Vine Watch April and May

For the first year ever we've decided to experiment and attempt to grow our own grapes.  We planted this moscatel vine late last summer so we've been watching it's quick growth this year with great anticipation.

Anyway, I thought I'd record its progress in photos.  Here's what it looked like in April

As you can see the grapes are already forming.  Here's what it looks like today:

As you can see not a lot of difference, although there is certainly more foliage and plenty of bunches of mini grapes.

What a difference a few months makes

May and June are my favourite months out here, the weather is usually fairly predictable and we can banish our winter wardrobes and bare our limbs, but it's still cool enough to go about your daily business.

In the garden everything is coming to bloom, in a couple of months the heat will have killed most of the flowers off but for now we can watch as each day brings more and more colour.

Here's one view of our terrace taken a couple of months ago:

As you can see, it's all pretty bare, but this is how it looks today:

The colour of the bougainnvilla is stunning and the campsis foliage has all come back sadly we'll have to wait a couple of months before the flowers appear.  The citrus trees have all got lots of flowers on so we should have plenty of lemons and lime for our gin & tonics next winter.

You can't really see in the photo but our clematis has interwoven itself into everything and its delicate purple flowers are coming out.  Shame we never went for a better clematis like the one with the big white flowers, as I always think this one is too subtle and understated.

Elsewhere on the terrace, our bottle brush plant has come into flower.  These look stunning in May, sadly ours got battered by the wind last year so is looking a bit sad and sorry for itself.

Getting the veg patch ready

T'husband had a few days off work so I took advantage of the good weather and left him to have some father and daughter time together whilst I went and prepared our veg patch.

We'd already done most of the back breaking work of weeding, so it didn't take me long to get ready for planting.

I've planted some onions that I got as plug plants—I'm hoping they grow into proper onions and not the oversize spring onions that the last lot seemed to be, along with aubergines, peppers and a couple of tomato plants.

I also planted up some seeds that will hopefully be done and dusted before the the high heat of summer - radishes, pak choi, french beans and enough peas to invite Mr Bird's Eye around.  Hopefully we'll get enough rain over the next couple of months and the wind will behave itself to see a good crop.

Spring is in the Air

We've been blessed this year with an extremely mild winter and we've seen very little of the usual dry and damaging winds that batter this part of the world.  As February comes ever closer it becomes time for me to dig out my seeds and decide what we'll be planting in the veg patch this year.

Our little terraces are not looking as bad as they usually do this year and our little lemon and orange trees are still bearing fruit.  Seriously, nothing smells as wonderful as a home grown lemon—it is quite out of this world.  Our oleander bush has seeded this year and t'husband has planted some up in our little propagator, so with any luck we will have plenty of new plants to use for our Guest House next year.

My lovely little lemon tree

We spend a lot of time on our terrace over the summer months. Many an evening will be spent gazing at the stars and taking in the scent of our night blooming plants and watching t'husband expertly turning meat on the Barbeque.

Sadly, I wish that we could afford better garden furniture though, our old table and chairs has seen better days and garden furniture over here costs a fortune.  We wish we had better garden centres to visit, one of the many things that I miss about Blighty.

The Hayes Garden World website is a great place to visit to give me ideas for our gardening and terrace projects and also to keep abreast of the gardening calendar.  It has lots of great articles covering everything from seasonal gardening tips, landscaping, how to attract wildlife to your garden, garden furniture maintenance and even articles about how to barbeque.   The website is easy to use, easy on the eye and has lots of information for the experience and novice gardener alike, including a great section for budding young gardeners.

The garden centre itself is based in Ambleside in the Lake District, somewhere we know well as t'inlaws have a holiday cottage there.  We have often potted around the garden centre when the weather has looked less favourable for a ramble or mountain climb.   As well as all the usual gardening stock you would expect to find, Hayes Garden World also has an aquatics shop and an excellent home shop as well and more over, a fantastic online shop that sells everything from kitchen products to model boats and garden furniture to patio heaters.

Hayes Garden World will deliver throughout the UK and Ireland and even give delivery prices for anywhere in Europe.  You can read all about Hayes Garden Centre on www.visitcumbria.com.

February

After a very mild winter and what looks to be an early spring, Al & I have decided to tackle both our terrace garden and sort out our veg patch up at our guesthouse ready for spring.  The seedlings have been sown, some plug plants bought from the local co-operativa and Al has been breaking his back digging me a brand new, bigger veg patch ready for all the main-stay Mediterranean fare to be planted up later.

The old veg patch has been planted with cauliflower and broccoli plug plants inter-weaved with pak choi, spring onions and radish seeds (hopefully these won't bolt otherwise I am giving up on radishes completely) some broad beans and sugar snap peas have been planted against the walls.

Our living room is now tastefully decorated with mini propagators containing various types of tomatoes, chillies, peppers, cucumbers,  more broccoli, various flowers - although mainly types of ipomoea and some mini sunflowers.  We just need to get some courgette and aubergine seeds, I didn't have massive success with locally bought plug plants last year so I've decided to order some from a UK seed catalogue.

A couple of weeks ago I went a big berserk with a pair of secateurs and decimated a lot of my plants, thankfully most seem to have survived and new growth is apparent, the jury is still out on the lantana but if it does recover from my impersonation of Edward Scissorhands then it will be a much better shape for it.  The lime tree has lots of new fruit on it and hopefully we'll be able to pick our first ripe lime in the next couple of months. The lemon tree has lots of new buds so I'm hoping for the perfumed citrus blossom air come May.

Tomorrow Al is building me a cold frame out of an old window pane we've discovered lying about, although if the weather continues along the same vein then we probably won't need it.  We're going off to a local quarry to buy some top soil and the chicken farm for some manure to put into the new veg patch.  Here's hoping to a bountiful year! 

   

September

Well the cool weather has finally arrived.  The heat of August has been unbearable and draining, I don't quite know how anything manages to stand the obscene temperatures but thankfully plenty of things seem to thrive in this environment.  My veg patch at our guest house is coming into fruit now, and I've been able to harvest courgettes and runner beans on an almost daily basis.  I have plenty of green chillies in the freezer, what's left on the plants will ripen to red before joining them.  The tomatoes are a plenty, although sadly every time one ripens I am beaten to it by rats. We've put some traps down which have caught a couple but I have a cunning plan B, we are borrowing a couple of cats.  Bro & Dude's family are off travelling for a couple of months so we've offered to look after them, they're good ratters apparently.  They better had be!  The aubergines and peppers are yet to fruit but both have plenty of flowers so it shouldn't be long now.

In the next week I'll be building a couple of raised beds and planting some over wintering veg that I'll buy as plug plants from the local co-operativa, broccoli, cauliflower, onions and cabbage probably.  I've also brought some broad bean and mange tout seeds which if I get them in soon should be ready to harvest in November.

The rooftop terrace is still flourishing. The heady scent of Jasmine by day and Lady of the Night in the evening still make a lovely place to sit out.  The hibiscus plants are still producing plenty of flowers and these little beauties that I planted just 6 weeks ago have surprised me by suddenly making an appearance.  Sunflowers always make me smile, and these miniatures are no exception, even if t'husbands think they are children's flowers.

Miniature Sunflowers

The cut and come again lettuce leaves have been a great success, the mixed Chinese leaves less so. The spring onions are coming on nicely but my radishes failed again.  I have harvested all bar one basil plant which I chopped up and frozen.  I've probably left the mint a bit too late as the leaves are looking a bit raggedy since it came into flower, still it's a massive plant so I should get plenty off it to put in the freezer.  Several batches of coriander have been planted for our continuous use over the winter.  The lime tree is sporting over 50 baby limes and the lemon tree has lots of new foliage on it which smells divine.

Just a few of the baby Limes

All in all not a bad year for our first year as Mediterranean gardeners.  Hopefully next summer will be even better.

August

Well it's stupidly hot here now, 35ºC most days but on our rooftop terraces the temperature in the sun can exceed 50ºC, I'm not sure just how hot it gets as our thermometer only goes to 55ºC and that's where the needle sticks.

Obviously not everything I've chosen to grow likes these conditions, Marigolds in particular seem to wither and die pretty quickly.  'How can you kill Marigolds' asks a friend, 'they're impossible to kill'.  Evidently not!  Radishes go to seed pretty quickly and the coriander stands no chance, although I have found better success by moving it to a balcony round the back that only gets a bit of evening sunshine.  I might try another batch of radishes round there as well.  My strawberries have all died now so I definitely need to site them elsewhere next year.

Other casualties have been the Pak Choi where the white fly and cabbage white caterpillars have gorged their way through it.  I have found that Neem oil works a treat so hopefully the next batch won't suffer the same consequences.  The cucumbers fell to Cucumber Mosaic Disease and sadly my blueberry bush was done for by the wind, so a more sheltered spot next year me thinks.

The flowers however, are going great.  Our front terrace looks really pretty now and will look even better next year when everything is better established.  Summer took a while to really get started this year so as a result everything has taken longer to come into bloom.  However, this means that the everything is looking really spectacular now.

As you can see, early June and no flowers but now look at it!

Other things going well include the lime tree, it has lots of flowers on it and several little baby limes so I'll be looking forward to having a wedge in a gin & tonic soon.  I've several containers on a downstairs balcony that contain baby carrots, spring onions, spinach, chives and cut & come again lettuce leaves which are all doing well. The back terrace upstairs has pots of rosemary, mint, thyme, basil, sage, cherry tomatoes and chillies which are all loving the blazing heat.

Up at our guesthouse I've procured a little spot for a vegetable patch. I bought some plug plants from the local co-operativa and despite me not planting them until June they are going great. The tomato plants are huge and should keeping fruiting until October if I'm lucky. The courgettes are producing lots of lovely fruit, although the mice keep getting in there before me! I've purchased some mousetraps to put down although I am sure I will need t'husband to deal with them, being the big girl's blouse that I am! There's also basil, onions, aubergine and pepper plants in the patch with green beans growing up the fence.

Once the weather has cooled down a bit, I am going to make a couple of raised beds and plant my winter veg. The co-operative will supply me with plug plants of Cauliflower, broccoli, onions and cabbages and I've bought my broad bean seeds ready to sow along with sugar snap & mange tout. Spring should hopefully see a bumper bounty.