A Creative Spirit
While I aspire to achieve a certain level of vegetable self-suffiency, I am a realist and accept my limited mobility and available growing space dictates how much I can grow. The secret is probably to keep a constant supply of new seedlings in production and, unlike other years, the moment a plant becomes stressed or... Continue Reading →
Human Lottery Death, Human Lottery Vulnerable Destroy their ticket The Youth invincible Until their number is called Millennium children complain While prophets of doom and gloom proclaim: There are plenty of toilet rolls in Hell! This is one of the poems I wrote for National Poetry Writing Month on writingforums.com where we were challenged... Continue Reading →
This week I have mainly focused on creating colour in the living areas of the garden. aka, the terraces, pool and in the Gin garden. Although, if am honest, I have not had much time for 'chillaxing' in said Gin garden as there is always some area of the garden screaming for attention, especially as... Continue Reading →
It's been another strange week. This morning I was informed we need to adapt to the NEW 'normal' - or words to that effect. I'd just woken up but I've already embraced 'normal' to stay safe. On a positive note, hopefully the garden centers will be open from today as Portugal moves from State of... Continue Reading →
In these uncertain times we all need an anchor in our lives to help keep us sane, so the commitment to grow all my fruit and veg from seeds is mine. The seeds and compost may have cost a small fortune, which will make the produce gold-plated if and when it grows, but this is... Continue Reading →
My garden diary this week focuses on my efforts, given the COVID-19 lockdown, to grow as many fruit and vegetables as possible in an assortment of pots, containers and plastic crates as I can lay my hands on. The only problem is that I normally buy established seedling plugs from the plant guy at local... Continue Reading →
My courgettes were growing exceptionally well and then disaster struck. I noticed the ends of the baby courgettes started to wither and die off. The rest of the plant is perfectly healthy so the only thing I can think of is that the wet weather meant the bees were not pollinating the flowers.... Continue Reading →
We have now been in lockdown for four weeks and apart from a visit to the Farmacia (germ central) last Friday, I have lived within the boundaries of our property. I do miss driving to the cliffs above our local beach for a morning coffee or sundowner and meals out with friends but that's okay,... Continue Reading →
It's been a long week and as I watch the cases of COVID-19 rise across the Algarve, I've now accepted we are likely to remain in lockdown until the end of the summer. To help me stay focussed I have moved from panic into survival mode and have decided that instead of growing the usual... Continue Reading →
Due to health issues and the fact we are approaching our winter years, we decided to go into self-isolation on Friday 13th March several days before the Portuguese government declared a state of emergency and 'official' lockdown. We prepared well in advance thanks to our daughter who lives in France. She warned us what was... Continue Reading →
In between writing this post, I am dodging the showers to take photographs. Yes, hopefully, the much-needed rain has finally arrived. March is one of my favourite months as most of my resident plants, cacti and shrubs flower before the heat of summer when colour and interest is mainly provided by the usual suspects such... Continue Reading →
What a week! I won't mention the dreaded C word as it has already taken over our lives. Thank God we have been enjoying wonderful weather with temperatures as high as the mid-twenties during the day and a minimum of 13C at night. Time to hunker down in the garden and tackle all the outstanding... Continue Reading →
Piglet in Portugal 