Permaculture and El Huerto

I am not sure why I haven´t been keeping on top of my blogging? I have been busy in the garden over the last year and there have been many changes but I don´t seem to keep on top of recording the changes. I also have been writing for a local paper on a voluntary basis about plants and gardening here in the Canaries.
I have links to each article on my main blog page if your interested.

Another purpose built plant room has been erected, a lot larger in size than the original one. I now use the small one for my little seedlings and plantlets and also to pot up, especially when it is windy.

The larger one was constructed by my hubby and I am very grateful. It has meant a huge change in the amount of fresh produce we manage to grow here. This shelter keeps the very strong rays of the sun off the plants and helps to conserve water, not to mention sheltering the plants from the wind.

A more recent change is using an old garden table for my pots of herbs. I have sited it just outside the back door, which makes it really handy for going out and snipping off little bits here and there, for cooking or making salves.

The pond is still one of the most successful additions and has drawn lots of wildlife to the garden that just wasn´t there before. The only negative is that the pond fountain is no longer being run by solar power. It was not a very good fountain and the new one is more efficient in keeping the pond reasonably clear of algae, which is very important to the health of the plants and the wildlife.

Around the pond, changes are afoot. On the left side the ornamental plants will remain, they attract spiders and we recently had an amazing spider making their home there.


On the right hand side we have removed an Oleander, which is not a very useful plant in terms of permaculture. It is very greedy and spreads rapidly, ideal as a wind break but this area is now sheltered with the erection of the fence and gate, it was certainly not the correct plant for the position. It could not be saved but it went on our now massive pile of cuttings that are a perfect home for the wild rabbits, lizards etc. I hasten to add that this pile is not within the walls of our El Huerto (kitchen garden) so there are no rabbits munching their way through our vegetables.
In the space that we have created we are going to plant a fruit tree. (See next blog about what fruit tree and other fruit in the garden)

At the moment we have lettuce, cress, milk thistle, swiss chard, broccolli, cauliflower, strawberries and potatoes coming along nicely in the large plant room.

This is one of the beds in the plant room, planted up a few weeks ago, which is now bursting at the seams.

Wordless Wednesday - Dragonfly Kiss

CLIMATE CHANGE

It´s that time of year here in Tenerife when the temperature gets just too hot to do very much. It is a huge climate change for me being originally from Scotland.

Having had an excellent yield of tomatoes, cucumbers and some sweet peppers - all grown in our plant room - it has come to an end.

I have got one very large and out of control tomato plant and some cut down peppers growing in the bed made out of a recycled chest of drawers (basketry). In this bed I grew successfully, cucumbers 

 the largest of all the crop

but these plants have now been removed, the leaves ravished by white fly but it doesn´t affect the crop and by now it is time for new crops.

In the plant room there are only 2 cucumber plants, 2 leggy tomato plants, rosemary cuttings that have taken wonderfully (I get very excited about making new plants from Mother plant), spider plants taken from the runners of the Mother plant which sits on a shelf in the doorway to the house (spider plants are great carbon  dioxide gobblers).

Next week I will remove the remainder of the plants from the plant room and give it a really good clean. I will then leave it empty until October. In Tenerife there are two seasons for growing, May and October. It is in October when I sew my root vegetables, greens and lots of flowers.

We have decided to construct a much larger plant room, in addition to the existing one, to incorporate the vegetable beds that we have already. This will mean we can grow much more into deep beds with the protection of the wind break all around the plants (it is a bit like a poly tunnel for hot weather). I am so excited about this and will record the process.

Two more happenings - saved an orchid from the rescue section of the garden centre

 

look at it bloom

It was only seven euros instead of twenty euros, it is a welcoming site outside the front door.

We have lots of dragonflies at the pond again this year and I have captured these two whilst they were still

Last but by no means least I would like to introduce you to Casper our new puppy.

He is keeping us busy but we love it!

He is a little gardener in the making but I will need to train him to tell the difference between weeds and plants.