It really feels like mid June now. These last couple of days have been extremely hot with today’s indoor temperature in excess of 33ºC. It will probably be like this for the next month or so.

So I had a few apricots. I thought I wouldn’t have got any this year, so I was pleased.

Had my first plums this week. The are a small variety. Good but acidic so you can only eat a few at a time. The mid summer variety plums will be coming online soon.

Been using the potty for about three months now. I had almost forgotten about it. Used it when I first came here in 2014-15. I quite like it. It is 100% ecological – goes to compost. It okay if you are just one person using it. The flushing toilet blocked and I haven’t had time to sort it out.

The grapes are coming along.

The potatoes are doing very well. I am really pleased. I sowed some sweetcorn from seed collected from last year’s crop but on very few germinated. And shockingly only of a dozen bought pumpkin seed germinated.

Been eating a bit of sweet potato leaf (red variety) mixed in rice and pasta. Chalini had given me the shoots a few years ago. Doesn’t seem to upset my stomach this time round.

The lemon trees are growing a lot better. Besides adding a bit a horse manure compost bought in bags from the Cooperative store in Monscarapacho I have been putting in diluted vinegar. This to increase the soil acidity. At the moment 200ml cider vinegar to 4 litres of water seems to bring down the pH by 0.5. As Christine Shinn advised me a few years back pine needles composted around the trunks is a better long term solution. I plan to implement this.

I have been surprised to find out that nespiras (loquat trees) do very well in semi arid conditions. I water these just once a week and they are growing well. One 3 year old fruited this year. They seem to grow better than the olives I on the same irrigation cycle.

The young olives are growing - some better than others :).

Wild thyme for a good time 🙂 The bees love it. use in in rice which cooks very well on the 500W hot plate 'Justin' Beper running on Solar P.V.

This is one of my four boundary posts bearing my initials ZR. These mark out my property. If anyone claims or implies anything else – this is false.

That’s all for now. Thank you for reading!

References:

How to make soil more acidic: 7 ways to amend your soil's PH |

Influencer Jéssica Riço, Jéssica Alexandra Riço, jessica-riço on Peoople