We’ve all been busy the last couple of days bringing up wheelbarrows full of rotted horse muck up to the gardens. And today we’ve been working on the new kitchen garden at the side of Andy and Sophie’s house. The first stage is to clear the land of the rubble the builders left, and move [...]
Posts under ‘Gardens & Produce’
More on the bees
The second swarm are now settled in the apiary which makes 3 hives there (see photo below) plus Andy’s hive which is near the pond. All the hives so far are standard Portuguese ones, adapted to have open mesh floors which helps control the varroa mite. Matt is also in the middle of making a [...]
Asparagus and poached eggs for breakfast
This morning we had produce from our chickens and vegetable garden for breakfast. …served in various ways. My friend Zoe got me in to this combination but I have never had it so fresh before!
Steps, Steps, and a Bed
Today I’ve been catching up on Pure Portugal work, whilst Oli and Teresa finished making the steps for the Pirate Ship Slide. Meanwhile Matt’s been busy making the shuttering for new steps up to the Mongolian Yurt from the Kitchen Caravan. We’ve reluctantly decided to make them out of concrete, as the wood and earth [...]
We Dig Swales!
http://www.portugalsmallholding.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/feb2010-swales.pdf
Gardening
Today, with the help of Lauren (7) and Emily (4) we’ve been: digging horseradish out of one of the raised beds, where it had taken over digging up and potting rooted goji berries making a new raised bed around a fig tree picking strawberries, capers, and tomatoes Lots to do at the moment, here’s a [...]
Grape Juice / Sumo de Uva
1: Set big pans of water on to boil, ready to sterilise the bottles. 2. Pick grapes (fogot to take photo of this, doh!). 3. Wash feet & tread grapes. 4. Put buckets of squished grapes into press (we pressed white (green) grapes first). 5. Collect juice (this is the juice from the red grapes)! [...]
Bottled Tomatoes / Tomates Engarrafados
We been eating all the veg from the garden – cooking for up to 15 people some nights. Fomos comer todos os legumes da horta – cozinhar para até 15 pessoas em algumas noites. Today, Serena and Pandora (yes, more wwoofers!) are bottling a huge basket of tomatoes that I picked from the garden. Hoje, [...]
Horse Manure and Vine Posts
We’ve been pushing wheelbarrows of horse manure up the hill, to fill the raised beds, during the cool mornings. Fomos empurrando carros de estrume de cavalo até a colina, para preencher a camas do jardim, durante a manhã fria. And banging some posts into the ground for the vines. E batendo em alguns postes dentro [...]
