Just a few more seeds

This week: Climate breakdown; Seedling joy; Just a few more seeds;

I’m running late today. It is well after 7pm here on Otok Hvar and I am watching (on radar) a large and active thunderstorm heading towards the island from Italy.

I think I just have time to finish the blog and post it online before I need to disconnect the internet router, to prevent lightning damage.

The day has been another hot one! Although this afternoon there was some wind. Outside it felt like I was standing in front of a fan-forced over, with the door open.

I actually hope that the storm hits us full on and deposits a substantial amount of rain. We really need it.

Once again, I have done all sorts of small jobs this week, but really have very little to show for it.

At least after next week, as the sun is lower in the sky and the day length is reducing, so the temperatures should begin to reduce too.

Being the 1st of August on Thursday, a very important flag day, I unfurled and flew my Yorkshire flag above the main entrance. After all, Yorkshire Day, only happens once a year….

Climate breakdown

At the start of the week, during one of my normal “walk arounds” in the orchards, I was surprised to see that every Citrus tree was showing signs of water stress.

These trees have been in the soil for several years, some for as long as seven. Really by now I would have expected them to have extended their roots so there were able to draw on the deep down water sources.

That presupposes that there are deep down water sources in the bed rock under my orchards!

I have no idea how deep my soils are. They are deeper than I can dig, but in a number of places, the bed rock is also showing. My orchards are terraces, etched into a hillside.

Realising I needed to do “something”, and quickly, I set the drip irrigation running and left it on for over an hour. Normally in the middle of summer, I run the system for no more than 15 minutes on alternate days.

These trees cost me on average €10 each and produce a lot of fruits.

There are different varieties of orange, lemon, grapefruit and mandarin. Then some newer crossed varieties of citrus as well. I do not want them to die, even though I am uncomfortable with having to irrigate to keep them alive.

This summer, which is our dry period, we are exactly on the long term average for received precipitation. However my soils and the underlying rock is limestone and sandstone. So both are extremely porous.

However it is not just citrus. One of my Almond trees looks extremely unhappy.

This tree is probably 50 to 70 years old, but it is also suffering badly.

The start of each month is when I do an analysis of data from my weather station. What it shows is that we are precisely on the average for precipitation, for this point in the summer.

Another chart the data produces is heat days.

For the past three weeks, the average day time temperature has not been below 30ºC and the lowest night time temperature has been above 20ºC and often above 25ºC.

This does go some way to explain why my soils are as dry as dust and irrigation is the only thing keeping many plants and trees alive.

But how long can I as an individual, and we as a community continue to irrigate as the climate heats?

Seedling joy

The Granadilla seeds I planted two weeks ago are just beginning to show their first true leaves.

I planted nine seeds and three have germinated. I have another Granadilla, so I will try some more seeds from that one as well.

The tree comes from the passion flower family. I have several passion flowers which seem to thrive here and readily self-seed.

Of course I know that there are a range of varieties of passion flower, but I am prepared to give granadilla a go in the top orchard. If I can get them to fruit, they would be a lovely addition to my fruiting trees.

Granadillas are tropical vines, surviving in dry climates and enjoying heat.

My tomatoes have just about finished. They were some temperate varieties I planted in the spring, because I thought, wrongly, we were going to have a cool summer.

Last year I grew cherry tomatoes, originally from the South of France, called ‘Téton de Vénus’. These have dense flesh, a rich, deep flavour and few seeds.

They have not liked the heat this year. So whilst I have had enough of a crop for my own needs, I have not been able to offer any surplus to my neighbours.

Last year I bought seeds for some high temperature tollerant varieties, for example Basra, and Phoenix. However with the cool damp spring weather, I didn’t plant them. Now I wish I had!

The seeds will keep for next year, so germination will not be a problem, however it would have been nice to have tried them in the polytunnel.

This is just one of the issues around climate breakdown: weather forecasts beyond two or three weeks are little better than guesswork and accurate long range forecasts do not exist.

 

My Flamboyant Tree seedlings continue to thrive and clearly like the heat at the moment.

Just a few more seeds

I was in my local Tommy supermarket this week and saw that they had Dragon Fruit. This variety with the green scale ends is probably “David Bowie”, although it was not listed on the label.

The supermarket has a large fruit and vegetable section, however the offerings tend only to be what is is season or available locally, probably with the exception of bananas which are available all year round.

Just occasionally they have an “exotic”, things like Lychees, Granadilla and this week there were a dozen Pitaya, Selenicereus costaricensis, so I brought one home.

As the climate changes, I am constantly on the lookout for fruits and vegetables which are more suited to the Mediterranean heat and lack of rain, than the traditional locally grown fruits and vegetables.

The Pitaya plant is a night blooming cactus, native to central America and north-eastern South America.

However because of its delicious, juicy fruit, it is now is grown across huge swathes of tropical and sub tropical countries in the Americas and Asia.

The cactus can befound anywhere from sea level up to 1,400 metres, and on dry scarpes to deciduous forests.

Well I certainly have the “dry”, and my small copse of deciduous fruit trees. I also like to try to grow different things.

They are easy to grow from seed and like many suculents, plants come true to their parents. Dragon Fruit are also easy to grow from seed.

The Drought and Heat Tolerant Guide says temperatures down to -0.5°C will be tolerated

The fruiting plant enjoys full sun in moderate temperatures, to all day part shade in high temperatures (over 27°C), which I have here.

With an eventual height of six metres, this is not a greenhouse plant!

The first job was to separate the tiny seeds from the flesh, using a tea strainer.

I have started the process and will see if I can get a pair of plants growing. NCG

 

Postscript: As I finish the blog at 20:15, the rain has just started!