Horses in the snow

Horses in the Snow

We went up to the cortijo for the day to see what was happening. The neighbour has put his horses on our land. We gave them some corn, wheat and oats. It was very cold, the temperature of the bedroom was 0C. The front wheels of the van were skidding and we had to dig through the ice to the road.

Self-seeding Godetias

Godetias in a Pot

Godetias in a Pot

The other day I found a flower pot full of self seeded Godetia seedlings. I planted them about 6 years ago and they have survived in the pot on their own. The temperature in winter  gets well below 0C and in the summer it is very dry and well over 40C. The flowerpot has formed a tiny ecosystem and by an evolutionary process they have managed to survive.

 

Godetia Transplants

I have transplanted 18 of them into plastic modules and also planted the seeds which were in the dried seed pods into a pot.

I would like to make a self seeding area of Godetia plants which will come up every year. As they have survived for 6 years in very hostile conditions they should be able to cope with the harsh conditions at the Cortijo.

Notes: There are very precise instructions in Spanish for growing Godetia on this page
They germinate best at 21C, sowing in January will produce flowers in May/June.

I learned today that plastic modules in Spanish are called charolas

Godetias are actually called  Clarkias.

 

MOVE FORWARD TO MID MARCH

The Godetias looked very nice on the table for a long time.

The modules that I planted died after forgetting to water them during a weekend.
However the little seedlings that I planted in other pots were lovely. The Godetias flowered for about 4 weeks and were really lovely.

Creating a Vineyard from Scratch

Vine CuttingsIt is my plan to create a vineyard. We have a large price of land which has good soil and gets lots of light.

There are a lot of vineyards between our Cortijo and the next large town and the wine they sell is a pleasant Cabernet Sauvignon.

Rather than buy vines I have decided to plant cuttings. In December there were a lot of vine cuttings at the side of the road on the way to the nearest town and I threw a load of them into the back of the van. There was nobody around to ask so I don’t know exactly what sort of grapes they are.  It looks like they are being grown commercially so I just hope they will make good wine.

I looked at several websites to see how to make the cuttings. In the end I cut about 90 of the  vines into 30cm long pieces, dipped them in cutting hormones and then pushed them into pots of soil.  This happened on the 12th Jan 2012. Some of the pots have deeper soil than others. If they take I will transplant them into individual pots or plant them into the ground.  Most other websites say that you have to put them into a trench but I am using pots because we are down on the coast until March and they will be much warmer.

To be continued…….

Minnie dies of Leukaemia

 

Minnie Jumping

It is  incredibly sad but I have to announce that Minnie the cat has died. I can now just about write this without flooding the keyboard with tears. She died on the 30th of December 2011.

Minnie was about 15 months old which is about 21 years old in human terms. She died of Feline Leukaemia which caused her thoracic cavity to fill up with fluid.  We had the fluid drained which gave her a brief respite. When the laboured breathing started to get bad again, we decided to have her put down. I had never heard of this disease before the vet did an ELISA test which is a very quick way of diagnosing the disease using a blood sample.

She had probably had the disease from before we had her and it may have even been transmitted from her mother.

I realise now that it is a good idea to have a blood test done before getting any new cat. If the test is negative, then the cat should have an anti-leukaemia jab followed by a booster one month later and then a booster each year. Nobody tells you this at the time.

Information about Feline Leukaemia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feline_leukemia_virus

www.peteducation.com

30 December – Seed Planting

Seed Pots

Seed Pots

This may seem a strange time to plant seeds. The reason why I can start seeds off now is because we have a place on the coast and one up in the mountains. The average temperature on the coast is about 14C and in the mountains it is 5C .The idea is to get the plants going and then transfer them to the mountains after March.

All the seeds here are plants that could cope with some low temperatures at the start.

I have planted several pots. If any of them germinate I will transplant them into pots or modules. Very tiny seeds are just sprinkled onto the surface. Bigger seeds are mixed into the soil with the ends of my fingers according to size. The soil is normal potting compost and at the top of the pots there is some finer seed compost which was bought at a garden centre.

Petunias (fire chief) wiki
Petunias are great flowers. They cope well with the hot sun and the don’t get too upset by an occasional lack of water and also they flower for ages.  Petunias normally only cost about 1.20 euros each for a potted one but it will be good if we can get loads of them to use in the summer. Petunia seeds are very small so they are just spread on the surface of the flowerpot.

Snapdragons - Antirrhinum

Snapdragons Antirrhinum wiki
These are the sort of hard as nails plants we like at the cortijo. There are some snap dragons alive and flowering  at the moment in the cortijo and the temperature has been down to -5C. A good quality about snaps is that they self-seed themselves and once there are a few growing they will establish a colony.

 

 

Tudela Lettuce (cogollos de Tudela in Spanish) wiki
Cogollos de Tudela are a really good Spanish lettuce that form very compact hearts. If you go to a Spanish restaurant you can order “cogollos” which is normally lettuce hearts drizzled with a sort of garlic oil. They are very healthy to eat and you can make a very quick almost 0 calorie snack by slicing  a cogollo lettuce heart into 4 laterally and drizzling on some extra virgin olive.

Capers (capparis Spinosa) (alcaparras in Spanish)  wiki
This is probably a waste of time because caper seeds are very difficult to germinate and require stratifying. They probably won’t germinate but you never know.

Parsnip (Pastinaca) (chirivía in Spanish)  wiki
These were some seeds that I has in an old packet. Let’s hope they germinate.

seed traysI have also planted lots of plants into seed trays. The trays cost about 2 euros. It is the best way of raising lots of small plants for later transplanting.

I normally buy my plants form a shop called Bolivar in Granada. (they cost about 8 cents each) This year I am going to try to grow some of them myself.

I have the following plants in the seed trays.
Cauliflowers  (coliflor in Spanish)  wiki
Cauliflowers do very well at the cortijo.

Spring onion  (cebolleta in Spanish)  wiki
The was a packet of White Lisbon which came free with Grow Your Own  magazine.

Kale (Black tuscany)  (col rizada in Spanish)  wiki
There were some seeds in the bottom of a packet. It is a type of Curly Kale with purple leaves.

Leek  (puero in Spanish)  wiki
I bought these seeds from Al Campo supermarket.

Brunswick Cabbage  (Col Repollo)  wiki