First Summer

And a pretty dry one it's been, with no real rain since January. Now into September and it seems the whole of the western Mediterranean has had rain but not Mallorca. However the water is still flowing, at a reduced rate, but there's still plenty of it for our needs. In terms of temperature, June was hot, July exceptionally cool, the whole of August hot. When I say hot, there have been no exceptional temperatures and no xaloc (sirocco), just steady in the range of 22-25C min, 28-30 max.

First and foremost the trees: all surviving, bar one orange that never looked happy from the start. The nectarines have had a touch of mildew but have still grown vigourously. Fig, kaki, loquat and some of the citrus have grown quite a bit and are looking good. The rest of the citrus is holding up but not grown much, likewise the avocadoes. Of course how much water and how often are the crucial questions with new trees. Initially I had a cheap moisture meter with a probe about 20cm long; this was incredibly useful in gaugeing when to

water. Unfortunately it did not have a high resistance to being pushed in and out of stony ground, and soon broke. I now have another but am wary of using it unless its really needed. Generally the stone fruit seem to be OK up to 10 days between watering, or a week when it's very hot. The citrus and avos I did every 4-5 days in the hottest weather, paying more attention after the cumquat lost all its blossom. The loquat is either very thirsty or in a spot that dries very rapidly, and it has had the same sort of routine as the citrus. I have been using a hoop of 10mm pipe with lots of holes in it, and running water for about 15 minutes. Not all that precise and measured, but seems to have got them through. The idea is to use a bigger hoop next year to extend the roots.

As for the veg, some hits and some not so goods, but we have had a good variety for the table throughout the summer, without any excessive gluts (partly due to the failure of some crops). Tomatoes were not a huge success, but we have had a reasonably supply for salads, pa'amb oli and Asian cooking, but not enough to bottle, freeze or dry. The big ones came in a flush in July, with a second one in late August, but the cherries kept up a continuous production and are still going. Problems: feeding with the drip-feed - need to use a hose periodically to wash in the surface fertiliser dressing, and I probably was not sufficiently dilligent about this; mildew - everyone gets it and dusts with copper sulfate, but my plants still seemed to have it; last but not least, a new pest here, a caterpillar that burrows into the tomato making a mess of it. There is apparently a biological remedy for this, I will certainly try it next year. On the plus side, no blossom-end rot or splitting, so I must have got it more or less right with the watering (daily, at about 5l per plant).

Things that did well are aubergines, chillies, kangkung, cucumbers and pumpkins - all the things that really like it hot. Beans we had in May and again in later summer and hopefully on into autumn. Cobra and hunter have been great, won't bother again with lingua di fuoco - not much flavour. Lesson: don't make a frame higher than you can reach. You see a lot of arbour-style frames for beans, so you walk underneath to pick them. Corn was a mixed bag - earlibird went well, the locally-sourced seed didn't. Also grew some minipop which might have messed up the other corn by cross-pollinating. In anycase, very poor SVR (space value return, after Joy Larkcom) from minipop.

One lesson learned on Thai basils: horapa grows much better if planted out singly, about 25cm between plants, than if clumped. If kept well watered, fed a high N fert, and regularly picked, one patch goes all summer. If neglected it just goes to seed and the flavour suffers. Kaprao seems to not mind being planted in bunches, but seems to need more heat - it didn't really get going until July, but is still going strong in mid-september.

Sarting a new blog called Dan's kitchen alconasserkitchen.blogspot.com with some cookery ideas born out of the veg garden. Please come and have a look.

A very dry spring

I mentioned the very beginning that we didn't have secure water, but failed to mention that we have now acquired our neighbour's unused 2 hours of the spring, which is distributed throughout the week. Autumn rainfall was below average, and there has been no significant rain since January, so this is just as well. At the moment the flow of our 2 hours is in the region of 30 cubic metres a week. It will be interesting to see how much actually comes out in summer, but even a third of this would be ample.

Spring work has been a mixture of planting more trees, getting the veg garden going for summer and the endless task of dragging cut pine branches a safe distance from the house. The latter is far from over, but doing it poc a poc will hopefully have it well away by the time the real fire danger time begins.

In terms of trees, the lower terrace is more than half planted up. There are 2 avocadoes, a hass and a bacon, which are supposed to be good pollinators for each other and also have different seasons. They have the shadiest spots, with the hass also well protected from the westerly wind by cypress trees (it's the W and NW winds that really strike here; the northerly, or tramuntana, seems to get deflected upwards by the land to the north and we don't feel it much). Of the citrus, I've put in the valette

lemon (tastes like a lime) and makloud, which have lived for 3 years in pots in France, a cumquat and a navel orange. I hope to get 2 more oranges this week, their holes are

already dug - almost. The technique I am using now for digging tree holes is to leave the pick in place and every time I walk past, dig for a couple of minutes. It gets done, poc a poc, without really feeling like a huge effort. The trees planted earlier all seem to be alive. Fortunately they had not started to put out leaves when we had a hail storm at the end of February which left the loquat and citrus looking a bit distressed, but they seem to have got over it.

In previous photos of the veg garden the messy stuff somehow seems to have been out of the picture, so here is one with all the clutter visible. Some more digging was needed, as the beds nearest the house were shaded and unused

over the winter so had not been dug yet. Others needed much weeding and digging over - the ones in the foreground are waiting to be prepared for the toms, pepper and aubergines. Over the last 6 weeks have got these started from seed, at first in a heated propagator but for the last 3 weeks in the open. Some are almost ready to plant out after a very warm spell with lots of sun. Beans are growing, both bush runners (hestia) and 2 varieties of flat pole bean (evita and hunter). Sweet corn earlibird seeded a week ago is now emerging. Also just seeded are cucumbers, basil and water convolvulus or kangkung. I've put in some artichokes and the strawberry plants which have

looked a bit sad all winter are now looking healthier and have quite a few flowers. I'm hoping to actually eat some strawberries off them, but I know that these little fruit are very popular with all sorts of other critters. As for crops now, its not very big on variety - salad, spinach and havas.

The havas are cropping really well and we are eating them almost every day. Some sown in mid-October, a bit early by local standards, have lots of beans but also lots of plant and are flopping. Those seeded in November have just as much bean but less plant.

Some attempts also to plant decorative plants, all of which are drought-tolerant. I've tended to favour plants which are native to Mallorca but don't necesarily grow right here, such as dwarf palm and tree spurge (Chaemerops humilis and Euphorbia dendroides), but can't resist some non-natives as well. Despite the dryness there is much growth of wild vegetation, and new surprises coming up with flowers to brighten things up.

Under some encinas this mysterious plant is sprouting like a giant purple asparagus. It will be intriguing to see what it turns into.

Mainly trees

Such work as has been done since the last posting has involved some very old olive trees, medium-sized pines and very small fruit trees. Also taking stock of more shifting terraces and fire hazards. The first pic shows an olive from which decades-old suckers have just been removed. It needs pruning too, but that will have to wait until next year. In this case the terrace collapse seems to be due to the tree, which is also stopping it from going further. Some other walls are showing the bulge which means real collapse is in the offing. They can go on for a very long time looking bulgy, but at least one moved disconcertingly after a

recent heavy rain. There is a slight bulge just to the right of the beautiful steps which lead to the lowest terrace. These are all angled inward, giving you a much greater feeling of security than the narrow steps would otherwise.

Several olives were very overgrown with suckers. Unfortunately a pine just above one of these fell the way it wanted to rather than the way I tried to get it to fall, and broke one of the two remaining good branches. The older suckers are up to 15cm in diameter, and are the preferred material for fence-posts.

Having finally cleared the space, doing a spot of pruning of carobs as well, it was time to dig a few holes. These were not too hard after some rain, and could pretty much all be done with the two-handled fork. I worked an area of about 2m in diameter. working the soil first from the outside in, making a mound, then from the inside out to make a crater. I tried to dig the middle a bit deeper, but the ground becomes extremely stony below about 40cm. As there is have no really composted compost to hand I used some bagged stuff to condition the soil. From the verges of the Alconasser road can be scraped some nice encina semi-compost which was applied as mulch, but it is full of not yet decomposed acorns and leaves, so I thought best not to dig it into the soil. First to go in were 3 nectarines, all new-ish varieties: fantasia, snow queen and red glover. Also a kaki fuyu, a loquat (argelino) and one fig, coll de dama blanca. I'm hoping to put in quite a few more figs next year, sourcing them from among the 40-odd old Mallorquin varieties distrubuted by Slow Food Baleares in collaboration with Vivers Llabres in Manacor. You have to order them now for next year, which I've done along with 3 apricots, 3 apples and a plum, all old varieties from Mallorca or Menorca. The standard apricots on offer are commercial varieties grown in inland areas of the peninsula, which makes me suspect the chill-hours here may be insufficient.

Veg garden somewhat neglected, but some greens to be had. At mid-winter all but the inside ends of the beds got 4 hours of sun, now it's up to 5. With mostly mild as well as some chilly weather, bok choi and komatsuna seeded mid-November now ready to eat. Broccoli is still going, the hybrid green spear producing best. September sown peas still producing a few, while November sown ones have a first flowers. Havas have lots of leaf and flower, but pod-set has not been great - hopefully it will improve now that more sunshine has brought out some bees.

The creation of any sort of aesthetic garden has been small and slow, but clearing has revealed some nice plants that were hidden by the tangle of wire-grass. The sea-quill, Urginea maritima, was growing right along the edges of a couple of terraces. The leaves dry up in summer and it forms an enormous bulb, up to 1kg in weight, from which a spike of white flowers bursts at the end of summer when all around is dry. There is also an abundance of the beautiful heather Erica multiflora. Having enjoyed the mauve flowers until the year's end they are now a rust-red. Much of it is leaning outwards from growing under pines, but I have noticed it grows back vigorously after being cut. Also discovered some bee orchids at the edge of another terrace, mow in flower. There's lots of lentisc, Rhamnus and Cistus, and a few Arbutus, all nice plants to have around. The only things I am trying to get rid of completely are bramble (one small plant found) and spiny broom. Smilax aspera is too prevalent to hope to eliminate, so will probably just have to keep pulling up (or down) this hook-spined climber from time to time.