Wishing You A Merry Potato Day!
Should I Call This Baby Noel?
Well it’s not quite “joy to the world,” but it will be joy to me when these grow up and start producing delicious tubers. They really did appear on Christmas Day. My best Christmas ever, partly because I gave it to myself. You get what you want that way.
(That’s because my mean parents kept promising me a pony if I was “good,” whatever that means. It was the only thing I wanted. After the first couple of years, I knew they never intended to buy me one, for Christmas or my birthday. So potatoes really are my best ever present. Up yours, Ma and Pa.)
Gardening News
I have worked hard at this garden. Moved in to the tiny house on July 23 (it was election day here in Spain) and a small triangle of land, with two electricity posts for no obvious reason, was part of the package.
It used to look like this:
After weeks of digging, weeding, and carrying huge sacks of rubbish, it now looks like this:
Ridges at top left are my potato patch.
The part at the bottom of the photo will be concreted and a climbing frame for plants installed. I originally asked permission to build a shed, but it’s not allowed. (Rural planning laws.) Probably in order to get rid of me, the man in the Planning Office suggested I could have a structure, but only if it was a roofless one for plants to grow up.
So now I need some help to build it, because we do get high winds here. You wouldn’t want to be seen chasing a pergola covered in Maracuya (called parchita here) and Uvas (grapes) down the road, would you?
The garden has so far provided: beans, calabazas, lettuce, leeks, carrots, scallions, and a range of herbs. That’s just in five months. Even the strawberries have flowers — in December. That’s the good old Subtropical Climate for you.
The only failure was an attempt to grow broccoli; about a week after planting them, I went out and found just centimetre-long bits of stalk. Investigation revealed the prime suspect to be saltamontes, the only solution is to grow broccoli indoors.
Of course, you never know if the zombies will come back:
Happy New Year!
PS: Feel free to call in after 5–6 months, and bring some butter.