and another knife......blokey stuff, part....whatever.

Knife handle made from a piece of walnut from one of the trees we felled earlier (see forestry entries).

One potato, two potato, three potato, ten sacks!!

We have lifted all our spuds......Spunta, Desiree and Yukon Gold, we planted 1/2 sacks of Spunta and Desiree and 1kg of Yukon Gold (bought back in my bag from UK in Feb!)
The colorado beetle attacks here if potatoes are left in past June, and I planted aubergines along the rows and at the ends to help prevent this, that said we didn't have a problem and not one potato had anything wrong with it. We had a great dirt fight....the joys of gardening with a partner. We were dissappointed initially with the yield and my guestimate was that we would have about 8 sacks, each weighing 25 kilos, infact we have more than that so it's all good. we had a taste of the desiree tonight as chips and they were great!!

Blokey stuff, part five (or Obsessive Crafting Disorder)

Three knives for a commission.

Bread from the bread oven

Just had first bread from oven, Foccacia!!! yum, drizzled with our own olive oil, maldon sea salt, rosemary and lightly fried onions. Serve with freshly picked leaves and radishes and a lump of cheese.......

Confusion in the veg patch

I have been practicing bio-dynamics for some years, every now and then I break the "rules", ie. planting etc. outside of the bio-dynamic calender, simply because it is a bit restricting. However, wanting to do things properly I tend to stick to the specified planting times. It does however create confusion, mostly in my head as I am also quite strict about crop rotating too.

There are four categories for plants within the bio-dynamic system:
Root crops: radishes; swedes; sugar beet; beetroot; celeriac; carrots; parsnips; potatoes; onions; garlic etc.
Leaf crops: cabbage family; lettuce; spinach; endive; lambs lettuce; parsley and other leafy herbs.
Flower crops: flowers (obviously); oil bearing plants such as linseed, sunflower and also cabbage family again (can try to plant brassicas on leaf and flower days to see the results).
and finally
Fruit crops: beans; peas; lentils; soya; maize; tomatoes; cucumber; pumpkin and courgettes.

So all that said this seems fairly easy and not too complicated at all, however when also combining this method with crop rotating it does get a bit complicated, because there are at least 8 categories of vegetables in the vegetable world and some cannot be sown in the same place for anything up to 3 years.

Brassicas: cauliflowers; brussel sprouts, calabrese; broccoli, kale; rocket, common oriental greens, swede, turnip, radish and kohlrabi
Alliums: Onion, spring onion, shallots, leeks, garlic and chives
Umbellifers: Carrot, parsnip, celeriac, celery, parsley, fennel and dill
Solanaceae: Potato, tomato, sweet peppers, cilli and aubergine
Cucurbitae: Cucumber, melon, courgette, marrow, squash, pumpkin and gourds
Legumes: Peas, broad beans, runner beans and french beans
Beets: Beetroot, spinach and chard
Other: Lettuce, chicory, endive and basil

I am following the three year crop rotation as I did in UK on my allotment, there are other systems, this one works for me.

Plot A : potatoes, carrots, beets, parsnips, onions, shallots, leeks, garlic, toms, courgettes, pumkins, celery, fennel, aubergines, peppers, cucumbers, melons, celeriac, salsify and scorzonera

Plot B : peas, beans sweetcorn, spinach, spinach beet, swiss chard, lettuce, chicory, endive, cress and artichokes

Plot C : Cabbages all brassicas, swedes, turnips, radishes and kohlrabi

Plot D : permamnet crops like rhubarb, fglobe and jeruselum artichokes, asparagus, sea kale and herbs

Plot D never moves, the other 3 (A, B and C) are carefully managed adding manure and blood,fish and bone to plot A.
Blood,Fish and Bone only to plot B. Blood, fish and bone and lime to plot C.
The following year Plot A becomes Plot B, Plot B becomes Plot C and plot C becomes plot A............

Are you still awake?

So there, you can see how complicated it can be, keeping a very detailed plan of the garden really helps, I list varieties that I have grown and try to keep diary of what variety has worked and what hasn't, how much was yielded etc. God it sounds anal but it works. Touching wood I have never suffered with blight or cabbage root fly or any other nasty diseases, yes it's complicated but worth it and hey what else have I got to think about?

More later about green manures.....snore

(River) Beach Life......

When it's too hot to work this is where I come to cool off, our local river beach, literally 3 minutes walk from the house.
Icy mountain water, the sort that takes your breath away and the outdoor cafe 1 minute away.......god life's hard.

Garden of Eden

Obligatory donkey picture

Sand Flys

Today was our 13th wedding anniversary and we decided that we would carry on the tradition of going to the beach.
Praia de Mira is about 1 and half hours away on the Silver Coast, huge white sands and dunes, lots of fisherman, fishing with nets attached to tractors, enormous crashing waves and lots of hideous houses.
There are a few old buildings dotted around, mostly falling down, they reminded us of the Essex and Suffolk coastal houses, so we felt very at home. Blossom had a lovely time running wild and rolling in dead fish....great day was had by all.
If any of you have facebook accounts you can view all the photos taken today in my profile

Sunday afternoon in Benfeita

We spent the day following a band around town, they came from Barril de Alva, they went up the hill and back down again, stopping at various houses to play. The stopped to drink and smoke and eat and wipe the sweat from their brows and ended up giving a concert in the recently opened cafe in the square. It was sunny and very very humid this morning, then thankfully it rained, it stayed cool all afternoon and the sun came out just before it set. We had a lovely day with the locals, we were the only foreigners around all day, we sat with our favourite old ladies and others came over to talk to us. I was made to get up and dance a salsa type dance with the guy (a local builder) who had organised the whole thing, being led around in front of the whole town. We, incidentally were the only ones dancing.

Swarm patrol

Time off for good behaviour

From plant to plate

Freshly picked mange tout, thinned out baby carrots, first new potatoes of the season and quiche made with our fresh free-range eggs......said in a "Marks and Spencer's" voice