About Me

We moved out to Portugal to live a frugal but better , simpler and peaceful life, our house is a very basic, semi ruin, up in the hills outside Figueiro Dos Vinhos, where we work our land, enjoy life with each other and our dogs, and hope to make the smallest carbon footprint we can,

Friday 1 June 2012

Oooh Lovely new season crops

Yes today we dug the first couple of plant of our new season potatoes, its a tad early, but they looked okay and we just couldn't wait... although we are not huge potato eaters, we love new spuds...
we only dug a couple of plants, just enough for two or three meals for us as a treat..it equates to the half a washing up bowl you see hereabouts... you just cant beat the taste...
We are still picking broad beans, so far I've frozen almost 20kilos, and still another large picking of maybe another ten kilos or so before we finish, we've been eating them fresh almost everyday, luckily we love them...
The baby lettuce is just coming on ready too... we'll start on them this week, mixed with a few dandilion leaves and some borage leaves, makes a delish salad...I may well make some borage leaf fritters too or even some ravioli... yum...
The garden is very behind this year, a combination of me not being here, and the terrible weather we had during the whole of April and early May, so much rain, some plants drowned and some just didn't flourish, the corn is pretty poor, as are the peppers... I'm going to give the peppers a nice feed of comfrey liquid and hope for the best, the corn I will weed, and then go round and pop in more seed in the very large gaps...
Meanwhile the aubergines are starting to pick up a bit, still very behind but signs of life there now...
The few squash are going well but I've more germinating in the greenhouse, again they will be a late crop this year.
The cabbage is looking great, as always! Both red and green are hearting up nicely, the beans Rick planted have come on great guns, and I plan to plant another block of French beans next week..
The toms are doing very well and I will pick a few meals worth of peas next week ...
I still haven't managed to plant the damn Basil yet...

Ive been managing to get two or three hours in most days, then have to have a sleep in the afternoon.... but at least Im gradually getting stuff done, Im almost caught up with the weeding around the cottage and guest area and around the house , as we have had a few house viewings this last week or so, nothing has come of them but there were some very positive people and comments which was nice..

I'm just about to cut up and freeze the last of last years huge pumpkins, and a few butternut squashes.. nice to get ahead for soup for next winter...

I'm busy planning and adding to my store cupboard for winter too.
While I was in the UK I managed to stock up on Pearl Barley, stew mix(a nice mix of grains and lentils etc) Suet for dumplings, dried fruit which I find expensive here, plus some shampoos and stuff...
I've been buying extra Pasta the last few weeks and now am moving onto Rice ... Im determined to have a huge store cupboard this winter so we don't have to worry about anything...

Next week  we visit the house of a friend who is away in England for a few weeks and will harvest some of his Cherries... I plan a few jars of jam... Mmmmm my fave jam!
Our Peach trees are looking good too... hopefully plenty of them for bottling and jam this year too..

Another couple of weeks will see the wild Fennel ready for picking, I plan to make around 20 litres of Liquer this year... It just vanishes...

So much to get organised... my herbs are sprouting and we've already been enjoying herb butters, plenty of chive butter for the new spuds... Ive picked catnip, yarrow,  Mullien and lemon balm for drying and later there will be tons of lavender...the sage wont be long either...
Oh well I rambled on for long enough ...