We get a lot of snails. When we moved in the house looked a bit like a snail’s graveyard as I think they had come in over the years when the house was covered in ivy and there were several ex-snails stuck to the walls. They still try now, and this little one was heading in until it got waylaid by the bird food container.
Now we have plants in our huerta, we may be taking a more hard line view on snails – particularly if they are heading in that direction!
Talking of our huerta, here it is with some plants. Our neighbour came round to show us how to do it, I think she believes we are incompetent at most things – which I guess she could be right about – but in this instance it was handy to see how to do it, particularly using the gardening implements which we found in the house and are still not completely clear about how to use.
She dug the trenches in the back for potatoes using the draw hoe type thing, and I did the ones in the front which have got lettuce and I planted some seeds for celga, which I don’t know how translates into English as I realize I’m not that up on green leafy vegetables. Anyway, it is very common and apparently easy to grow from seed – so we’ll see!
We’ve got potatoes, onion, leeks, tomatoes, peppers, aubergine, marrows (from seed from our neighbour), broccoli, cauliflower and a row of carrots (from seed). In the front garden I’ve planted strawberries, a raspberry bush, cucumber and artichoke.
The containers in the photo towards the back are also something our neighbour gave us to protect the small plants from the wind. These are old paint cans, plastic bottles etc which we’ve placed around the seedlings. We need to get more and also some wind break type thing going. While the place where we’ve put the huerta is sunny, there’s not a lot to stop the wind coming off the sea, and the plants may get damaged when they are bigger
We’ve also planted our orange and grapefruit tree at the back of the house so now have a (very small) citrus orchard!
The new trees look tiny compared to the lemon tree. Although they are not quite as small as they look here as this part of the garden is lower and you step down to it. This was old chicken housing – old houses for chickens as opposed to houses for old chickens 🙂
Ian’s been taking a well deserved rest from digging out roots from the garden – he was suffering from sore muscles, so wisely decided to take it easy for a few days.
Picnic and driftwood
We went to the supermarket yesterday in San Cibrao (mermaid town) and stopped for a picnic on the way back. This was our picnic spot, we found a nice flat rock at the edge of the sea and watched the sea come in.
We then walked along the beach on the other side collecting pieces of wood to make a fence for the huerta.
This is another lovely beach and one that really sparkles – but we realized it disappears at high tide!!
We did surprisingly well for bits of wood for the fence – including what looked like an old fence post, ready to use!
