angiescarr

Well it's finally dawned on me that there really are two Spains and two (at least) sorts of British expats in Spain. Both with their completely different attitudes to life.
So why don't we...the Campo lovers chat about 'our Spain' and stop arguing with them about 'theirs'?

Today a neighbour came round because another neighbour who is on facebook, (Yes, we do have educated people in our pueblo. This guy is a geologist) told her we were looking for milk to have a go at making cheese. My husband is a veggie and a very good cook.

Her husband has just bought a goat and only a few weeks in she's already sick of the amount of milk it produces. He loves the Campo...she'd prefer to have nothing to do with it. But she does know how to make goat cheese! So how much milk do we want to buy? (At the right price). Having shown OH how she makes cheese she gave him the whey that she was about to throw away and promised us 10 litres of whole goat milk on thursday.
OH brought the pictures and the whey home and said "Don't put it in the fridge 'till you've strained it". Apparently said neighbour,...who we used to call "sweeping woman" but have now upgraded to "goat woman 2", has never heard of using muslin to strain cheese and the whey was still about a quarter cheese! So now I'm straining off the cheese for a kind of ricotta type addition to our tea, and I've just tried drinking the whey. It's really lovely! I always imagined it would have 'something of the farmyard' about it..or taste acidic but it doesn't. It's mildly sweet and I can imagine using it on cereal and even just drinking it ice cold, or making drinking chocolate with it. Added to that the internet is full of recipes for using whey for everything from health drinks to garden fertilisers (slightly acid). So I'm guessing that we'll be asking 'goat woman 2' for a batch of milk every couple of weeks...and the whey she just chucks a-whay! I feel like Heidi and am considering plaiting my hair!

Zaragozaram

Don´t know a lot about cheese, but I was clearing out the vegetable garden today and was wondering does anybody know of a planting calendar, specfically for our Spanish climate?

fionamw

I'm not sure myself, but my OH and our neighbours and some permacultural friends in E Anglia swear by lunar gardening......... probably easily googled.

JLFS

What is that? gardening as done by people with a mole or by moonlight?

fionamw

By the phases of the moon. Apparently it works.

peterni

the farmers around us are likely to be our calendar. just laying foundation of a veg/herb garden but much we just go pick ( after the pickers have taken the crop) broad beans, asparagus, peas, cauliflower...... as so much is left to rot to get ploughed back in or the goats have it.
only been here a year but we are given too many melons, 5 lettuce at a time, eggs my neighbor cant sell, oranges and tangerines even tho we have our own.
and hoping for cheap honey this summer.
who would not want to live campo?

Dick Dasterdly

It varies quite a lot N.S.E.and W, high ground, low ground,etc,etc, only way is to ask the locals who have been doing it for years.

jackytoo

Here you go, an explanation, scroll down and you will get a list of what to plant and when.

http://www.elagricultor.com/elgraner...&clas=Siembras

peterni

bookmarked; thanks

chrisjolly

I just see what they are selling in the plant/agricultural shops in the local town..whatever they are selling, its the right time to plant..not including the chickens as you can plant them all year round!

angiescarr

Thanks Jacky. Good link!

angiescarr

I agree. And with the poster who says watch what your neighbours do. I guess things vary from area to area. We've had some success planting Habas (broad beans) at various seasons they've grown big and strong over winter but the flowers have stubbornly refused to set until this week. We bought a tray of onions this time last year and it was a good investment. We're just finishing off the last ones and ready to plant the next.
I paid a thousand pounds a few years ago for a greenhouse for my husband because he wanted to grow things out of season It wasn't worth it for the stack of chilis and a handful of aubergines. My hubby always thinks he can do things a different way. Like it's taken him 10 years to stop faffing about with various no-dig methods. In the end he's learned that digging is best!
Best is to follow the locals and learn to deal with the gluts.
Bottling tomatoes is so worth it! a year old bottle of tomatoes still tastes better than the imported greenhouse grown varieties.
OH has had some real success with a mid sized yellow tomato which is not local though and makes excellent breakfast tomatoes and keeps its shape straight out of the bottle into the microwave and makes a tasty and interestingly coloured Gazpacho. I'll get him to look up the variety.
bil (remember bil) and I had some long conversations about compost heaps and both of us have asked our local bars to give us their sacks of coffee grounds. They are slightly acid as is a lot of composted material though. But round here soil is quite acid anyway. I'm no expert at all and though, and we have had very little success with peas. But lets face it. Peas are the one veg that's better out of the freezer!

peterni

not sure about that. shops indicate harvest time and our bit of spain can get two crops a year on some items eg asparagas as crop cycle is shorter than uk

re milk..when house further on i must chat up our goat man to see what he does with his milk. i never see it being taken away for processing or as cheese on the market

jackytoo

Gets bathed in it

We once stopped at a venta and asked for a con leche. He walked around the back of the building, I could hear the goats, came back with a tin jug brimming over with milk. It tasted good.

When I was a kid it was almost impossible to get any fresh milk in Spain, even the Towns. Everyone used the sickly condensed milk out of a tin.

Dick Dasterdly

So have you ever got bathed in it ?

Goats milk I mean,....not that sweet sticky condensed stuff.

You'd probably have to find some one to come along and lick that all off.