Strimming and trimming.

Last week we took advantage of the lovely  sunshine to get out with the strimmer,  rake,  shears - you name it,  we took it - over onto our top terraces to get them cleared ready for this years digging and planting.  Despite 10 years of adding compost,  planting broad beans just for the goodness they give the soil,  not to eat but to be dug straight back in, and digging and rotovating year after year,   there are still  areas that are stony and hard.  You know you've got bad soil when hardly any weeds grow there,  not even after a year of lying fallow!

John started at the top,  followed at a safe distance by me and my rake.  No matter how careful he is,  there are always small stones and things that fly up from the ground,  hence the distance.  I raked bundles of dead grasses and weeds,  some for the composts,  some packed around the base of olive trees especially those far away from the composts.  Raking bundles of cut grass up hill?  No.  Not me.  We have 3 compost heaps and they are all in the furthermost top corner of our land  and we worked from there downwards.

We trimmed the whippetty  (is that a word or did I make it up?)  new growth out from the base of the olive trees as we went,  bundled them up and took them back to the garden for cutting into stick lengths for drying for the wood burners.  Surprising how much there was. 

There are flowers on some of the strawberry plants but whether we'll get fruit is doubtful,  although the inca berries - otherwise known as cape gooseberries - are still ripening in their little paper lanterns.  The first planting of peas from the end of October got off to a really quick start,  up within a matter of days and they are now flowering and podding.  The second lot,  end of November are still tiny plants,  maybe 6 inches/15cms high.  The broad beans are flowering too,  but no pods there yet. 

Top of the top terrace,  yes that is a bath in the distance,  water storage for the far end of this terrace's strawberries and apple trees.

Next level down,  we've left the cayenne chilli plants in place (just visible on the left) as this was their first year,  and what a lot we got!

 

The first pea bed

 

 

Looking down to our bottom terraces,  guess where our land stops and next doors' starts. On the right is 1 of our  big strawberry beds.  How big?  about 3x3m,    that's a lot of strawberry plants.  Also why we had a glut last summer.



And then there are the celeriac plants.  It's the first year we've managed to get any to grow at all,  they need shade and damp soil so under an olive tree in a piece of land that is as soft as we could make it for them to swell......and this is the best they could do after a season of growing. 

                             (They are on a dinner plate for some idea of size)

We left them and left them,  but finally today I dug them out.   All is not lost though, as they have made a lot of lovely side shoots which over the summer and autumn I cut off,  we dried the leaves then ground to a powder for adding to soups and stews.  John reckons we've had more leaves than veg.  Now to peel them and see if they are edible,  as they didn't swell much - or at all really - they may be very woody.