Autumn Archives - Page 4 of 4

May 202014 0 Responses

Spain’s Olive Oil Industry

This picture was taken from our room in La Iruela, just an olive stone throw from Cazorla. We drove from south of Granada to Cazorla today through olives. It was 360kms. Nothing but an olive did we see. All I can say is that they better not get anything wrong with them!

Monoculture! I thought we had big stands of pine trees. Well. Our pine trees have nothing on Spain’s olives. I mean. We just took one route. Imagine how many more olives there are than what we saw. What was the worst for me is that underneath probably 95% of these olives there is NOTHING. Mainly the ground has been cultivated with either tractor or rotary hoe depending on the terrain. But in many cases it has been sprayed off, probably for decades. There’s nothing for the bees. Read More…

Apr 072014 0 Responses

The rain in Spain appears to be on the HAVELOCK PLAIN

Well what a great rain, long and slow, perfect for softening the ground and every bit is seeping in.

The only downside is the effect it’s having on my strawberries and the figs – yikes – I should have put a preventive fungicide spray on a few days ago. Oh well, there’s nothing like hindsight. I was so busy ensuring that the weeds were sprayed and the insects were dealt with that I forgot about the DISEASE that might come.

As as soon as the drizzle is finished I’ll be out there to pull off the worst of them to hopefully stop the spread. It’s too late to stop it with a spray. Drat.

How have your berries and fruits been this summer?

Apr 012014 0 Responses

Improve your soil with a cover crop

As you may know, I’m off on holiday soon and as we will be away for a very naughty six weeks I’m going to take the opportunity to sow a cover crop of mustard. I haven’t sown a crop in this patch of ground for a few years so it’s sure to do some good. And I can’t abide empty patches.

So this weekend I’m going to bite the bullet and prematurely take out the capsicums and eggplant, older broccoli and my zinnias that are still flowering profusely and lightly dig over the ground

Claustrophobic Citrus

We’ve just been up to visit Phil’s parents and lucky me – their Meyer lemon tree was chocka block full of fruit. However it was also really thick with branchlets – so much so the light wasn’t getting in and there was the beginning of sooty mould. There is a saying that “a bird should be able to fly through a citrus tree”. Whilst I don’t actually hold specifically to that – it is important that there is light. Check out my “before and after pictures” to give you a basic idea of how to trim. You can prune more heavily than this but what I’ve done is sufficient.

Any pruning tips you’d like to pass on, or pic’s of your own.