A big thank you and the kitten VIDEO of the week

Here comes my second post of the day. First of all I want to say a very big thank you to the following people for sending me seeds: Beck of http://greenspain.blogspot.com/, who sent me some tomato seeds a while back, Angelika, who sent me some Jimi Hendriks ("Purple Haze") carrot and some sunflower seeds, Mr. H of http://subsistencepatternfoodgarden.blogspot.com/, who sent me more seeds than I know what to do with including some exotics like tomatillos, litchi Tomatoes and a rainbow of carrots, plus a useful mushroom picking guide and some gardener's handcreme, and finally Get Soiled of http://www.getsoilednow.com/, who also sent me some seeds, but which seem to have got lost somewhere in mid-Atlantic. I'm still hopeful that my postman will eventually deliver them.

I don't know how I deserve such lovely friends from all over the world. All I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Before today's new moon I wanted to get some of the carrot seeds into the ground. So I sowed the following varieties: Purple Haze, Purple Dragon, Solar Yellow, Atomic Red and Belgian White. Some of them I put into the cold frame, which I now leave open. This is because this is where I have my deepest, richest soil. I can't wait to get to try all these varieties.

Finally for today here comes instead of the kitten photo of the week the kitten video of the week! They are starting to taken an interest in their environment now. Occasionally they even crawl over the edge of their basket. Enjoy!

Our Terraces part II

Well here comes the second part already. While I was writing part I this morning, Susan went out for a walk. Rain was forecast and it was overcast, but Susan went out bravely nevertheless. So, as the other spring delight has also come into season, elderflowers, to make refreshing, spritzy elderflower wine (for recipe see entry from 5 or 6 May 2008), I sent her off to pick some more. We already had 2 batches on the go.

Soon after setting off it started drizzling a bit. Undeterred she tracked down some elder bushes and picked sufficient fragrant flower heads for a gallon batch. Shortly after she found herself in the middle of a mountain bike race, so she decided to try a different path to avoid those maniacs. The drizzle became a heavier drizzle and as Susan is wont to do, she got lost. The heavier drizzle developed into a proper downpour, which incidentally is still ongoing. She came home 4 hours later looking like a wet poodle.

Well further to the terraces series, here comes terrace 3:

It sports an olive tree at the near end and a newly planted cherry tree in the middle. At the far end there are 3 ancient rose bushes. This year we’ve sown out sweet corn an a few sunflowers on it.

Terrace 4 features a kaki tree on the near end and a couple of olives the far end. In between we’ve sown peas, onions, carrots and leeks (the latter show no sign of growing yet, maybe the seeds are to old). Don’t miss episode 3 of this series, where I will reveal terraces 5 and 6 to you!

Here's to you Paddy

Well happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone, for a start. We were going to go to our favourite bar, Pegaso at Arcola, which has a do on tonight, but unfortunately we are to broke for that. We’ll just nip over to our neighbours with a couple of beers to have at least a wee celebration. Spring has definitely arrived in force now. The weather has been fine since the last post, glorious sunshine and daytime temperatures in the upper teens and even lower twenties. These primroses above I spotted on a walk I went on near Brugnato yesterday, while Susan was giving her class. They were in a little wood, which was literally covered with them. Incidentally, to anyone reading my post on the wild salad, I don’t recommend the use of primrose leaves at any rate, unless you have a fetish for drinking your bathwater. It tastes of soap!

The moon is now waning and as a general rule of thumb as far as I understand, things that grow downwards should be sown during this period. So today we were out in Arcola and sowed out potatoes at one of the top terraces and carrots on one of the beds, which has already onions growing in it. Carrots and onions are said to make excellent companion plants as the smell of one repels the pests of the other. I have so far not had much success with carrots. This is partially due to our heavy soils and on the other hand due to the fact that evolution seems to be extra quick around here. As soon as you grow something like carrots, all surrounding weeds take on the same shape, so you don’t know which is weed and which is not. So you either pull out things you meant to keep or leave things in you didn’t. Either way you can’t win! We had, just before the full moon sowed out one more bed of peas as well; hope not too late.

From previous years experience we tend to get one more cold spell at the end of March. Hope we’ll escape it this time. As my dad would say: “Wouldn’t mind if the weather stayed like that until… Christmas… and then slowly got better.” Well a bit of rain would be useful, as long as it falls at night and not too heavy.