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Some sun ripened tomatoes this week. There are still some green ones on a couple of the plants which will hopefully ripen. Of the two dozen seedlings of the green peppers I sowed, I have managed to grow a just single plant on. I have got about half a dozen sweet chilli grown from seed. I will move then into the greenhouse. Our night time temeperatures are dropping. About 16-17 ÂşC on average.
The olives are ready for harvesting. I picked a few for preserving. They are less this year like most of the other crop but I hope to get some oil pressed. I am waiting for the lagar at Santa Catarina to commence pressing before I harvest them.
The last of the plums were had this year. They are medium in size and yellow inside. Not a bad variety. They will help keep us in fruit.
The gauvas, like the peaches and apples, did not flower well this year. Probably due to the eratic climatic conditions. I have a few guavas ripening now. Definitely won’t be enough to make jam let alone perad (guava cheese). I am growing two more guava trees from seed. I hope they are the yellow variety. The red are nice but I like the yellow ones more.
Managed to grow my two lemon trees better this year. Here is one I have spread cypress cuttings around to help build the soil acidity.
I have done the same for the orange tree at the bottom. Still hoping for oranges one day. I got a couple of tangerines in fruit. The permissions are also in fruit. Less and smaller fruit due to the very hot and dry conditions we have had. The birds tend to destroy them before they ripen on the tree which is a pain. I have taken to ripening them indoors.
On the green energy front, still limping on with my small P. array and small wind turbine. I hope to put a couple more panels up to boost the electrical output. The rats destroyed the silicon tubing that tops up the battery bank. The even ate a plastic container! The LE 300 wind turbine still works reliably. Thank you Leading Edge.
Started cutting wood for winter. I am lucky to have my own wood resource which comes mainly from large wild olive and almond trees growing on on land. The wood burner is our main source of heating during the winter. Let's go Wesco! 🙂
Thankfully the almost daily unheavenly stench that used come from the neighbouring territories for months has died down. Smelt like rotting guts and carcasses of rabbits and such - that were even brought to boil.. . I now get the occasional whiff of freshly spread entrails. It’s more tolerable. Changing demographics.
Anyhow, I am plodding on. I am pleased that I managed to grow my young olives this summer a bit more. A lot of work with the hose pipe. The calderas are proving effective.
It is green here but cold. On some days I keep the home fire burning all day. No quite sub zero but we have had morning frosts and it's predicted to get colder next week. I often wonder how people back in the UK are getting on. My gut feeling is that many struggle to keep warm. I don’t think electrical heating is an affordable option anymore in Portugal. Trying not to be political here, but it appears to me that some governments are committed to imposing higher energy and food prices on the people so that they can keep the war going in Ukraine.
