Has Beans

This week: Last of the orchids; Has Beans;

It is Saturday lunchtime and I have just come in from working in the East Orchard because it has started to rain.

I’m no longer waterproof or water resistant, however I am not complaining.

Yesterday I was talking to a neighbour who was saying how much he needs rain for his olives and vines. We received 30mm of rain overnight.

However as we are in summer, even if the weather is yet to turn really warm, all rain at this time of year is welcome.

When I look at the rainfall radar, there is some substantial rain to come today. This is as a weather front moves south down the Adriatic. Then next week, sunshine returns.

Today the temperature is only 13°C. By next weekend, it should be 25°C, a much more normal temperature for the end of May.

The week has been cool with quite a lot of cloud. We have been at the end of the area of cold air which has been diagonally across the UK and much of western Europe. When I look back on my work, I don’t have a lot to show for my efforts, but I have spent all week doing it!

This week has seen the Madonna Lily’s, Lilium candidum, in flower in the garden. These are another Balkan native which is now grown around the world in temperate and sub-tropical climates.

They grow from large underground bulbs and have been shown in art for 3,000 years, from ancient Minoa through to the stylised “Fleur de Lis” used on the Quebec provincial flag.

I have a lot of the flowers, which over time I have gathered together into three colonies. Also in flower this week are one of the Balkan wild flowers, the Mallow, Malva sylvestris.

They are a perennial, shrubby plant which always seems a little straggly. However their bright pink and mauve flowers brighten the dullest of days.

I have continued to pick cherries as the fruit ripen and have also been looking after my pistachio trees. There are a lot of small nutlets on the three trees at the moment.

Early in the week while I was carrying a watering can to irrigate some of the spring plantings, I found a lot more sprouting bramble briars.

The cool, damp spring certainly seems to have favoured them this year.

So I spent one morning using some SBK systemic herbicide, applied with a fine paint brush, to individually treat cut stems. The problem with these, like all briars, is the size and sharpness of their thorns.

At the end of Saturday afternoon, with a total 0f 50mm of rain, or 50 litres per m² at least I will not need to irrigate for a few days next week.

Having had a light jacket on all day, it has not been the warmest of May days…

Last of the orchids

Walking through the Maquis this week, on the old donkey tracks, there are still one or two orchids which are in flower.

In the main though, most of the orchids which provided such a beautiful carpet a month ago, have now died back to just brown stems.

The casual observer would not know that this was ever a Bee Orchid.

The Early Spider Orchids seem to have produced seed, so I look forward to even more of them next year.

Meanwhile, underneath the pine trees, the seed pods of the Violet Birds Nest Orchids that I have been monitoring are all swelling.

This species of orchid has some of the largest seeds of all the orchid family. Most orchid seeds are no larger than grains of flour.

The seeds are still ripening and I will be keeping an eye on them, then at the appropriate moment, manually helping to disperse the seeds a little further in this secluded growing area.

I am really pleased that this year all six plants have been able to produce seeds. It will be eight to ten years before this year’s seeds sprout above the ground…

Has beans

The autumn planted Broad Beans from last year are finished.

I’ve discovered that Broad Beans, Vicia faba, like my soils and grow well. They produce both the long green pods containing the beans, but also tender shoots for winter stir fry’s.

Being a legume, they fix nitrogen in the soil and grow over the winter here.

As the temperature rises in May the plants start to die back, so this week I picked and shelled all the remaining pods.

Once I boiled the beans and then mashed them, I then made Ful Mudammas, also just called Fool, or Foul Madammes.

After picking, I cleared all of the top growth in my terrace vegetable plot and put it to one side to rot down.

I still have three rows of onions growing on the terrace. However all the rest of the winter crops, the Broccoli, Cauliflower and Brussel Sprouts are also finished.

With cropping almost finished and after the rain this weekend, I want to put my rotavator to work next week to turn the moist soil.

Last year I left it too late, until the soil was baked hard, before I turned the soil. Then I will allow the vegetable plot to remain mostly fallow until the autumn.

Apart from the onions, I have some salad seeds to plant, something which will not be too difficult to irrigate. NCG