. I’m also pleased because there was a time when Richard said he didn’t like them. Roasted over the dying embers of a summer barbecue and turned into baba ganoush he was happy but otherwise he didn’t like their texture. Since my vegetarian days they have been one of my favourite veg so I took it as a personal challenge to make him change his mind. Well, numerous dishes later he seems to have come round. They have been oven roasted with potatoes, lightly fried in chilli oil… .

…curried with coconut milk and served in half with roasted toms. Not to mention the pasta and other middle eastern dishes, I particularly like the fact they go so well with cumin.

And all eaten with great relish, so a culinary as well as horticultural success. Here’s to a good 2014 harvest and happy new year to everyone!

the story of Casa Azul

and a new life in deepest Portugal

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