wrapping up for winter

I thought I would drag you all on a tour of the Quinta. You would think that there's not much to see or tell, but apparently there is, as I found out when I started to think about what sort of blog entry I would do this week and had a look around the farm.

Starting with the animals, as you can see the pigs are getting nice and big, they are on a sort of diet as apparently I have been over-feeding them!!



I have double-glazed their house at the top of the back wall, whilst it does let warm sunshine in it also lets driving rain in, so I decided to cover the hole up with plastic and I'll continue to pile straw in there, I never take any out, they are incredibly clean animals so they never soil their bed, this way they end up with a big deep bed which they can bury themselves in, lovely.



The chickens have also got themselves some double glazing, I found last year that the rain drives in through the door and obviously mixed with sawdust and poo etc. makes for a nasty clean-up job. So this way we are all better off and they continue to lay through the cold and wet weather. The chicks as you can see have grown up now and I still don't know what sex they are, so am just waiting for signs of laying or cockrelness??? any suggestions about how to tell would be gratefully received but I am not looking up their vents, thank you.





The citrus trees have been fleeced, I managed to kill them last year as I forgot to fleece them in time, luckily they forgave me and came back to life, this year I'm not leaving it until acuweather tells me, I've just done it early.



I have dug up and potted on some trees which will be planted around the quinta early next year



The raspberries continue to provide a small snack, it's their first year so I wasn't expecting much.

traditional red



and yellow ones



These are both late fruiting varieties, not sure what as they were given to me, I'm going to plant some earlier fruiting ones this season too, so we have them for more than one or two months.

I've left the tomatoes where they are, although we are not eating them the pigs like them, but only when ripe.



The peppers are still ripening



and when they are nearly ready I bring them home to finish off on the windowsill in the kitchen.



The carrots, parsnips and beetroot are fine and hopefully will continue to see us through the winter







as will the kale



The cabbages



and the greens



The salad and new zealand spinach may get fleeced or just eaten, either by us or the slugs...





Alot of meadow 2 has been sown with green manures

Rye grass



and buckwheat



I love that my cosmos self-seeded and came up again in the same year



and a random sunflower may make it, somehow I think not though.



These hollyhocks will flower next year



The grapes are all pruned,



the persimmons need harvesting



The river and spring gush forth, taking with it all the rotten quinces that we didn't quite manage to pick.



and finally the hoses have been coiled up into a nice neat heap, not to be used again until it's bloody scorchio and as dry as a witches tit!!