Has been a mixed bag. We hand a couple of weeks where the temperature reached 19ºC during the day and didn't fall below 8ºC at night. We have more normal winter weather now with a cold northwesterly blowing and a excepted maximum of 13ºC. But is is sunny so my solar panels are working well 🙂 . I still haven't built a charge controller for the wind turbine to harness all the wind energy we have here.
Gardening/agriculture wise it's been a good month. I have started a green compost heap to try and rapidly compost weeds. However I don't think it will be sufficient so I invested 30 evros in a metre cubed of “stumuâ€.
I think it is essentially bog. It smells likes the place in Kenya where we used to go to buy earthworms for fishing.
I have applied some on a small vegetable bed where I have planted some cabbages and four cucumber plants. They are under the cut bottles. I am excited about the cucumbers as I have never seem a cucumber plant before!
I added the cardboard layer after planting as this is when I managed to get hold of some. It works very well as a weed suppressant.
Of the cabbages I planted in November I got only 1 badly eaten individual. But it was tasty. 🙂 I got some red cabbages growing at the Seven Sisters swale (ditch) so we'll see have they come along. I currently get a steady stream of lettuce leaves, even in winter.
The trees are doing well. I have planted another plum tree this weekend as well as a couple more carob trees. One of the two lemon trees has actually flowered! This is just the beginning of it's second year's growth. I might a actually see a lemon or two this year 🙂 . I need to press on with grafting more olive trees this month as well as try and set some hardwood cuttings of fig and pomegranate.
The almond trees are in bloom. I planted 30 almond seeds in late October in fifteen holes. Six almond saplings are now growing! I have also been transplanting some of my young almond trees as I have quite a few of them.
All of the EIGHT Jamie Oliver greens pea plants are doing well. I should have really sown more. The Portuguese here grown them in clusters. I'll try this next time. I gt some gowning down at the Seven Sister's Swale too. I palnted 10 potatoes in the heavy clay just to see how they will do. Six potato plants are now growing slowly.
I haven't done much about the floor inside the house or built Primeiro his dog house. I need to built a chicken coop too. We eat a lot of eggs. Manged to solve the horrible smell you used to get after you emptied the urine tank by creating a simple U-bend in the flexible hose.
I am slow but I am having fun doing what I manage to do :).