Winter crops

This week: Winter crops; The kitchen garden;

This week has been hot again. Not quite as hot as the start of the month, but as I write this at Saturday tea-time, my thermometer is reading 33.9°C.

So definitely a time not to be doing much manual work outside.

Without any significant rainfall for almost two months, irrigating continues to be one of my daily tasks. I start early in the morning and aim to be finished by 07:00.

The peach trees I planted two years ago have their first fruit. They should be ready for picking very soon

The art is to pick them when they are completely ripe but before they fall from the tree. This is a fine line to walk.

Also ripening nicely are my grapes. Strangely, despite the dearth of rainfall, they look quite plump and juicy.

The days are marching on and I have some sunflowers which are nearing the seed setting stage.

There is an ever so slight lengthening of the evening. I notice the sky is darkening some 10 minutes earlier in the evening, but only because I am often sitting at my desk, next to an open window.

I have also noticed that some of our summer visitors have stopped calling, particularly the Nightingales.

Just an occasional Scops Owl is hooting, rather than the three or four of a month ago.

What has replaced them is the Cicada, Tettigetta argentata. Their chirping starts soon after dawn and continues at full volume until sunset.

This is the constant background noise in my Dol garden at the moment. So much so, that I have tuned out and barely notice the noise.

These are unlike the North American Periodical Cicadas which emerge in gargantuan numbers every 13 or 17 years. The European Cicadas are here every year, starting in early June and chirping until the days cool in September.

One day you notice they have started chirping. Then suddenly you notice they are gone. Another annual life cycle is complete.

It is all just a part of the Mediterranean rhythm of life…

Winter crops

It is time for me to think of winter!

We are almost a month past the northern midsummer Solstice, so it is uphill now all the way to our winter here in Dol.

This week I have been thinking about my winter vegetables.

For me, there is nothing nicer for lunch in mid-winter than fresh Broccoli, with a cheese sauce or grilled with melted cheese on top. However on the island, Broccoli florets are not always available in the supermarket.

Last winter I planted Broad Beans as an experimental crop in a small kitchen garden. They were really successful, so this year I will do more.

I researched the Broccoli seeds I can get here. From planting to fruiting takes 100 to 120 days so that takes us to the start of November.

After making a note to plant the first seeds in mid July, I got everything ready this week.

I’ve run out of commercial seed compost, so I made up a batch of my own mix.

In my little greenhouse, I have a small propagator which I can heat once the temperature drops. However at the moment the top is open and the digital thermometer says the soil temperature is a steady 26°C.

I had some seedlings which were in there which I have planted out now, so all I needed to do was a bit of a tidy up.

After mixing my seed compost, I gave it a thorough soak and then left the bucket out in the hot sunshine to warm. Seeds germinate and grow faster when the soil they are put in is warm.

After filling two styrofoam potting trays with the soil, I planted a seed in each one and then put them into the propagator.

The packet says that germination usually takes place in four to eight days, so watch this space.

What I plan to do is to plant another two trays every fortnight, so with succession planting in the kitchen garden, I should have a long harvest season over the winter.

Another winter crop I want to try this year are Brussels Sprouts.

The kitchen garden

My soils are really poor. They are full of limestone and so have a high pH which challenges me when I am growing anything.

The little kitchen garden is part of the extra land I purchased a year and a half ago. There is an old Almond tree which has been allowed to spread, unchecked, for probably 40+ years.

After digging out perennial weeds last year I hope that by planting beans last winter they will have added nitrogen to the soil.

This week I cut up all the remaining stems, but then realised that there was quite a lot of dead wood in the almond tree, which I want to keep.

Small dead twigs I could just break, larger ones needed “Parrot Bill” shears. However for the thickest dead branches, I needed my chain saw.

I had to sharpen the chain first though. I haven’t used it since I was cutting wood for the wood stove last winter.

Almonds should be pruned when they are dormant. Here that is a very short window of time between when all the leaves have dropped and before spring growth starts again.

This year the tree had it’s first blossom on the 9th February, so it would have been actively growing for the three to four weeks previously.

That means that December is practically when I should do any pruning. It really needs some radical pruning too.

Quite a number of the branches are completely dead, but when the tree has leaves, these are easy to spot even if they are difficult to get to.

There are two completely separate, old trees and then then two more which may well have grown from underground suckers.

One of these is looking decidedly sick at the moment. No doubt due to the drought conditions in the garden. Since the start of June I have recorded just 2mm of rainfall.

That is two litres of water per square metre of land. Imagine a two litre drinks bottle, poured on a square metre of ground.

There is little wonder why everything is stressed!

I have dug out some clumps perennial grass and left the roots to dry out.

There are a number of roots of wild Asparagus. These provide delicious edible spears for the kitchen in the spring.

However being wild, they grow haphazardly and I really need to dig the roots out now and replant them somewhere where they will not be in the way.

Once all the preparation has been done, I plan to use my rotavator to turn the soil and all the dead matter on top, to prepare planting beds for some winter crops.

I am mindful that we are only a few short weeks away from the start of our extended autumn though… NCG