Quinta das Abelhas

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We never seem to do very well with cucumbers. Normally only a few plants survive the spring and the heat of early summer, and only one or two plants go on to develop very well. But we do normally get quite a few cucumbers from those few plants.

This year we only have one very good plant, a few that may get some fruit late in the year, and half a dozen strugglers. The best plant, in Sophies garden, is buried in beans and seems to like the shade. Its produced one cucumber so far, but plenty of tiny ones on the plant.

There are also some very well developed aubergine plants in Sophie’s garden, plus quite a few strugglers in mine. The first aubergine is growing. The need the heat to do very well, and this year has been cooler than normal.

We’ve been eating trail of tear beans for some time now, and also have a few bags of chopped up beans in the freezer. All the books say to blanch veg before freezing, but we never do, and they seem fine. Anything that cuts down on work is good. Heres a pic of some of the beans. They are very prolific and even the dried beans taste fantastic.

The rhubarb we brought back from the UK seems very happy, under a tree in Sophie’s garden. We recently we offered Rui Barbo at Vale dos Amores Restaurant. ‘What’s that?’ we asked. ‘Its a vegetable’ was the reply. We scratched our heads, and ordered to see what it was. Rui Barbo, someone’s name? Their special dish? N0. It’s rhubarb! Duh!

We love rhubarb crumble!

In amongst our courgettes and pumpkins, there are a few rather strange plants. They are the shape of a courgette plant, but the fruit looks more like a gourd or squash. I bought so many different things in the spring and so much that i planted got cut down by late frosts, that I simply dont know what this is. I dont want to cut them as courgettes, and they dont cook all that well. So I will wait and see what happens to them over time. If the plants stop producing I will cut them to encourage more.

Our seeding wild leeks and leeks and onions are being visited by these big scary looking bees. I’ve not seen them before, but we have loads of them buzzing around the allium flowers. They are about an inch long. I wonder if they have stings (but dont really want to find out).

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we received this comment on the blog yesterday:

“Ethical geocachers…organic permaculturers….yet dealing in the buying and selling of property…grimly capitalistic. Not being critical, just wondrin how you reconcile the very different things you do.”

so … are we grimly capitalistic?  we advertise property for sale in central portugal via our website www.pureportugal.co.uk.

we advertise many smallholdings, ruins and renovation projects, abandoned buildings, etc that can be brought back into use in a (hopefully) eco-friendly way and we make our “ethics” very clear on the website.  we hope that because we are prominent on google searches that many people looking for property are going to find some possibilities for living that they may never have thought about before.

we pay ourselves minimum wage and any profits the business makes are donated to sustainable living projects via www.ecolivingportugal.org or donated to / invested in other ethical/sustainable/community businesses or projects, for example The Lammas Project, Rootstock, and União Progressiva de Chão Sobral.

i’ve spent a long time beating myself up about what i do not being good enough, not coming up to my own standards. but i’m realising that there’s only so much i can do, nothing will ever be perfect, and there’ll always be room for improvement - so if i do my best then that is good enough.

nowadays i don’t feel the need so much to “reconcile” what i do - i’m beginning to realise i’m justified in being very proud of it

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We couldn’t find it! The first one that we went to find, and we didn’t succeed. Fraga da Pena is a series of rockpools and waterfalls in the Serra do Açor, we’ve been several times before so didn’t find the scenery as awe-inspiring as if it were a new visit. If you are visiting the area, it is worth visiting with a picnic lunch and swim suits. That water is very cold though. This is the bottom pool, with a long waterfall falling into it.

Then you go over a rickety wooden bridge, and up stone steps. Watch that handrail, its loose in places.
There are small pools and falls all the way up.

Small stone ruins that were once working mills line the route of the water and path. Perhaps, one day, as oil gets more expensive, we’ll see these mills back in use? Here is a picture of a water channel that would have fed the mills with water to turn the mill-stones.

This pool is near the top. The water is so clean and pure, but very very cold.

I don’t understand how we didn’t find the geocache. The GPS said we were within 5 feet of it, but it was nowhere. Perhaps I’ll have another look, when we go there again. This time making sure it is earlier in the day, as it was getting late and cold in the shadow of the steep valley sides.

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We went to Coja river beach, to use our new handheld GPS to find the geocache.
Coja river beach, next to the camp site, is a beautiful spot, so I took a few photos.

Just a little way along the river you can find quiet shady spots to relax.

After some time figuring out how the GPS works, we found the cache, wrote in the little book in it, and added our packet of bean seeds (ethical geocachers we are!), and then retired to the cafe for a beer and a plate of caracois (snails). I have to find out if we can eat all the snails that eat my seedlings in the spring.

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