VEGGIE HAUL.

Loadsa broccoli (no, not more soup), spring onions and celery. I use the leaves as well when making soup, or chop them finely as a garnish.

Two types of lettuce are coming along, plus radishes. Time now to sow seeds for other things. I read a great tip on someone else's blog about cutting a bit plastic pipe in half, sowing the seeds in that so that seedlings can be slid out gently into the plot, or a big pot. I'll have a go.

Nectarine blossom - a beautiful pink - on one tree at the moment.

And here they are after 6 weeks plus this lovely little fellah, only 1" long, hiding in the trellis. 

I've been getting nagged by the neighbours to keep the potatoes watered so drip watered the other morning for 20 mins. and then, instead of switching off water, I turned it to full bore.....and walked away!! Oh dear - 2 hours later the water level in the well had sunk so low that our pump would not work. It has a safety interruptor to prevent burn-out (I could do with one of those myself!)

It took the rest of the day and all night for the level to be restored. So those pesky potatoes are going to have to fend for themselves for a while. Rain is forecast next week, so fingers crossed..... 

I CAN'T BELIEVE THESE FRUIT AND VEG!

The courgettes continue to quadruple in size whenever I turn my back. And I'm starting to hide from my neighbour now as he's talking about putting in more tomatoes in a protected area where we're putting in shrubs and trees, so that we have have Christmas tomatoes. Here is our very first melon and it was a wonderful feeling, standing in the sun, juices dribbling everywhere eating the sweet succulent flesh, not to mention the pip spitting competition!
The yellow plums are now ready to eat, just as I thought I'd cracked it with the red ones.

Good job we're having a pergola fiesta soon because it'll be "pick your own pud" in our jardin. Those, and bowls of water melon, should go down well. (Though lemon meringue pies will be hidden in the fridge as a surprise.

WOULD YOU GET A LOAD OF THESE VEG! 24 June, 2006.

A 20 minute pick this morning yielded these and now 3 carrier bags are ready to give away. The freezer is already crammed with courgette and onion friend up for a rainy day, plus bags of deskinned red plums. There's hardly a dent in what's left growing. No wonder my neighbour's been passing over the fence such huge bags of produce every year - it's overwhelming when harvest time comes.

Aren't pomegranate flowers beautiful? This tree was 1.5M when it was planted 2 years ago and it's doubled its size. At last count we have about 10 fruits - the Levante saw off lots of blossom. They grow wild here so I've tried not to kill it with kindness as I have so many others - it's been left to please itself. A bed of rocket (rucula) pomegranate, crumbled goats cheese and a light walnut oil dressing - delish.

June 3rd. Disappearing under melons and courgettes.....

Years of untilled ground meant we couldn't do a thing about veg until we'd got a plough in and we had to wait for that until he was less busy. So no potatoes this Spring....we'll have to wait until August.

But wait - here is what we do have and it was completely unplanned: tomatoes, 3 types; onions; aubergine; courgettes; melons, 3 types; strawberries; runner beans; sweetcorn. What a learning curve. Following our Spanish neighbour's instructions, these veg have become like newborn babies! We'd had lots of rain just before the seedlings went in, so we had orders not to water for 2 weeks. From there on the instructions became very complicated, so much so, I had to write a list.
Once flowers appeared on the veg, it was gung-ho to water, then feed, then prick out. I got very little else done.

We are now eating courgettes and have had to get creative (try courgette, onion, potato soup, pureed and Roquefort cheese added at the end, mmm). Beans also ready to pick and the nectarines, apricots and plums are scrumptious too. We lost many to the Levante last week, but still plenty left. I'll have to get the brandy or rum syrup under way to enjoy them later in the year.

Meanwhile, the pergola and brick path surround was getting built, all by hand and we can now enjoy a g. & t. out there and we'll have the first lunch for our neighbours soon.

If anyone reads this and can p.m. me about why my pics won't appear later on in the text I'll be happy.

Here are our new citrus trees, with one lone lemon. We had to have an enormous trench dug then fill it up with suitable soil and manure before we could go ahead. The grasshoppers and flying bugs think it's the Ritz and as much as we hate spraying, we've had to do a bit. Wish we could find some horsetail seeds, seedlings to make our own environment friendly spray.