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.

Walk away from the Windy side of life

We have had our fair share of strange weather over the last week. Just like in the UK we have had winds and in some places the unbearable heat.
In Tenerife we get heat from Africa called a Calima and it is unbearable, you cannot enjoy the weather, merely keep out of it. After this we have been hit with horrendous winds that are causing terrible damage to my wee plants but to be honest this is nothing compared to the damage caused in the UK to people´s homes and gardens and worse in the USA, so I am not complaining.
We often get winds here so I feel the garden is almost prepared for it with various windbreaks and plant rooms to protect the food crops.
Yesterday we decided to get away from the wind and head off up into the mountains for a bit of peace, the heat had calmed down a little and there was a light cloud covering over the part of the mountains we were going to go to.
Vilaflor, it is a little town in Tenerife, just up the hill from Los Cristianos (a popular tourist spot), it is a nature lovers paradise. We have been there many times and know all the best spots for hedgerow foraging.
With little back pack, boots and walking sticks we headed off.
After a short drive we parked up and headed off to pick some Figs, they are always in abundance at this time of year and there are plenty abandoned trees to pick from.

This is the fig tree we picked from and as you can see there are plenty left after we picked our small bag.

I often manage to find some small pieces of pine resin at the foot of the amazing pine trees that are all around this area but on this walk I came across a tree with lots of resin oozing out of it so I managed to take a couple of chunks, it is a lovely scent and it is easily burned, although I put it in a sealed bag and pop it open now and again just to take a whiff, lovely.

It looks a sorry sight but it wasn´t, it was majestic and although burned in a previous forest fire it has regenerated.

After walking for just one hour the heat was starting to get unbearable so we headed back after sitting under the shade of an old chestnut tree (this is where we harvest in autumn) to eat our lunch.

The view behind us

Once back at the car I took these photos of the surrounding goodies in peoples gardens, the rustic charm of Canarian gardens never bores me, I just love them.

 a grapevine growing over some makeshift fence.

The beautiful Canadas and a huge geranium with the prickly pear cactus in the background (made a prickly pear brandy once, phew it was potent stuff!)

Back home, the wind was still raging but I was content to settle in the house for the rest of the day.

Following morning after Spain won the football, wind all gone for an hour or two so managed to get out and pick some delicious greens and see how everything has grown in the plant room and beds

My wee melon, it is so exciting watching it grow.

Feeding tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and melons with comfrey and seaweed broth (homemade a few months ago) once a week.