Quinta das Abelhas

Summer is here. Cassey and the kittens are taking a break in the shade of an olive tree:

These heirloom climbing beans are doing very well, but no beans to eat yet:

The bed is very simply some bricks, in a circle, filled with horse manure. Obviously the bean plants love the manure.

The Goji berry plant, which was just a stick in a pot, has been growing fast too. We are watering roughly every two days now, and, even with the manure, the beds dry out. Luckily our well has an underground stream flowing into it, so we have plenty of water (but we still need to be careful with it). There are no berries on the plant, also known as wolfberry, but it seems that flowers should start forming soon, and we’ll get berries through the autumn. Some info here.

I think we need to build some kind of frame around it to keep the berries off of the floor.

We have our first augergine (eggplant) flower of the year. I love aubergines chopped small, cooked with beans, olive oil and soya sauce. We’ll be eating them in a few weeks if this heat keeps up.

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I went to market yesterday, and tried to buy a turkey to fatten up for xmas dinner. But the woman selling them wouldnt sell one on its own, although I explained it would have plenty of company in the chicken pen - chickens, ducks and geese.

So I returned home with two of the ugliest birds ever, and lots of young veg plants to fill up the beds in my garden - red cabbage, caldo verde cabbage, beetroots, lettuce, peppers, piri-piri, tomatoes and basil plants. Loads of the seeds in trays have germinated too, and will be going in the gardens over the next few days (probably as soon as the rain stops again!), but the young plants from market have a head start over anything we are growing from seeds.

The varieties aren’t as interesting as our heirloom seeds, although some are portuguese varieties that aren’t found outside of portugal. At 5 to 20 cents each, depending on the size and who we buy from, it sometimes seems hardly worth growing from seed, and of course its good to support the little market stalls that grow them all themselves, pretty much organically (not by design, but because chemicals cost money!). If our unusual species and varieties don’t do well, at least we have the standard plants to feed us.

So here is our xmas dinner:

They have settled in with all the other birds very quickly. I’ll probably kill, gut and pluck them in about 12 weeks, so the meat doesn’t start getting tough, and freeze them until just before xmas. The seller assured me that they will grow very big - i hope they fit in the freezer and oven!

Do turkeys lay eggs regularly? Are turkey eggs edible? According to a quick search, yes, it seems turkeys lay between february and september, and the eggs are apparently delicious. Perhaps if they start laying before the time comes to kill them, they’ll get a reprieve and be kept for their eggs. Maybe next year they’ll hatch some babies that we can eat, and if we like the eggs we’ll breed a whole flock of the birds!

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The strawberry (morangos) beds are in full swing now. The photo below is the harvest from maybe half of our beds of strawberry plants, which can be harvested pretty much every day. Recipes for strawberries would be much appreciated!

We are also eating beetroots (beterrabas) almost every day. I have a 77 unit seed tray that i fill with beet seeds, wait for them to germinate, then plant out in my garden. Thats about once a week, 70 or so beet seedlings go into the ground. We all love beetroot.

Using our Matstone masticating juicer, I have been trying to make juice everyday. At the moment its strawberries and beetroot, maybe the odd shop-bought carrot (cenoura) - strangely I have no luck growing carrots! - and whatever else happens to be around, including the odd potato (batata) as I read somewhere that potato juice is very cleansing. I make about a litre, and either give everyone here a glassful, or stick it in the fridge for people to help themselves to. Its a fantastic drink, you can almost feel the nutrition flood your system.

We also eat a lot of those beetroots, freshly grated, with a carrot or two, and some toasted seeds, chopped apple, raisins or (again) whatever is on hand that day. Much of my cooking is like this - take a rough idea of a recipe and supplement with whatever is available from the garden, or the few things we buy from market occasionally.

Now that the rain has stopped, hopefully we’ll be able to eat outside at our new super-size table:

The only downside really of all this sunshine is the need to water the gardens regularly. I have a lot of young plants in the garden now, so have to water almost every day, at least until they have gotten established. So, off I go now, but before I go, heres a photo of Simba the puppy, that belongs to Aliss, but seems to have become another member of our crowd of animals. He must have Serra de Estrela sheep-dog in his genes, because he is so laid back. He doesnt move out of the way for anyone, and regularly gets trodden on!

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Here she is! Isn’t she beautiful? And today she has laid her first ever egg.

I had a look in the shed, and found four chicken eggs and the wonderful duck egg. Hopefully some of our ladies will start sitting soon. Guess we better start making mayonnaise, pickled eggs and lemon curd.

And while I am here, I thought I’d publish a photo of the willow that I pruned recently. We prune it right back each spring, before it starts budding, so that we have plenty of thin branches to tie-in our vines. It is not difficult, if yours looks roughly like this you’ve done it right.

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1 chicken egg and one goose egg yesterday.

2 chicken eggs and one goose egg today.

It’s the beginning of the season of egg butties, omelettes and quiches …

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