first summer

The weather is improving and plants are growing well. My vegetable patch is full to the brim, I forget that plants take up more space once they've grown lots of leaves! The potatoes are now enormous though this will not be a problem for long as I'm pulling them up bit by bit. It seems they don't do 'new' potatoes here and I do like them, so my potatoes are coming out just as it seems that everyone elses are just going in.

I made some elderflower cordial and invited some of the neighbours to try it, in my new garden. I don't know how impressed they were with the drink but they seemed impressed with my garden! It's now been baptised!

I've sown strawberry seeds, ready for next summer, partly because I wasn't sure that I will be around in March to buy plants! The seeds have germinated and I've pricked them out ready to plant out later in the summer. They will go in the area just visible behind the ladies. I'm still working on getting rid of the nettles and the ferns, it's slow process as the roots of the ferns are difficult, it's very hard and hot work now but I do a little bit every morning. I'm also collecting seeds from lots of the wild flowers to spread around between the trees.

There are still pretty flowers around but mostly it is grass and ferns now.

The grass is as tall as I am and I've never seen so many different varieties. The fields are being mown now for hay.

The ferns are pretty tall too and they get all over the place.

This field was full of wild lupins and so pretty, now they've all gone, wrapped up in black plastic at the edge of the field!

29th June 2010

Someone has sprayed my potatoes with insecticide! I know some of my potatoes had creepy crawlies, one of my neighbours told me, yesterday, that I needed to spray them or the bugs would strip them in a couple of days. I wasn't really bothered as I want them for new potatoes and I am digging them up already, my plot is really too small for potatoes. I hadn't planned to use any insecticides, I want to see how it works this year. Some of the neighbouring plots that have not been cultivated this year have potato plants that have just grown on their own, a bit like some of mine, and they are infested too, some of those have been sprayed too. If the spraying has been done by someone to protect their plants then I suppose I will have to grin and bear it but I will be annoyed if it has been done to protect mine!

I could have started harvesting the potatoes earlier but I wasn't sure when, they are getting quite big now. It is lovely to have fresh, just out of the garden, potatoes but I think I need to just dig them all up or they'll be fighting with the courgettes!!

30th June

I was in the middle of lunch yesterday when one of my neighbours turned up with a lettuce! a nice lettuce, it must be said, but I prefer my system of having small ones or just taking off leaves, that way I have them fresh every day. This lettuce is going to last me a week! I had told Paco I have lettuces but he must have forgotten and I was so surprised that I accepted it. Now I must find a way to say 'thank you but no thank you'. I also found out who sprayed my potatoes, she did have the sense to realise that I might not have wanted them sprayed! She also said that she was careful not to go near the lettuces!

2nd July 2010

I've dug up all the potatoes today, it's incredible how they vary in size. I've got plenty, I reckon they should last the summer. My patch looks really empty now, it will certainly give the courgettes room to spread. The lettuce have got really leggy trying to compete with the potatoes, I will sow a few more just to last till the end of summer. Everyone is offering me lettuces now, they use them to feed the chickens now that there are too many!!

I've planted a few potatoes in my 'orchard', in the patch I've cleared, I'm not sure what will happen but I've nothing to lose.

It's cooler today I should have felt like spending longer digging, but I didn't! I was still sweating cobs (I wonder what that actually means?) Hopefully it will rain later, before I go out with my watering cans!

11th July

The weather keeps getting hotter but we have thunderstorms from time to time to cool things down a bit. I'm going away shortly, don't know how my veg will survive that. The courgettes are just starting to flower so I'm sure they'll be ready when I'm not here! my lettuces are now enormous and very leggy, that's one lesson I've learnt, not to sow too many next year, little by little.

Paco took me round to his 'huerta' the other day to pick some cherries,there are loads at the moment. Tina has left a ladder by one of her trees and I suspect it may be for me but I haven't seen her to ask. I think the fruit season is under way!

I found a 'wild' lily the other day!

I found another one later, they must be garden escapees, this one didn't last long before it dissappeared. There was a wedding here yesterday, I wonder if the bride went up the aisle with a lily! I'm carefully watching the other to see if I can get any seeds!

20th July
Well the lilies have gone, as have pretty well everything else. There was a tractor out yesterday clearing the verge and what didn't go yesterday was strimmed away today, so not much hope of collecting anymore seeds! Partly this clearing is for safety as fires are very common here and they like to leave fire breaks.
I had my first courgette yesterday, my spring onions are now doing well, I have loads of tomatoes though they are still green, and my peppers are just starting to flower. I will have to give it all a really good soak tomorrow and hope they all survive until I come back.
Tina brought me a load of cherries at the weekend but they were very ripe, they leave the fruit until it is ready to go off and loads is wasted, it's a real shame.

4th August

My garden has survived. The courgettes are ready for the giant marrow competition!

There are loads of tomatoes, but still green. I hope I have bought my last tomatoes of this summer! I have a few tiny peppers and lots more to come. The lettuce have mostly 'bolted', I notice that most of my neighbours' have as well. So, I've pulled up one of the courgettes today, many of the lettuce, and most of my onions.

At the weekend I will have to find a way of dealing with the courgettes or as many as I can.

Neighbours have been watering the flowers I left outside so I should have left my strawberries out as well. In stead I left them in a tray of water indoors and I think I have over watered them, so most have died!

I also found a load of kids in my garden this afternoon. I may be paranoid but I feel that they wouldn't take the 'mick' if I were spanish. They giggled when they saw me coming but they sat tight until I told them to go and they didn't offer any apology, they just look at me as if I've just landed from space. I've put a new lounger up there today so it's obvious that it's in use.

The ground is very dry, there are fires on the hills in the distance. I saw yesterday that it's 4 points on the driving licence for anyone caught throwing fag ends out of a car!

Friday, 13th August

Forest fires continue, there are very serious ones near Pontevedra and in Potugal. Here we can see at least 2 every day, usually somewhere in the distance but last night there was one quite close. it is now much more understandable why the verges are kept clear and all vegetation is cut short before August. They say it rains a lot in Galicia, I don't know when it last rained here, all the rain seems to be falling in Cataluna.

Thursday 19th August

I've picked my first tomatoe today! It's not red, red but it's red enough. I haven't had a tomato this last week as I'm too mean to pay for them when I have loads in the garden. My salad today will be; lettuce, tomato, pepper, courgette, spring onion and potatoes all from the garden! For pud I've stewed pears, apples and blackberries. The only fruit ripe at the moment is the plums and there are very few of them, what there are are being picked by the kids here for the summer! My plums are of the green-gage type, I missed out a bit as I was waiting for them to turn plum colour!

My peppers are doing really well, I'm eating them tiny as I will be inundated if I leave them all to grow big but I will leave a few now. I'm almost out of lettuce, in a way this is a relief, I've managed to have a few days without having to eat lettuce, I've had to eat courgette/marrow instead! I've discovered that courgette, fried with onion and garlic is really tasy and I have plenty of all three. I've sown more lettuce but it is slow germinating, not helped that I forgot I had sown the first lot and I happily hoed them.

4th September

Summer is now coming to an end. My vegetables are all ripe. Today I have picked loads of red tomatoes so I must have a cooking spell tomorrow. I am down to the last 2 big courgettes, the rest are behaving now and ripening more slowly. My peppers are progressing slowly, if the weather stays warm i should have plenty for weeks yet.

My raspberries seem to be both summer fruiting and autumn fruiting, 2 of each. The summer fruiters haven't fruited this year but the autumn fruiters seem about to fruit for the second time.

I have cleared 2 thirds of the top patch, I've been working at it every morning but am going to have a little break now. I need to wait until I can burn some of the rubbish I have collected and that wont be untill well into autumn, forest fires are still a bother! The potatoes I planted up there have done OK but they have been nobbled by something. I'll have enough to last into October I think, then hopefully my neighbours will have harvested theirs and let me have some again. The 2 strawberry plants that survived my trip to England are now in the ground and have survived the move, I have another couple that have germinated so with a bit of luck they will be big enough to plant out by the end of the month, I hope so as I will be away again! I shouldn't keep travelling!

The top 'huerta' with the cleared ground and my potato plants at the end!

My first year has gone quite well, I'm pleased with my success, there are a few things I will do differently next year. I also have to give these 2 pear trees a good prune but all in all it has been a good and fruitful year!

orchids

Amongst all the beautiful wild flowers here I have seen several orchids. I'm not at all able to put names to them. This pale yellow one was the first it was flowering beneath the Chestnut trees in April and there were quite a few about.






In June there are at least three varieties, a pale purple that looks like a Heath Spotted Orchid (Dactylorhiza maculata) it was certainly growing on what is now a heath, though it used to be a football pitch! The flowers are pale, with a darker lined pattern on them, the leaves are spotted. Most of the other vegetation is gorse and some heather.
There only seem to be three specimens of this, assuming they are all the same, which I think they are, but they may not be as there are also 2 white orchids as well, growing fairly close, though not together.

There are also plenty of examples of the Bird's-nest Orchid (Neottia nidis-avis), at least that's what I think it is. It is brown and has no leaves and is growing on the edge of old woodland. there are several clumps.


These are just examples that I have seen close to paths.

Saturday, 12th June

We have had a week of very heavy rain, today is marginally better, not brilliant but not actually raining. I went for a walk this morning to see how the rain had affected some of the flowers as some of the fields that have not been mown have been flattened. To my surprise the white orchid has totally disappeared, no seeds, no stem and no leaves, if I hadn't taken a photo I would have started to doubt myself. Likewise a Campanula has disappeared as well. There are lots of flowers and things around so I doubt that the deer and wild boar have suddenly taken a fancy to two rare flowers but something has happened.