The Fruit 2017

I´ve commented on the apples and blackberries for the galette, now for some of the rest.

No mirabelle plums this year, despite pruning the tree and generally tending to it.  I think the birds got them all.

The 3 rhubarb plants that miraculously survived are doing well in their bed. No harvest until next
year.

White currants got eaten by birds.  Black currants are frozen with the rest of the ¨hedge¨ mix.  Planting in the ground this fall so they can be netted next year.

Blueberries - Netted, very few berries, ripened over months 4 or 5 berries at a time.  In the frozen hedge mix.

Strawberries - Tasty.  Planted under the blueberries this year.  Kept producing a little fruit over the summer, but were buried in the abundant marigolds, so got forgotten about.

Raspberries - suffered with the drought.  Birds got the few berries.  Will try planting in the ground this fall, but I think they may be goners.

Pears - more production this year after severe pruning.  But even with hand picking and carefully placing them in a cool dark space, they turned from hard to brown and squishy in a matter of 48 hours. Don´t know what I´ll do with those.

Melons - 2 already eaten!!  Fragrant and delicious.  Saved the seeds from the first to ripen.  There are several melons still on the vine.  My understanding is that they won´t ripen once picked, so I´m waiting, even though the first couple had some bad spots.  The ones I have in the kitchen broke free from the vine on their own, so we´ll see.

We have a first ever lemon on the lemon tree!  At least I´m pretty sure it´s a lemon, could be a lime at this stage.  Both trees look happier out of their pots.

One small jar of walnuts pickling.  Both walnut trees had nuts this year, which is a 200% improvement from before.

Other trees:

The two oaks survived the drought, but barely.
One of the two sour cherries survived.
One of the two almonds survived.
Both hazels survived.
Looks to be a mast year, despite the drought.  Acorns are early and abundant and the chestnut trees look loaded.  I hope that doesn´t mean a long cold winter.

In like a Lion

It´s been one rainy day after another.  Yesterday, hail.  Predictions are for better weather starting next week, so fingers crossed.

We got the old pear and apple trees that have been struggling along pruned, taking out a lot of dead wood.  I hope they make it.  We need to kill the ivy on the pear this year.

In the meantime, I planted 2 sour cherries I got from a big box store.  The rose forum calls these ¨body bags¨ for the simple reason that in order to fit in the packaging, they cut all the roots off the plant.  And that turned out to be exactly the case, so we´ll see.  Also planted the blueberries in the veg patch, underplanting with strawberries so I can net the whole thing.  Still have 2 hazels and 2 almond trees to plant.

I got started on moving some existing roses away from the wall, as the neighbor has mentioned he wants to work on it this year.  Can´t really do much more until it dries out a little.  And yes, I ordered more bare root roses.  It´s a sickness.

Hoping that by St. Patrick´s day, I´ll be able to plant potatos and onions. Unfortunately, the leaves don´t seem to be breaking down in the potato bed.  Hoping that won´t affect the potatoes.  Need to sow the parsnips, carrots and peas, too.

After the Storm

We had a nor´wester blow through.  Or two.  Right after the Siberian blast.  So much for the warm, dry winter.

Electricity went on and off again all weekend.  Must find a better lighting solution than candles, of which we have quite a few, but not enough light to read by.  Fortunately, we didn´t lose anything in the freezer or anything.  We remember a 4 day blackout in Chicago, with V recently arrived, during a record heat wave.  A hundred year old transformer blew.  V remarked after the second day that governments would fall in Spain if such a thing happened.  He was impressed that people managed to cross intersections with non-functioning traffic lights in such a civilized fashion.

The current joke is after complaining about the price gouging on electrical rates during the cold snap, people are now doing without, whether they want to or not.

Anyway, no notable damage.  A tree in the woods alongside our lot fell.  A couple of branches also came down.  Some yard stuff blown around.  A road sign at the corner blew into the ditch.

I´d planted two baby bare root oak trees just before, which are certainly watered in at this point.  They are in memory of my parents who are both gone now, but one has a split down by the base that I didn´t notice when purchasing, so I have my doubts about it´s future.  Still, at €3.50 at the farmer´s market, not difficult to replace.  Bought some more blueberries, an almond tree, and the only hazelnut they had, along with an impulse Lingonberry, which I´m not sure will thrive in this zone.  I miss cranberries.

Breo´s been ordered to ¨rest¨ after pulling something in a back leg.  Conveniently, he doesn´t like going out in the rain.  We think it´s from his stint at the shelter. But even without walks, when he ¨sees¨ something in the garden he takes off like a rocket and then hobbles the rest of the day. 

The rain guage blew over twice so I can´t be sure how much actually fell.  Now waiting for the water to drain to get back to the garden and planting.  It´s starting to smell like spring.  And the plucky little japanese quince is blooming!

And then it was Autumn

Abruptly, the temperatures dropped and the rains came.  Breo and I walk later because it´s still dark at 8:00.  Roses are putting out their last blooms of the year.  The leaves are turning and falling.

And the whine of chainsaws is constant in the distance, as tractors and trailers rumble up and down the road up the hill.

 They´ve cleared an entire lot of oaks, pines, and even eucalyptus. 

Unfortunately, one was a favorite of mine, an old oak curving out over the path like the figurehead on the prow of a boat, tall and elegantly swathed in a green velvet robe of moss.  I feel it´s absence.

This year I will plant trees.

Still, new life appears.  The rain has brought out the mushrooms, some quite tall. Looks like a good year for chestnuts and acorns, too.

Apple Cider

I was pleased to try this organic cider when we were at the house.  In the past, most of the cider apple harvest in Galicia went straight to sidrerías in Asturias or Pais Vasco, but recently, the prices weren´t enough to cover the transportation costs.  So someone had the bright idea of reviving the cider industry in Galicia. We tried the organic, sweet ¨Natural¨, and thought it was delicious.  Light, refreshing, slightly sweet and notably apple-y.  Just the thing for a warm summer evening.

Enter Maeloc.  A subsidiery of the folks that bring us Estrella Galicia beer (Hijos de Rivera), they make both sweet and dry apple ciders, along with perry (!) blackberry and strawberry.  Maeloc is one of the businesses featured in the initiative Mercado de la Cosecha, sponsored by Hijos de Rivera, R and Gadis, dedicated to fostering sustainable rural development projects in Galicia.

ETA - I just found a blog dedicated to Galician cider (in gallego)  Sidra Gallega

via

Can´t wait to try making some on my own.  We´ll need to try to revive the old, very tired and neglected apples on the property and plant some more.  The neighbors also had apples that had seen better days.

I´m intrigued by the whizbang design for a press. No sense not using a garbage disposal and a hydraulic automotive jack when they´re so widely available.

via

An Ode to Autumn

I Go Among  Trees

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it.  As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.

-Wendell Berry (b. 1934)

More marvelous photography by Nelleke Pieters.

Garden update

 36 inches of lovely black dirt next door

First, a rant.  When our neighbor to the east indicated the line for the new retaining wall separating the properties, there was a certain amount of excavation to be done to straighten it.  The fill was dumped on our ¨back 40¨, next to the hill of dirt already waiting to be redistributed.  So far so good.  But when I went out to take a tour of our dominions, I noticed all manner of plastic, metal, and general refuse mixed in with the stones and dirt I was expecting.  I spent a couple of hours filling 3 garbage bags with bailing plastic, plastic bags, rebar, foam insulation, styrofoam, and broken glass.  Some genius had decided they really needed to spread the ¨infill¨ out and then run the tractor back and forth to really, really compact it down.  The deeper I dug, the more garbage was revealed.  Now, I fully expect to have to build some kind of sifters and go through all the stone/gravel/dirt/construction debris that´s accumulated over the last 3 years, cartload by cartload, but I physically can´t get down through this stuff to lever it out of the ground.

 Doom

So what to do?  Will buried metal mess up a plow/harrow/disc if we have it tilled?  Do we try to scrape it up again and pile it somewhere until we can get to it?  So stupid and unnecessary.

But that will have to go on the list of earth works - along with Mount Doom, now covered with weeds, and the giant pile of old wood scrap that was taken out of the house and barn when we started.  unlikely to have any use now it´s been sitting out in the elements for years.  Probably providing some dandy habitat, though.

General plan, updated to reflect the new house size and boundary.

The pile of rock occupying the parking area is reduced, but by no means gone.  That´s actually good, since I keep coming up with new plans for stone - patios, terraces, steps.

  Stone

Our new concerns are 1) being overlooked by the neighbors and 2) slope and drainage.

 Potatoes!

The neighbors are turning out to be quite nice, but still looming.  Their veggie plot overlooks both our bathrooms.  Not much to be done on our part, other than curtains, but we understand they´ll be putting some kind of a fence along the top of the wall.  Maybe I can get them to grow grapes, or roses or something.  We´ve discussed siting the covered wood store, probably made from a few pallets, along the wall to screen our view of their house from what will be the patio/outdoor dining area.

I´ve gone back and forth about what to do along the other section of wall separating their garden from ours.  At first I was all for a line of espaliered fruit trees, pruned high enough to admire the stone and tall enough to provide some screening, but I´m concerned about tree roots pulling down the wall and invading the vegetable beds.  Also, anything tall will cast some shadow on their plot, which seems unneighborly.  Panels or trellises for peas/beans/other climbers? I also thought about a step-over espalier of pears and apples between the beds and the barn.  Might prefer a fence to keep out the chickens. 

slope

And speaking of the potager/kitchen garden, I´m now considering terracing that slope into 3 sections with a 24 - 30 inch drop between sections.  We´ve been told that quite a bit of water washes down, so perhaps I can engineer some kind of swale/berm/hugelculture/terrace combo that will 1) address the slope/slow runoff and 2) use up some of the old wood/infill that needs to go away.  Raised beds will need additional soil as well and those ruts aren´t getting any shallower.

Is it better to try some lasagna layers over the winter to kill the grass and then excavate levels in the spring?  Or just hire/rent a big machine and get it all over with. Can´t really afford that.

Good crop of elder flowers this spring, the apples and pear struggle on, big pruning job there.  No sign of nuts on the walnut, again.  I found what I think is a quince buried under the re-emergent blackberries and grape jungle on the south side of the barn.

Yes, there´s a barn under that

Still mulling where to put the ¨orchard¨ now that I´m reconsidering the separation between us and the neighbors.  On the plan, they´ll get sun until about 6 in the afternoon, but west of them is all heavily wooded, which I adore.  Tempis fugits with trees, though.  They have to go in early as they take so long to produce fruit.

Other things I must have, some roses (alas, the hedge rose cuttings I took in June all died), a mock orange, some roses, peonies, lilacs, Christmas trees and hydrangeas.  Another consideration is a cover for the patio on the south side of the house.  I don´t think we can afford to roof it right away, so should we just settle for a wire structure for the traditional grapes or kiwis, or a pergola.  Neither will do much for rain, but at least a pergola seems like an intermediate step to a covered space.

 Some day

En fin, enough yammering.  There´s lots to be done.

Spring terrace

Did a stint of spring cleaning while V was away on business 10 days.  The terrace is looking pretty good, if  I do say so myself.  Hard not to be planting anything.

New trees blooming in the neighborhood.

And there´s a spectacular wisteria just off my usual walking route.  Stunning but, it does give one pause before planting one.

Ruin update

I have been holding off on news of the ruin, hoping we´d be actually, you know, starting.

However, as it is we are still waiting for the Water authority people to give their blessing to the project so we can get the building permit. Let´s recap.

Plan submitted to the City last July.

Some small changes, and subsequent Execution plan submitted October.

In November the city architect announces we´ll need approval from the Water authority. (That would have been good to know last summer when the city opened the branch close to the house. You´d think it would have occurred to someone to let us know.)

Paperwork off to the water authority, fees paid (a rather nasty letter insisted they be paid within 4 days of receiving the notice)in December. Lightening speed as these things go, or so we´ve been told.

Project officially published for public commentary in February for 20 days.
Announcement expires and lack of commentary is sent back to Waters authority by the City.

And nothing further. We can´t do anything but wait for them to stamp the paperwork done and let us get on with it, and by law they have 3 years to do that. It´s now 18 months since we bought the place. The architect, technical architect, and builder are all standing by. We´d thought to start in March and finish water tight shell by August, but now who knows.

So meanwhile, Galicia is experiencing the worst drought in over 50 years. Perfect construction weather. Unfortunately, they´ve also had forest fires, the latest in the Fragas do Eume, the finest preserved piece of Atlantic Forest in Europe. 750 hectares burned before they got it under control.

So until the earth movers show up, I´ve been looking at shots taken last fall.

Going counterclockwise around the garden:

A really, really tall evergreen - unusual for these parts. No idea what kind.

Some baby bay trees in front of one big one - wreaths?

A little fig?

Some old apples - going to need some remedial pruning - but they´re really tall.

The apples themselves are scarce, small and pleasantly tart. Cider maybe?

A vine scrambling up a dead tree - looks maybe like a grape?

An unidentified tree - trunk

Unidentified top

Elders? Wine with the berries and ¨champagne¨ with the flowers?

And some baby volunteer oaks which will need to be transplanted before they get too big.

The big fig - another big pruning project I´d rather not think about.

Let´s hope they don´t all burn down before we can get the house started. Or after, for that matter.