A little rain, a little sunshine. Great growing weather. Everyone is weed whacking, digging, hoeing and planting.
A neighbour and old hand at grafting is doing the job for us
Now is the time to graft our grapefruit and bitter lemon trees. Of all the trees in the garden these are the ones which produce most fruit. Fruit that no-one wants to eat. We didn't plant these trees. They were already established when we arrived. After eight years we have finally decided to do something about them.
A mandarine and an orange are being grafted on to these but it is not certain whether the grafting will take as apparently the sap has not risen yet. If necessary we'll do it again in two weeks.
One of the prunings from Vaso's grape vine has taken. Νew leaves have sprouted
This is a rambling rose. It is just covered in buds and should look glorious in a few weeks
Picking vine leaves to preserve and make into dolmathes
Trying to dig a hole to plant a new tree. The ground there is so hard even with a pick axe it is hard work. I want an olive or a fig tree. K wants a peach or apricot. We're going to consult the experts.
A visit to the garden centre. I bought some pansies, aubergines and tomatoes. It was just after St George's day and the owner's name is George. He had a tray of 'diples', a sort of sweet pastry, on the counter to treat his customers. Very flaky! I declined but only because I would have ended up such a mess
I have a grape fine so wondered how do you preserve your grape leaves? In oil? I looked up the recipe for Dolmathes, sounds good. Garden looks great. I'm going to try and plant a fig tree too, will need protection in the winter here. Fun, fun.
ReplyDeleteIf you look under Labels on the right side of the blog you'll see 'stuffed vine leaves' and I've photoed the best leaves to collect. I just put them in boiling water for a minute then when cold put them flat 30 at a time in a freezer bag and freeze them flat. They come out perfectly when thawed.
DeleteI would love a fig. They are easy to grow here and neighbourhood ones have loads of fruit.
Will try to make dolmades, have a vine in the conservatory, never get flowers or grapes, but looks pretty.
DeleteBest dolmades I had were in a little taverna at the start of Kanalli, mince ,onion and a lemon sauce sort of soup, served hot yummmmmmm
I know the taverna. The wife of the owner is a darn good cook!
DeleteYes.
DeleteI stayed above the taverna for a month, my sister came out for a week, owners did not charge just said eat my food !. No objection there. Obviously paid for the lovely food.
Lovely memory 7am both sis n me in pj,s feeding fish grandma of taverna came out too with coffee sweet bread in long nightie.
Lovely morning.
I translated their menu into English this year. They've gone into gourmet Greek along with the traditional Greek and are a little more expensive. Still a wonderful position by the beach. Great place to stay!!!
DeleteYour planning your spring and summe gardens and I've just planted my winter crops
ReplyDeleteThe rabbits have ringbarked my fruit trees and the very hot summer killed them off
Not going to bother replanting. If I get any now I'll get draft varieties and plant them in pots
The established trees are doing fine but any new trees are going to have a hard time. We have very stony soil with rock underneath and the heat is too much....unless you really know what you're doing in the garden, and we dont
DeleteWe had some overnight frost yesterday, and it nipped some of our better vines and the tips of the Fig trees. Looks like we could have no good grapes this year.
ReplyDeleteYoure really are unlucky with your weather. The snow and rain this winter has everything growing like mad here and thank goodness no frost's in our area.
DeleteI would use a crow bar to dig my planting holes and fill them with compost. The aroma from the orange trees when we visited the Algarve was amazing.
ReplyDeleteWe bought bags of special compost from a grower. I hope it helps. Isn't that scent from the blossoms just wonderful!!!
DeleteIf you need a pick axe to break the ground I suggest a fig. They love their roots to be bound. Else they dont produce fruit. I found this out the hard way and kept potting them on, no fruit. I would say dig the hole and then fill with compost the hard ground will naturally limit its roots.
ReplyDeleteNow that is interesting! Everyone else says 'dont plant a fig, its roots will go everywhere looking for water and do damage'. This ground will be perfect for the fig. We did fill the hole with compost and the ground underneath is definitely hard. I hope it grows and grows. The fig is so green and leafy in the summertime and where it is will give us lots of shade, and fruit hopefully.
ReplyDelete