The Long, Hot Summer of Sheep

Not my sheep.  I didn't know whose, but I learned a thing of two about these beasts over the course of the summer.  First, they are not as stupid as they appear.  When it comes to getting at lush, green vegetation while all around is dry, they are pretty determined and resourceful.  Second, they are prepared to take reckless leaps down vertical drops of up to four metres to grab a meal of bean plants and citrus leaves.  And third, once they know where to come, they are very difficult to keep away.

So it went all summer; periodic stripping of the vegetable garden and trees, hasty erecting of fences, dawn vigils to chase off the intruders, lightning raids from unexpected quarters.  And, ahhh, a fatally injured young sheep.  Souvlaki, shwarma, curry, and meat to share around.

The odd thing was, no-one appeared to know who they belonged to.  On one occasion I managed to get them penned up - all except the ram that is - and called the policia local.  They said they'd call the appropriate department and call me back.  They didn't, and meanwhile the flock escaped to join the ram, who was happily browsing my peach trees.  Incidentally I learned that this can be quite a dangerous animal; the origin of the verb to ram something.  Not one to turn your back on in this vertical terrain.  Eventually they did enough damage to the garden of some better connected neighbours that the owner was identified and the animals securely fenced in.

The upshot is that I got a good fence round the core area of pip and stone fruit, citrus and veg garden.  I didn't actually lose any trees, though the growth of some was set back a bit.  And I have almost enough individual tree fences for the figs I plan to plant this winter, outside the fenced area.  Since they did not eat aubergine plants (too spiny), I got to experiment a considerable amount with the king of vegetables - this year I just had the Mallorquin black ones, but ten plants produces a lot of fruit.

In the tree department, all the new pip and stone from slow food did really well, as did the figs.  A few figs sourced elsewhere, mainly because they were cheap, were a mixed bag, some failing to sprout at all.  We even had some fruit from the coll de dama blanca planted last year.  A problem on the lower terrace though: the cyprus trees are proving tough competition for the citrus I planted, sending up roots where the water is.  I know this because my two avocados failed to survive February's freeze and, when I dug them up, there were the cyprus roots.  I also noticed that the citrus seemed to be getting thirsty quicker than in their first year.  Not at all sure what to do with this terrace.  I thinned the cyprusses, which looks better, but don't want to remove them as they look good and block the view of some ugly houses on the Muleta hillside.  As a windbreak they are ridiculous, tagasaste would be much better, but they do look classical.  Will have to think about this one.

Spring

Well, into summer now, temperatures in the high 20s and not a drop of rain since April.  The trees are all doing fine, currently giving the new ones about 60 litres of water every 10 days, the one year olds about 200 litres every 20 days.  This is all very much going by the seat of my pants, probably erring on the side of caution, ie watering more frequently than necessary.  The citrus and avocados I'm doing once a week for all trees.

In April, while I was away, about a dozen sheep had a good go at the place.  They ate all the veg garden, except aubergine and courgette plants, and had a good browse at some of the trees, especially the citrus.  Thanks to help from my neighbour, we got a fence up fairly quickly, which should keep them out (goats would be another matter).  Now trees are mostly recovered, and it's been an interesting experiment in starting the veg garden late using starts.

Ground cover

Here is one kind of ground cover that's almost grass-free, near the newly planted citrus trees. I did nothing to encourage it other than rather trample the area. Bill Mollison emphasises the importance of changing the ground cover vegetation under fruit trees from grass to leguminous and herbaceous plants. I suspect that the grasses of subtropical eastern Australia are even more of a menace than what we have here, but these are hard enough to get rid of. So I haven't tried to get rid of them other than in the dug areas around trees, and instead just seeing what grows where, and pulling the grass up to use as much (before it sets seed).

On the citrus and avocado terrace, vinagrella was present at the start but has colonised some of the dug areas, particularly where there is some shade. I'm not sure what this plant is, but I understand it's introduced from South Africa. Anyway, it can make a lovely grass-free carpet under citrus trees, usually where there is dew such as in the horta de Soller.

Spring

After being away for a month until mid-March, there was a bit of work to catch up on. Rainfall-wise things are still a bit dry, but the soil 20cm or so down is moist. The new trees are all sprouting except, lol, the two non-Mallorquin figs. The need for more mulch material is considerable, and I think the best recourse might be to buy a few bales of straw at 3 euros each. I noticed while preparing the veg beds that the soil which had been mulched with straw is looking darker than that mulched with leaf litter. It's also nice and easy to apply and stays on ridges rather than slipping off.

I had 30 odd asparagus plants, and only 17 would fit in the bed prepared the traditional way, dug deep, manured, pffff! So, to see how necessary all that effort really is, I put half a dozen in a hastily dug and manured bed between fruit trees, and left some in place where they were planted as seedlings. Now all we have to do is wait a few years and see which produces most.

It's been interesting to see what's happening with ground cover. The biggest enemy, I think, is a grass whose name I do not know but which looks very similar to what is known as chien dent in southern France. It's invasive, wiry, ugly and covered much of the property until two years ago. Actually, it still does cover quite a bit, but fortunately it's proving less hard to get rid of than I had feared. It doesn't seem to like disturbance, or perhaps disturbance favours the other plants that compete with it. In any case, quite a bit of the ground is now being covered with cuckoo pint and various small leguminous plants.

Also on the subject of ground cover, the lovely rock rose Cistus albidus has been appearing all over the place. I've tried to weed carefully around the little plants and mulch them, and have also clipped some of the bigger ones to make them grow more bushy. They are flowering nicely now. Along with cuttings of lavender, rosemary, Senecio, Euphorbia, and other drought tolerant herbaceous plants, I'm trying to get the ground between the trees covered so that the grass is kept in check. It should look a lot nicer too.

The little white flowers of Allium triquetrum are multiplying nicely on the shady side of the house. The leaves are not as palatable as those of garlic chive, but it should eventually form dense enough cover to supress grass.

Winter

A winter of extremes, at least for this island of generally moderate weather. Mostly mild and dry, except for November, when we had about half our average annual rainfall, and then February. While Northern and Eastern Europe froze, we were at the junction of air masses, with this result - the heaviest snowfall in 56 years. Snow lay for a couple of days at this altitude (160m), but there were several more falls on the mountains, and in mid-March there was still some snow on the highest peaks. All this did bring some much needed precipitation, and the water pressure is now strong.

The main work over the winter has been tree planting, preceeded by a certain amount of clearing. My neighbour Jaume helped out with his larger chainsaw to fell a couple of big pines, including one which had fallen into another tree and was lying at about 45 degrees, eek.

Just before Chistmas I got a message from slow food to say that my trees were ready, so headed out to Vivers Llabres in Manacor to collect them. A very impressive operation they are too http://www.viversllabres.net/ . Some of the figs were a bit diminutive, but all seem to be growing sprouting well now. For the stone and pip fruit I put in 3 apricots, 3 apples and a plum, and then 8 figs: five from Slow Food, one from the local nursery and two cheapies from another nursery. The latter two are not Mallorquin varieties, and they are showing no signs of life! The pip and stone are all Mallorquin except for two of the apples, from Menorca. I also put in a couple more citrus, a lemon and a Mallorquin mandarin, just before the snow, but it didn't seem to do them any harm. The main danger is breaking of branches, but all my trees were OK.