Garden Successes So Far....

Our work in the garden seems to be paying off, and much of what we have done seems successful. It's the beginning of May now, so I thought I'd just outline what has worked so far!

First, as I've mentioned elsewhere, the lawn is doing fine. It's a patch of grass on the lowest of three terraces making up our land, and the seeded area is about 20 meters by 4 meters. There's also an area of rougher grass -- we are gradually raking it a little flatter and sowing a few seeds over the natural meadow grasses.

As to vegetables, the most successful so far have been bought at local markets as seedlings. The tomatoes seem to be doing fine -- there are about 10 plants of some unknown variety, and they are just beginning to produce flowers. I've also tried a couple of varieties of seed -- I planted out a dozen of these a few days ago, but they remain rather small.

Various lettuce and other salad leaves are doing fine too. I've been buying a few seedlings at a time, a few weeks apart. The other day we had a few leaves plucked from the earliest lettuce. Mixed salad seeds from Tane-no-Mori (a little outfit in Japan specialising in organic seeds) are also doing well now, after a slow start. Rocket I grew from seed, in plastic modules, and later planted out the seedlings. It seems to be doing reasonably well.

Also planted as seedlings were some capiscum (green peppers/piman). These are not looking too good -- they seemed to stop growing a few weeks after planting and haven't really moved since. This contrasts with some beetroot, which are thriving! The only problem is we don't know actually what they are -- animal feed, for human consumption of the root, or for human consumption of the leaves. In fact we don't even know what colour the roots are -- red or white! A week or so ago I planted some red beetroot seeds; just today these show some signs of coming up....

Last week, a neighbour came and helped us plant a bed of potatoes (I don't know what variety) and another bed of onions. Given that we made use of local expertise, I'm reasonably confident these are going to do just fine!

Carrots.... I sowed some seeds a long time ago -- probably six weeks ago. I'd given up hope on them until this week. Now, among the weeds, I see definite carrot-like leaves. Watch this space!

We also have two varieties of Japanese vegetable grown from seed: daikon (giant radish) and gobo (greater burdock). These both require deep soil (the roots are big -- up to 80cm in the case of gobo). I grew them from seed, and they seem quite happy here in Portugal. The only problem is that the local insects seem to like such exotica -- they are showing signs of being eaten.

I've grown some coriander from seed, and they are doing well. Other herbs -- even parsley -- have failed to come up so far. Other herbs we've obtained from friends: mint, lemon balm, laurel, rosemary.

We have also been working on a little soft fruit -- black and red currants, and raspberries from a friend. These all seem to be surviving, even the raspberries (which went through a bad patch a few days after planting).