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 ones kept collapsing and so weren’t safe for guests.

After making the steps, Oli and Teresa set to work on a new bed in front of the main house, which will catch rainwater from the roof and provide next-to-the-table herbs and salads for easy picking and the freshest eating! I also want to grow kiwis up the wooden posts and over a new structure out front to shade the dining table.

That’s one wheelbarrow load of manure in the near end of the bed, and we reckon we’ll need a total of 15 loads barrowed up from the muck heap at the bottom of the land – 3 each for the 5 of us!

The article also mentions Madagascar Beans. “They’re a traditional permaculture plant. Two seeds will grow a wall of beans that can be shelled and stored in the cupboard as dried beans.” Never heard of Madagascar Beans so definitely need to check them out!

Another DVD that everyone should watch is “Establishing a Food Forest the Permaculture Way” by Geoff Lawton (preview below) and on our wish list is another by the same guy “Harvesting Water the Permaculture Way“.

O jardim é tão verde em maio, e cada ano mais parece uma selva!

I have not planted a lot of summer crops out yet. Some of the raised beds are still full of broad beans, lupins, poppies and other plants that will be coming out soon to make room for the main crop of summer vegetables.

Eu não tenho plantadas muita culturas de verão para fora, ainda. Algumas das camas levantadas ainda estão cheios de favas, tremoços, papoilas e outras plantas, que será a sair em breve para dar espaço para as principais culturas de verão legumes.

We do already have some courgettes, tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins, piri-piri, varied beans and cucumbers planted out – with lots more in trays in the polytunnel to plant out soon.

Fazemos já tem algumas abobrinhas, tomates, pimentos, abóboras, piri-piri, feijão e pepinos na horta – com muito mais em bandejas no polytunnel à planta em breve.

These are okra seedlings.

Estes são quiabo mudas.

Alec gave us some jerusalem artichokes last week.

Alec nos deu algumas Tupinambos semana passada.

I am trying to germinate two avocado stones, and I plan to try to cordon the trees within the polytunnel.

Estou tentando germinar duas pedras de abacate, e eu pretendo tentar cordão de árvores dentro do polytunnel.

And here’s some photos of young trees planted here. The ridge of earth is very clear, and on sloping ground that ridge is higher on the lower side of the tree and almost non-existent above the tree. For most of the year it will catch rain, and hold it in the manure/compost filled earth under the tree. But in dry spells, and definitely July and August we have to water maybe once a week – depending on how hot it is and what type of tree. Our experimental drought tolerant trees need much less water than fruit trees, which may need watering occassionally for their whole lives.

RAINWATER HARVESTING
Author – Pacey and Cullis
Stuff on storing rainwater, building tanks etc., but with the addition of a good section on farming with runoff water in rural areas. Good for developing water strategies.

The plum trees are laden with tiny plums, including the row of plum suckers that we put in a few years ago not expecting them to fruit much if at all.

The two cherries in the gardens have some fruit for the first time, and we planted half a dozen more cherries each of the last 2 winters. Cherries are so good, and easy to sun dry for the winter, we should plant more trees this winter.

The raspberries that we transplanted into a bed in Sophie’s garden are covered in flowers. I wonder if we can take cuttings from them this autumn to make another bed. Raspberries must be one of my favourites.

And of course, the grapes are appearing on the vines now, as they grow, and strawberry flowers are starting to appear.

There are also plenty of other fruits appearing, nectarines, peaches, figs, apple and pear blossom, goji berries, cranberries, russian olives, loquats…. and I am bound to have forgotten some. Each year we get more fruit and more of the new ones come on stream for us. We must get a solar drier made, to make winter stores of all of this abundance.

CIDER
Author – A Proulx
New, revised and updated edition. Lots of information for the cider maker (includes vinegars and brandy).

These two trays are mainly old favourites such as Orange Banana tomatoes, that we’ve saved our own seed for, and the last few bought seeds in a few random packs from previous years. When I planted them, the weather was still a bit colder than now, so I planted ones that didnt matter too much. Since these 154 seeds went in, I have also planted 3 more trays – another 120, bigger compartments – of a wide range including Caro Rich that has more vitamin A than normal tomatoes, Cherokee Purple, huge purple fruit, and white cherry tomatoes which form 2 foot long trusses of fruit. Should be an interesting harvest this summer, plus we should have enough plants to give to a few friends who are just starting out here, or to swap with others.
I think we have close to 50 types of tomato seeds now, mainly heritage varieties, and we bought a few Coraçao do Bio plants, traditional portuguese type with big pinky fruit, at sunday market in tabua.

We’ve been seriously thinking about buying a proper glass greenhouse, although I’m still looking for plastic bendy pipe (if anyone has some spare lying around) to knock up a polytunnel. Whatever, we will hopefully be able to grow tomatoes and peppers through this coming winter, and get our seeds started off really early next year.

My two tea plants (Camelia Sinensis) have started growing again, after a winter of not. Great, I wonder how long it will be before we can start harvesting growing tips to make our own cuppas.

BACK GARDEN SEED SAVING
The best UK book on seed saving by top gardening writer Sue Stickland. She gives easy to follow crop-by-crop guidelines to help you save seed for yourself and varieties to look out for.

Then last week a fox found another tiny hole (again from strimming) and killed 3 of the replacement chickens which we had only recently bought at Tabua market, took one of our two geese, and our pair of ducks.

So, I have now reinforced the fence, repaired all the holes, put in new treated fence posts to make it sturdier and I have been shutting the four new ducklings and 4 almost point-of-lay hens into their shed each night.

They all go in when it gets dark, so I have to get the goose back out (she terrorises the others and has been known to kill young birds in the night) and then put the ‘door’ in its slot, and push the brick up against it. The new young hens had to be taught how to roost, but only once, and they do it themselves now.

I think it would be a good idea to buy a few more chickens and maybe quite a few more baby ducks this sunday at market. The hens are 5.50 euros each, which we thought was expensive, especially if they quickly become fox food, until we recently watched River Cottage on DVD, and Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall paid loads of money for chickens. I guess it is all relative. But the ducklings are 1.25 each and we have always done well with ducks, both for eggs and they are the only anmals we have successfully bred for meat.

And the ducklings are so cute.