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

27 May - Mr. Darcy has competition

Move over Mr. Darcy!

A bit of confusion this time around since some of us thought we were doing a morning run while others belived it was an evening run, which it was but hey ho!

Weeding was the first job of the day so lucky for us an additional bod (above) came along for the ride and ended up helping to weed half the plot!  And then, god forbid that we forget, dig a hole for his Mum so she could get rid of her vegetable peelings which had been fermenting on the home balcony for the last 2 years!  Yup 2 years!

Checking over our babies

An aubergine

Another hot pepper

Rocket

The beans planted at the same time as the rocket, show no sign of growing just yet.  Spinach was sown to go along with the rocket!

An expected outbreak of white fly all over our toms, so the potion was retrieved from various parts of the farm (our fat friend Attilla took an interest in the plastic bottles); all toms received a shower of magic nicotine potion!

Weeding completed, ladybirds checked out and a butterfly observed we had a rest in the shade of our faithful tree before taking one more look over our project.

Faithful Tree

and then our first little harvest,,,

Oops!

A few young lettuce leaves and basil for Sunday salad!

Tip for the week:

All hands on deck when it comes to weeding!

Note to selves:

Get more plastic sheeting!

Get Sowing Gals!

 Green Cross Parcels

All the way from the UK 

 with love from Annie and Jimmy who follow our blog faithfully.

Many thanks and we will start sowing on Sunday! 

All the way from Spain

Many thanks to Cousin Chris, luckily the instructions are in basic Spanish and have pictures!  And with the organic growth accelerator expect to see some amazing photos of large veg.

May 21st - Admiring our Work

Our humorous and enormously talented administrator, author and publisher of our blog is away for a few days so I shall try to fill the shoes to the best of my ability - I forgot to tell you in Growth Spurt as I also forgot to mention that we planted beans.

Anyways to get back to Mother Nature and our admiration of her and our work.

ADMIRING MOTHER NATURE AND OUR WORK

Helena showing us onions!

Relaxing or taking time out or sowing seeds in the shade of ye ol'faithful tree!

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm - no idea!

Teresa getting ready to rush off and cook a 3 course gourmet Sunday lunch (not for us)

Gathering ingredients for potion (see below)

Tip of the Week:

Well actually this refers to the first post of the blog with the first tip, but here the Collective (coven) has concoted a potion to adminster (spray form) to our plants.  A blast of nicotine water to keep those sticky b* bugs off of our food!

Bake in sun for about 10 days, strain and serve!

May 21st - Growth Spurt

Sunday morning saw us gather again for our weekly fix of getting up close to Mother nature and what a lovely sunny and dry morning it was too, the only thing lacking, and not missed, was the strong smell!

Mr. Darcy was waiting for us with open arms and a smile on his face when he saw how delighted we were to see that our plants had grown and some were in flower and some with fruit.



THE GROWTH SPURT

Pepper

Tomatoe

Cherry Toms

Pondering over the lettuces!

So after checking over the growth of all our plants and make notes about an aubergine plant starting with a pale yellow shade on lower leaves, a little bit of weeding, organic pellets of fertilizer put in ground near to each plant; we decided to get some more piping down, sow more seeds and general get our hands dirty!

 Thanassis kindly assisted us again in the laying of new pipes so that we can increase our crops, he also provided us with a tap so we can wash off our hands but must remember that it is NOT DRINKABLE!

The Tap

Seeds sown!  Pumpkin and Rokka (rocket)

More onions planted out

What will it be? - Lisa sowing more seeds to be carefully raised to seedlings before transplanting!