What lovely weather we are having at the moment, its hot during the day, but for us anyway, it is nice and breezy and much cooler at night. This I could cope with forever...
Today I was up bright and early, have to be nowadays as its getting too hot to work during the heat of the day so we have to find the hours somewhere. So I get up earlier, the garden was still lovely and damp from last nights watering, so nice and cool for working. I picked, two big bunches of baby carrot thinnings, a colander of peas, another large bowl of french beans, thats the second this week. Plus a large bunch of baby beetroots, five small green peppers and ahandful of courgettes..
Nothing will be wasted, The peas were podded and put in the freezer, the pods were chopped and put in the dog bag towards tonights meal for them, the baby carrots were scrubbed, topped and tailed and put in the freezer, they go into rice dishes etc, the carrot tops I trimmed and put in a bag and into the freezer for bulking out soup during winter, great vitamins. Some french beans were put aside for tonights dinner while the rest was frozen. The peppers and courgettes will be eaten tonight also. And I'll pickle the beets tomorrow...
All in all a good first pickings...
The peas are coming on well now, we should have more than last year, and we have made a large second sowing too so will have some late sept time too...
We are keeping on with the beet sowings to make sure of plenty of those, and cabbage of course, Ive tons of red cabbage coming so lots of recipes needed to make it different.
Frugal living in the Portuguese countryside,Eco-tourism, Agri tourism, recipes,family life, self sufficency, eco living, vegetable growing, tips and self help ideas for country living.
Friday, 24 June 2011
Thursday, 23 June 2011
Sunshine & Sardines
One of the great joys in life living in this country are the fantastic people we meet and share our lives with.
One of those people is Dona Lara, one of our closest friends and a nearby neighbour. Shes in her mid seventies and lives alone, but is always cheerful and smiling. She works so hard from first light to dark. She has chickens, ducks, goats, cats and a dog, grows all her own food and food for her animals and bedding for them too. She is a really lovely lady and often invites us for lunch at her home. Today was one of those days.
Although she has a good kitchen she, like most Portuguese would never dream of cooking fish inside the house... she has a fire pit in the yard with a grid over that she cooks the fish on, we prepared, tomato and onion salad plus shredded lettuce and onion salad, boiled potatoes she dug just as we arrived, and fresh bread and olives, lashings of her own olive oil and a large jug of her own wine to wash it all down with. We sat outside under her shady vine covered yard and stuffed ourselves... she then came back with a homemade Pudim which is kind of eggy desert.... and fresh plums from the tree...
What a wonderful way to pass the afternoon... the sun was shining, we had good food and wine, lovely company . Its what living here is all about for us. We may not have any money, but the quality of life is unbeatable...
One of the good things is also that I know the meal she gave us, didnt cost her much either, apart from the actual fish everything else was her own grown...
One of those people is Dona Lara, one of our closest friends and a nearby neighbour. Shes in her mid seventies and lives alone, but is always cheerful and smiling. She works so hard from first light to dark. She has chickens, ducks, goats, cats and a dog, grows all her own food and food for her animals and bedding for them too. She is a really lovely lady and often invites us for lunch at her home. Today was one of those days.
Although she has a good kitchen she, like most Portuguese would never dream of cooking fish inside the house... she has a fire pit in the yard with a grid over that she cooks the fish on, we prepared, tomato and onion salad plus shredded lettuce and onion salad, boiled potatoes she dug just as we arrived, and fresh bread and olives, lashings of her own olive oil and a large jug of her own wine to wash it all down with. We sat outside under her shady vine covered yard and stuffed ourselves... she then came back with a homemade Pudim which is kind of eggy desert.... and fresh plums from the tree...
What a wonderful way to pass the afternoon... the sun was shining, we had good food and wine, lovely company . Its what living here is all about for us. We may not have any money, but the quality of life is unbeatable...
One of the good things is also that I know the meal she gave us, didnt cost her much either, apart from the actual fish everything else was her own grown...
Sunday, 19 June 2011
Herb teas...
I went out today and was given a lovely cup of home dried mint tea... and suprisingly as Im not a 'minty' kind of person it was delicious, so this afternoon I went behind the house and picked a couple of huge bunches of the wild mint that grows there, its a nice shady place and its still nice and lush and green up there.
I plan to dry it nicely over the next few days , then I'll brew it up, add a couple of spoons of either the Stevia or some honey, then chill it in the fridge, which we've just moved back into the house for summer. It will make a lovely refreshing drink on hot days... and cost me nothing...
I hope to dry enough for the winter too so I can drink it hot then when I want...
Im also madly drying Mullien, good for all chest, lungs, coughs, mucus, and of course pain relief... the plants are huge at the moment, and stunningly beautiful with their tall yellow flowering spikes... great additions to any winter herbal teas...
As is Lavender, Im picking some this week to dry for adding to herb teas in winter, good for headaches, migraines, or just adding to your bath (if you are lucky enough to have one,) a great relaxing stress relieving scented bath for last thing at night...
The wild Fennel is huge here too right now.... Ive picked and dried my Fennel leaf already, great in teas for indigestion, wind, colic in babies, etc... makes a great Liquer too...
Now is the time to make repeated pickings of Lemon Balm and Lemon Verbena, great in many different winter teas and remedies. Lemon Balm, is a beautiful calming, mood lifting tea , also good in salves as a skinhealer and soother...
Lemon Verbena is excellent for most nasal complaints.. like sinisitis., etc.. good for coughs and colds too... also settles the stomach a little...
I plan to dry it nicely over the next few days , then I'll brew it up, add a couple of spoons of either the Stevia or some honey, then chill it in the fridge, which we've just moved back into the house for summer. It will make a lovely refreshing drink on hot days... and cost me nothing...
I hope to dry enough for the winter too so I can drink it hot then when I want...
Im also madly drying Mullien, good for all chest, lungs, coughs, mucus, and of course pain relief... the plants are huge at the moment, and stunningly beautiful with their tall yellow flowering spikes... great additions to any winter herbal teas...
As is Lavender, Im picking some this week to dry for adding to herb teas in winter, good for headaches, migraines, or just adding to your bath (if you are lucky enough to have one,) a great relaxing stress relieving scented bath for last thing at night...
The wild Fennel is huge here too right now.... Ive picked and dried my Fennel leaf already, great in teas for indigestion, wind, colic in babies, etc... makes a great Liquer too...
Now is the time to make repeated pickings of Lemon Balm and Lemon Verbena, great in many different winter teas and remedies. Lemon Balm, is a beautiful calming, mood lifting tea , also good in salves as a skinhealer and soother...
Lemon Verbena is excellent for most nasal complaints.. like sinisitis., etc.. good for coughs and colds too... also settles the stomach a little...
Stevia Herb Update.
Well.... it wasnt a great success, the trying to grow my own plants... It actually wasnt a success at all... I managed to buy 40 seeds, so far Ive potted up 20 of them, in batches of ten at a time.... nothing... nada... zilch... I really thought I would be able to germinate them with it being so warm and humid here...
I have another batch Im going to try this next week at its turning warmer still...
But in the mean time, I saw the lovely German lady that told me about the Stevia herb originally and she sold me some for a couple of euros, its the green Stevia which is dried ground up leaf ... Im trying it in tea... it is defo MUCH sweeter than sugar... I use around just less than a third of a spoonful... when normally I would take three sweetners in coffee... so its much sweeter, it does have a very unusual taste... and I could understand if some people didnt like it... I didnt the first few mouthfuls... but I persevered and I think I could become accustomed to it in time... In coffee.... hmmm not sure... Im trying tea and then will work up to it... all the time telling myself.... its calorie free.... its calories free....
It does actually have a sort of chemical taste... which is strange... but thats more pronounced the more you use, so less is defo best in this case.
You can buy a refined Stevia liquid, which is supposed to be better than the green, but I really want to grow it, so getting use to the green leaf type is right for me...
I have another batch Im going to try this next week at its turning warmer still...
But in the mean time, I saw the lovely German lady that told me about the Stevia herb originally and she sold me some for a couple of euros, its the green Stevia which is dried ground up leaf ... Im trying it in tea... it is defo MUCH sweeter than sugar... I use around just less than a third of a spoonful... when normally I would take three sweetners in coffee... so its much sweeter, it does have a very unusual taste... and I could understand if some people didnt like it... I didnt the first few mouthfuls... but I persevered and I think I could become accustomed to it in time... In coffee.... hmmm not sure... Im trying tea and then will work up to it... all the time telling myself.... its calorie free.... its calories free....
It does actually have a sort of chemical taste... which is strange... but thats more pronounced the more you use, so less is defo best in this case.
You can buy a refined Stevia liquid, which is supposed to be better than the green, but I really want to grow it, so getting use to the green leaf type is right for me...
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Bartering...
Just a quickie ...
If any one of you reading this lives within reasonable distance of us... Im going to have tons of Jerusalem Artichokls this autumn... and I mean tons... Im looking to barter most of them ,for a joint of meat maybe...
They are excellent for freezing, roasting , soup etc or just for planting to grow your own for pig food, pigs absolutely love them...
Please get in touch anyone who is interested...
If any one of you reading this lives within reasonable distance of us... Im going to have tons of Jerusalem Artichokls this autumn... and I mean tons... Im looking to barter most of them ,for a joint of meat maybe...
They are excellent for freezing, roasting , soup etc or just for planting to grow your own for pig food, pigs absolutely love them...
Please get in touch anyone who is interested...
General Update.
Well things here are pottering along, our lovely friends Jan & Alik have moved on for the rest of their holiday and are traveling around southwards...
After a few days of quite cool weather... well cool for us anyway, it dropped to 18/19 degrees... which after 30 or so, seemed chilly... its picked up nicely again and is around 25/27 degrees which for me is about perfect, it still cools nicely at night so we can all get a good nights sleep and get plenty of work done outside during the day.
We are having a bit of a car problem, after Rick being smart and fixing the farting and coughing problem, it still needed a new part for the starter motor, no problem, the engineer said, in and out, one day 45 euros.... lovely we said.... except when Rick went to collect it after work having dropped it off on his way and some friends picking him up and taking him to work and doing the reverse in the evening.... a problem... its a rare part, not sold here, has to be imported via UK and all in all wont be ready till fri at best, and will cost three times what we were told.... bugger, bugger bugger....
But.... it has to be done, we want to sell the car and get another van, a van is so much more 'us' ...
It also means that ricky cant work this week as we have no transport... bless him he's walked into town this morning while its cooler to get me a few odds and ends of groceries...
The garden is still coming on, it seems slower this year... maybe thats me I dont know... but the daily slog of watering has begun, the whole top terrace which is my squashes , peppers and chillis and the aubergines and soft fruit has to be done by hand with a watering can. We have moved the large tank over there and pump the water from the well every few days, we plant all the squashes in large deep sink like holes, so we can fill each sink with food and water and it doesnt run off but soaks in gently, works a treat for us, I have tons of baby squash poppin out... Ive picked the odd baby courgette too... all the aubergines have tons of flowers and the pepper plants are setting baby peppers too... as are the chillis. I dont think I'll have the hundreds of piri piri that I had last year but what I have coming are much bigger...
The tomatoes seem to have survived our infected potato problem, but some look very wek, so I may well put in a few more and so we get a more staggered crop than the huge glut we normally get, all the potatoes are dug and clean and stored in our storage chest upstairs, we ended with four sacks... which is a poor crop for what we planted, but hey... they are free , delicious and will last us till probably christmas or late late autumn at the least...
We've been busy clearing a space and digging trenches and putting up concrete posts and wires for our new Raspberry bed,(and one new Loganberry Rick bought me as a pressie) last year I was given six canes and they have transformed themselves into around 25 this summer, so we've moved them into orderly rows and given them some support ect in the hopes they will keep increasing and then we can make a nice cage to stop the birds or rabbits or whatever it is that keeps nicking them before me...
I dont think its rabbits, as we now have a lovely family of foxes, we are keeping it quiet from our village neighbours over the hill as they will come with either traps or poison and I dont want that... I dont have chickens and they are feeding on the local rabbit population which is helping my veggie garden no end...
The first few nights drove us nuts as they yip and yap as they play and our dogs barked half the night... but they seem to have got used to it now and things are quieter...
The lovely Jan brought me two baby rhubarb crowns too, so they are coming along nicely in pots till the autumn when I think they'll be strong enough to plant out.
The amount of fruit we've planted you would think we would be in clover wouldnt you.... but sadly pretty much none of it is old enough to be giving much more than a handful here and there.... in a few years though we'll have every kind of fruit imaginable .... I hope..
The guest cottage situation is not bad, not great but again we are stumbling along, we've had a few cottage guest and have some more booked in, the caravan has helped out a little, with the odd booking here and there, its not wonderful in terms of income to live on, but we are just about paying the bills and staying afloat, just a few more would make such a difference to our coming winter so I have to pin some hopes on our Spanish guests who generally come last moment July and August, I have two lots booked in now but more are needed...
The whole Cottage area is looking very pretty this year, Im so pleased, the tubs are all down to me , I grew the flowers from seed so they have cost us pennies this year compared to arounf 15- 20 euros other years.... you can guess what I'll do from now on...
The new hot water system is working reasonably well, it still needs tweeking, but we have free hot water most days and thats excellent for us...
Work on the wind turbine is at a standstill, Rick is blaming lack of money... but I think without Aliks motivational skills its stumbled to a halt...
After a few days of quite cool weather... well cool for us anyway, it dropped to 18/19 degrees... which after 30 or so, seemed chilly... its picked up nicely again and is around 25/27 degrees which for me is about perfect, it still cools nicely at night so we can all get a good nights sleep and get plenty of work done outside during the day.
We are having a bit of a car problem, after Rick being smart and fixing the farting and coughing problem, it still needed a new part for the starter motor, no problem, the engineer said, in and out, one day 45 euros.... lovely we said.... except when Rick went to collect it after work having dropped it off on his way and some friends picking him up and taking him to work and doing the reverse in the evening.... a problem... its a rare part, not sold here, has to be imported via UK and all in all wont be ready till fri at best, and will cost three times what we were told.... bugger, bugger bugger....
But.... it has to be done, we want to sell the car and get another van, a van is so much more 'us' ...
It also means that ricky cant work this week as we have no transport... bless him he's walked into town this morning while its cooler to get me a few odds and ends of groceries...
The garden is still coming on, it seems slower this year... maybe thats me I dont know... but the daily slog of watering has begun, the whole top terrace which is my squashes , peppers and chillis and the aubergines and soft fruit has to be done by hand with a watering can. We have moved the large tank over there and pump the water from the well every few days, we plant all the squashes in large deep sink like holes, so we can fill each sink with food and water and it doesnt run off but soaks in gently, works a treat for us, I have tons of baby squash poppin out... Ive picked the odd baby courgette too... all the aubergines have tons of flowers and the pepper plants are setting baby peppers too... as are the chillis. I dont think I'll have the hundreds of piri piri that I had last year but what I have coming are much bigger...
The tomatoes seem to have survived our infected potato problem, but some look very wek, so I may well put in a few more and so we get a more staggered crop than the huge glut we normally get, all the potatoes are dug and clean and stored in our storage chest upstairs, we ended with four sacks... which is a poor crop for what we planted, but hey... they are free , delicious and will last us till probably christmas or late late autumn at the least...
We've been busy clearing a space and digging trenches and putting up concrete posts and wires for our new Raspberry bed,(and one new Loganberry Rick bought me as a pressie) last year I was given six canes and they have transformed themselves into around 25 this summer, so we've moved them into orderly rows and given them some support ect in the hopes they will keep increasing and then we can make a nice cage to stop the birds or rabbits or whatever it is that keeps nicking them before me...
I dont think its rabbits, as we now have a lovely family of foxes, we are keeping it quiet from our village neighbours over the hill as they will come with either traps or poison and I dont want that... I dont have chickens and they are feeding on the local rabbit population which is helping my veggie garden no end...
The first few nights drove us nuts as they yip and yap as they play and our dogs barked half the night... but they seem to have got used to it now and things are quieter...
The lovely Jan brought me two baby rhubarb crowns too, so they are coming along nicely in pots till the autumn when I think they'll be strong enough to plant out.
The amount of fruit we've planted you would think we would be in clover wouldnt you.... but sadly pretty much none of it is old enough to be giving much more than a handful here and there.... in a few years though we'll have every kind of fruit imaginable .... I hope..
The guest cottage situation is not bad, not great but again we are stumbling along, we've had a few cottage guest and have some more booked in, the caravan has helped out a little, with the odd booking here and there, its not wonderful in terms of income to live on, but we are just about paying the bills and staying afloat, just a few more would make such a difference to our coming winter so I have to pin some hopes on our Spanish guests who generally come last moment July and August, I have two lots booked in now but more are needed...
The whole Cottage area is looking very pretty this year, Im so pleased, the tubs are all down to me , I grew the flowers from seed so they have cost us pennies this year compared to arounf 15- 20 euros other years.... you can guess what I'll do from now on...
The new hot water system is working reasonably well, it still needs tweeking, but we have free hot water most days and thats excellent for us...
Work on the wind turbine is at a standstill, Rick is blaming lack of money... but I think without Aliks motivational skills its stumbled to a halt...
Thursday, 9 June 2011
First complete meal
Today we are eating our first more or less complete meal from the garden this year. Ive been picking and eating lettuce, plus new potatoes a handful of strawberries and raspberries ect...
But today we have a almost grown by us meal... the only thing I bought was chorizo sausage..and a tomato.
We are having a kind of 'one pot wonder' casserole type thing...
Sliced chorizo in the bottom, onion, baby carrots, broad beans, a nice handful of our first green beans chopped, a couple of our chopped baby courgettes, a couple of good handfuls of the pebble potatoes, a chopped tomato, a stock cube, a few herbs , and put in the oven for a couple of hours, served with the wilted leaves of some first pickings of baby beetroot Im pickling later... yummy.
Pebble potatoes, are what I call all those teeny tiny ones that are only as big as large peas ... I save them all for casseroles ect...
I always save the good leaves from the beetroot to eat instead of spinach, cooked in the same way, wilted with a knob of butter, its better and much nicer than spinach...
But today we have a almost grown by us meal... the only thing I bought was chorizo sausage..and a tomato.
We are having a kind of 'one pot wonder' casserole type thing...
Sliced chorizo in the bottom, onion, baby carrots, broad beans, a nice handful of our first green beans chopped, a couple of our chopped baby courgettes, a couple of good handfuls of the pebble potatoes, a chopped tomato, a stock cube, a few herbs , and put in the oven for a couple of hours, served with the wilted leaves of some first pickings of baby beetroot Im pickling later... yummy.
Pebble potatoes, are what I call all those teeny tiny ones that are only as big as large peas ... I save them all for casseroles ect...
I always save the good leaves from the beetroot to eat instead of spinach, cooked in the same way, wilted with a knob of butter, its better and much nicer than spinach...
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
My lovely veggies...
Sadly we've had to dig all our spuds... even what was going to be our main crop. They had some kind of desease, the leaves turned yellow, then got brown spots and the plants died... its not blight, I know those signs. The potatoes are lovely, not marked, well formed and taste great, but they are just small. But we will have enough to feed us in 'new potatoes' for the next 2 or 3 months, so its not so bad... the problem is I stupidly forgot that potatoes and tomatoes are the same family and shouldnt be planted near each other... so our tom plants are showing signs of the same problem, we spayed with bordaux mix and seem to have halted the worst of it for the toms... but have decided to plant a few new toms away from that area just to be sure, toms are such a huge part of our winter food supply...
This year isnt great for beans either, but Im continuing to plant all the time, so hopefully it will all come out well. The peas are great compared to last year, double the amount I hope...
The squashes are coming on very well... we have sp many different varieties this year too, I have high hopes of a bumper crop...
The sweetcorn is almost as high as me, and looking good...
Alik has taken my plans home with him for building a hand made grain mill... and has promised to bring a completed model next year... so Im all excited and will save lots of seed and plant a huge amount in anticipation.... then I'll have my own ground corn for cornbread etc...
Wonderful free hot water....
Well, Alik and Rick really excelled themselves this last week...
For the first time in almost a year since the gas hot water heater broke we now have lovely hot water in the house.... and the best, bestest... thing is its free....
The system is so simple its wonderful, it looks a tad 'Heath Robinson style' at the moment as our bathroom is not staying where it is so we didnt want it made too permanent... this way we can keep the same system and move the pipes and tank at will..
The basic way it works is this...
Alik & the lovely Jan brought with them from UK an old central heating radiator, painted black.
Rick and Alik then moved out my log fired kitchen range and fitted the rad to the wall directly behind it, we knew how hot it got as during the winter the whole stone wall heats up during the day and keeps the kitchen toasty at night by giving off the heat all night...
They attached copper pipe each end, one for cold water flowing in, one for hot flowing out... the pipes go up through the ceiling to a converted plastic water barrel, which is the hot water tank, which is connected to a cut down plastic barrel that acts as a header tank... its all connected to the bathroom... wonderful... we also have a hot water tap downstairs now at the sink to be used during water as a 'run off point' for excess hot water when the range is lit all day...
There should be pictures here ....
The black rad goes up to the house
The range cooker lays down while the rad is fitted to the stone wall
The rad fits perfectly in the cooker gap... and the pipes are fitted.
The header tank is prepared
The connections go on the top of the hot water tank... converted plastic barrel...
The connections on the bottom of the water tank..
The complete barrel
The cooker back in place and the hot water flowing....
The prototype of the next project... hopefully will power our lights...
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