ELECTION WEEK

There is undoubtedly a connection between food and politics, or even the food of politics, or the politics of food. These thoughts were uppermost on our minds this week as Greece  approached its second election in as many months.  In many countries farmers tend to support more traditional right wing parties. I wonder if this is true for organic farmers.??? I know we generally  do not,  Despite most of us being disenfranchised and unable to exercise our democratic right to vote we nevertheless debated keenly the events of the moment.
                                                           

So back to the garden  A mid week visit to  weed and water was productive.  We have  been talking about the necessity of going more than once a week for a couple fo reasons.  One being we need to check the watering system (Turn on  turn off)

We discovered we can't automate it as the pressure is too great.  Gotta to be a solution to this though  and secondly to collect produce.




So we returned again on Sunday election day  again for more weeding,  fertilizing, de buggin, and tie-ing up (of plants  not people)

Theresa and Sarah  helping tie each other up

Brenda   star weeder

Sergio,  just - a - fixin - things


Some good growing going on  I was impressed by the toms which are approaching their tine to be chopped up and put in a salad date and the  melon which is getting bigger.

Melon looking good nice shape  not too may bugs, now lets see a few more. 

Toms really coming along well and needing the least weeding but the most pruning.  You can already see the shapes of the different varieties coming out
















And finally for this week we need to meet up mid week for both watering and to get the next batch of tomatoes in.  .  As it is getting fairly hot I think we may need to consider some shade for the toms.. see how that one goes I think by next week we will be coming to the end of the lettuces for the moment., but we tend to eat what is in season here anyway  so tomato based salads during the summer and lettuce based salads in the winter..

Basil picked...Pesto made

Ok instead of a tip this week as we all took some some basil  here's show you do a quick pesto sauce..

Ingredients

3 handfuls of basil leaves 
1handful toasted pine nuts
1 handful of; Parmesan
bit of garlic
olive oil
squeeze of lemon
salt and pepper


Home grown stuff here is the basil, lemon, olive oil (thanks to the ex.)


This pic. only shows one handful  of leaves,we will have to get more.....

Bung basil and garlic in a blender (or if you have  bash in a mortar and pestle\) and then whizz them up.  Meanwhile throw nuts into a well heated pan and toast  (not burn)


then add them to basil mulch and simply add as much olive oil as you think its needs, the Parmesan ,  salt pepper and a dash of lemon to bring all those flavors out.

And so here we are.  I wish I had a better camera as this picture does not do the colour justice.


Anyway mine will get sprinkled on a rocket and lettuce salad tonight with a bit of avocado




Bon Appetite

June 10th 2012 Growing Like Weeds

 Right, this is Fran back in the writing seat after a short break,thanks to Sarah for posting while I was away(on a jolly to the UK)  First impressions after a 3 week absence  was   bloody hell   the things have grown somewhat.  In fact we now have produce to take home with us..  the beginnings of trying to feed our families is slowly materializing  and I think although this was the obvious intention from the beginning we didn't actually visualize it happening  so  yeah  well done us

First we would like to offer huge thanks to Mr Darcey for his sterling job  in fact  so well is he keeping away  the birds (!!!) that we decided to offer him a Nobel Prize for Outstanding work in His Field.  In his acceptance speech he was moved to organic tears and heartily thanked the ladies responsible for stuffing his trousers and shirt,  as well as anyone that knows him...  and now on to cultivating matters.....


Lets start with the positives.   Herbs doing extremely well

 Dill   although it looks a bit straggly (thank you spell check  got that one so wrong), is undoubtedly  hanging on in there

 Parsley, which in my back yard I have managed to kill off many a time seems Ok

and Mr Basil in the back ground is absolutely
blooming. In fact all the varieties of Basil we planted  have really taken hold, so at some point we will be talking pesto sauce recipes.
















Other veg really coming along  particularly the tomatoes , not ready yet  but getting there

Also peppers




















Now I'm sure you don't want to see a picture of everything else that has grown  but nuf said we were especially chuffed with our first melon

So generally things are coming along nicely.  We had a small cucumber to pick and an aubergine and lots of lettuces ready, so that's our second crop if you like








Summer spinach is growing well  but the rocket seems to being eaten by something with small holes in the leaves   now we start with the issues!!  As always there  was lots of maintenance to do , A bit of fertilizing and bug spraying and loads of weeding..   Bugs  lets talk bugs.  We do seem to have a lot of white flies and we are using a mixture of water and soap, but  this is not really keeping them at bay  Does anyone have any other ideas..?????


Then there were the weeds.  OH MY GOD

anyway  everyone mucked in and did what we could




























While Lisa repaired the damage caused by the daaaaaawg    who is lovely but  really enjoys a romp around the tomatoes and has pulled up a lot of the plastic sheeting

So we cleared a bit more space  and planted some more cucumbers, spring onions, tomatoes and leeks - grown from seed by Ray-  thank you very much.  we have more tomatoes and spring onions to plant next week and a possible trip to the field may happen mid week for more weed clearing. Phone Lisa if you can make it,  Brenda and I have band practice so we cant. 


So as a general summary  things are growing well   I attempted to make a written record of what went where and when I f I can I will probably get it out on an Excel spreadsheet  distributed in duplicate....   That's  the kind of little project I like  (sad  yawn  yes I know)


Little jobs for next week are going to be more weeding,  more cane to tie up the tomatoes etc, and bug control.  I think we are all looking forward to our first crop of tomatoes  then I think we will feel real progress is being made.  and next time we all need to remember to take containers to being our lovely produce home..

and finally  a dish  made this week using a couple of our lettuces.  This is what the Greeks would call Pork Fricasse .  Pork with lettuce in an egg lemon sauce mmmm.

3 June - Maintenence & Construction

Maintenance work


All agreed that afternoon work this week was the best especially since it is getting warmer and also any spraying (not chemical) needs to be done in low light.

On arrival and after greeting Mr. Darcy we wandered along our rows of babies to see what had been going on, noting along the way that all the dratted weeds had magically reappeared two-fold.

Checking out our babes, and.... Where did we plants the beans?

The Rocket planted 2 weeks ago is growing very nicely and the Summer Spinach sown last sunday has sprouted.  White fly is abundant on all the toms, so a big debate on how to get rid of the little sods which finalized in a soap and alcohol solution to be prepared in order to zap them!  Meanwhile, nicotine potion was prepared and applied during the evening.

Rocket

Pumpkin!

Summer Spinach

Construction

30 pieces of cane (FOC) were used to construction frames for our toms (getting heavier with fruit by the week) and also for our cucumbers.

All neat & tidy

Lose & Addition

We lost an aubergine plant; it had not been well for the last couple of weeks.  In order to have a continuous flow of crop some more plants were purchased along with a few more herbs (28 Euro) and some more plastic sheeting which does help keep the weeds down, but thinking about it now (and I need to do some research) just might be aiding our white fly infestation.

New Additions

New tom and peppers in, along with a few summer lettuces

Lemon Grass

Nightfall

With the moon rising slowly and the sunsetting in the opposite direction;  Brenda just kept on weeding, Teresa and Lisa cut lettuce, spring onions and handfuls of basil and the boyz really just wanted to get home due to hunger!

Tip of the Week


Whitefly: Biological control
Whitefly are best controlled in the greenhouse by biological control - using another insect that kills them and so do the work for you.
Encarsia is a small parasitic wasp which lays its eggs in the scales where the larvae develop and so kill the scale The larvae hatch into adults, which find more scales to parasitise. However, once it has done its job there is no food source for the larvae and so the lifecycle stops. If a further outbreak occurs then you have to re-introduce the encarsia. Luckily, encarsia rarely kills all its hosts, so there are usually some to carry on the lifecycle.
Encarsia is available from various mail order suppliers.
In order to keep your whitefly killers safely within the greenhouse where they will sort out your whitefly problem, it's a good idea to again use fleece over the vents and doors. And, you can't use insecticides (although soft soap can be used before the controls are introduced) while the controls are busy at work - so you'll have to trust them.

Can we find Encarsia here?  Need to talk to friendly organic nursery in Kalamata!

Encarsia - Adult