Winter 2012-13

Another tree-planting push, this time almost all figs.  Fortunately several of the places were prepared last year, so didn't have to dig all of them.  Mostly they went in along a rocky ridge, using natural pockets in the rock, building mini-terraces where necessary.  The hard part was protecting them against sheep - proved very necessary last summer.  In most places there was not enough depth of soil to simply drive the stakes into the gound, so I ended up with some rather crazy staying, using lengths of wire attached to rocks, pine trees or anything else reasonably solid.

Also put in a couple more oranges: a canoneta, originally from Soller, and a de la sang (blood orange), plus another hass avocado to replace one that died.  The blood orange is supposed to be a Balearic variety but, according to the label, this one comes from Sicily.  I'm having another go with that cyprus-lined lower terrace, and will try to give the trees extra food and water and just see what happens.  I suspect that my problem with citrus there might have something to do with not watering frequently enough, not feeding enough, and sheep attack.  I hope they are now properly protected against the latter.

The veg garden was this autumn was an interesting experiment in just leaving it, as I was away for most of October and the whole of November.  Rainfall was good; frequent but not torrential, and temperatures mild. In December I still had cherry tomatoes and chillies, nice fat leeks, salads and lots of bok choi.  The bok choi is amazing.  Some was planted where it gets no more than an hour and a half of sun, and it still grew back from cutting to a re-cuttable size in five weeks.  Admittedly the temperatures continued to be higher than average right through December, but I was really surprised at the growth rate given the lack of sun.  Havas also coming along nicely, seeded before departure in October and left to their own devices.