We have taken the first baby steps in the start of our vegetable garden. And that is anything but easy. Our completely different approach alone is an obstacle. One of us wants to read up on everything and understand everything before anything goes into the ground. The other, on the other hand, does not want any information in advance and just wants to try. To be honest, it may not make any difference to the result at all. We don’t know at all what the soil is like here, what the weather is doing and which annoying critters can ruin our harvest.
Heavy machinery
The start was made by our neighbour, who was so kind to plough our land with his tractor. He did this on three pieces of weed-covered land that lie on top of each other against a hill, where the sheep never come and where the vegetable garden used to be. He drove from left to right around the fruit trees and old fire heaps of pruning waste. In less than an hour he had churned up the sea of grass and clover into bumpy strips of dark soil.
Start small
What you read everywhere is that the beginner in the vegetable garden should not take on too much. So our initial plan was to start small. The neighbour advised us to take the middle plateau as a starting point. The lowest plateau is already the fruit garden and the upper plateau would not do so well, he said. So we prepared the first four vegetable beds on the second plateau. We removed the weeds, demarcated the beds with wooden branches and shredded wood to cover the footpaths in between.
Mulch collecting in the dark
The idea is that we don’t have to pull weeds in our vegetable garden all the time. So, we try to go for mulching the soil around our plants. But what mulch can be found here? Fallen leaves are not an option, because we have almost no trees that lose leaves (actually only the fig trees and grapevines). After some online research, pine needles seemed to be an option. We started by collecting pine needles on our own land, but this was not nearly enough. So we took plastic bags with us in the evening while walking Irma, to pick up the pine needles on the streets around our house. The Portuguese will probably find it bizarre, but hey, we managed to get our first beds covered.
Winter crops
Because it is still winter, we have to pay close attention to what we sow. On the advice of the neighbour, the broad beans were the first to go into the ground. The Portuguese call them favas. This was followed by garlic, peas and a winter spinach. Now fingers crossed that something comes up. To be continued…
