'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

Bill was asking why his garden clementines have all come out tasteless. I bought some recently in Mercadonna which were tasteless compared to the ones bought a week before which were wonderful. Does anyone know which are which?

Also, on the subject of citrus trees. Mine have developed a bad case of curly leaves alongside yellowing. I think the yellowing might be down to not having enough iron but the curly leaves appear to be some sort of parasite. Last year we got loads of flowers and even tiny baby fruit, but they all dropped as little buds of fruit:-( Any suggestions? I also find my soil is quite acid... I'm chucking 'cal de obra' on to cure the acid. There's plenty of it about as we're building, I hope that's OK. It's certainly a lot cheaper than any other source of garden lime. I bought some iron at a garden centre when I was down in Portugal so that's gone on too.

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

Matt's the boy to ask, but we get leaf miner that curls the leaves. Confidor will do it but it's expensive. Terrasita (I think is the name is the same chem. - imacloprodid or something)& it's a lot cheaper.

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

A friend with rather a lot of citrus trees told me to use Fairy Liquid or even secondhand dishwater.

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

I’ve got a big garden and I’ve tried hard for many years to grow things. When I came to Spain I eventually got the house I’m in now and my garden was an established one which I tried to keep going and improve.

I’ve won some and lost some, I’ve lost a peach and apricot tree, but an upside down tree I planted a year ago is now taller than I am. A house plant that died indoors is now in a corner of the garden, six feet tall. All the roses I’ve planted have died, but the ones already there are flourishing.

A pomegranate tree (bush) produces fruit every year without any attention whatsoever.

I’ve come to the conclusion that if I interfere with things by spraying, watering etc, they die, but if I leave them alone, they flourish.

But I’m overwhelmed again and a Spanish gardener is coming in March to sort things out. He prunes everything to a frightening level, but it all comes back a couple of months later.

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

Citrus fruits and their sweetness or otherwise are something of a mystery Angie, and we are surrounded by them here. :)
Our neighbours trees usually produce wonderfully sweet fruit, but not this year, they are so tart that they still sit on the trees or on the ground and the neighbours are buying them in from the shops.
On the other hand some friends of ours have a finca at El Chorro and the clementines coming off their very large and old trees this year are the sweetest I have ever tasted!

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

A point with clems etc. I have a major gripe with citrus anywhere. All too often you get samples with no taste whatsoever. Partly I think it's to do with being picked too early and shipped and ripened in a box, but then if that's the case, why do some get thru that are fantastic?

I think there are some varieties that are great, and some that are rubbiss, but why produce a rubbish cultivar anyway?

Re your acid problem. Just how acid is it, and does it actually need 'curing'?

I was told Spanish soils tend to be acid. Such a cure might just cause more problems than it fixes.

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

My husband says its "5"... Because he's the one with the tester. I don't know what that means though! We do live under a pine wood and on Granite so apparently it will have a tendency to be acid. But it is fairly rich and fertile. BTW Bil the coffee grounds and other garden waste will be acid as they compost.
Hugs
Angie

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

Not quite on thread.

I have just come over for a few days and cannot believe the amount of oranges left to ripen/rot on the trees.
Is there a horticultural reason or is it just plain over supply?

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

FYI

Any figure less than 7 (7.2 actually) is acid and a number greater than that is alkiline.

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

In the which case what's the point trying to move the pH over? In koi keeping I used to know people that tried to alter their basic water chemistry, which was always doomed to failure in the long run. We have a simple rule here, if it grows it grows, if it sickens, it's compost.

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

Living in the Guadalhorce valley area I know what you mean about the rotting fruit.
The large growers here are OK, but the smaller ones are finding it not worth their while to pick the fruit, this goes for oranges lemons and olives.
With the recent olive crop the price paid per kilo was just a few cents, and that has to cover all the work of rotorvating involved throughout the year as well as picking the olives by hand....:(
It all comes down in the end to the supermarkets wanting crops at rock bottom prices, it makes it not worth while for the small growers to harvest the crops....I wouldn't work like that for the price they get either!

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

Sorry, a tiny bit off-thread....

One of my most memorable moments in coming to Spain was eating an orange straight off of a tree! (Though they grew in supermarkets now).

Anyway, I have an orange tree and a lemon tree planted just last year. It'll be interesting to see how they grow... and how they taste!

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

On the way to the supermarket to buy Kakis (sharon fruit) at nearly 2 euros a kilo, there's a tree in the middle of a field just overloaded with them. Makes you want to scrump doesn't it! As you say meg. It's the cost of picking them. Same with firewood. A load of firewood (back of a very small pickup van) 150 euros... It's lying around all over the campo. But it's the time taken to chainsaw it all up, and the cost of the chainsaw you're paying for.

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

We bin a mountain of oranges each year. The trees produce far more than we can eat each year, or give away, but I am loathe to fell them.

If I run out of space for fruit trees, I might rip out a couple.

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If you could find out who owns the field you could offer to buy some, the chances are they would tell you to just help yourself.
With the wood we paid 240 euros, that included thirty euros for delivery from Alhaurin el Grande to the other side of Alora.
We got 45 bags in October that weighed approx 25kl each, it's lasted us until the end of this week, but we will need a few more yet.
I know what you mean about it laying around in the campo, but even if we could collect it we would need somewhere for it to dry out and to store it....the last thing you want is to be trying to burn wet wood!

A bit off subject I know, but it gives you something to compare your to. :)

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

We're about to build a wood store just outside our back door. (might have to put mozzie net over it to keep the woodworm and termites out of the house tho';)
Fortunately I've had offers from two different neighbours to go raid their campos but my chainsaw isn't very big and sharp. (Just learned how to sharpen it)and the wood has been rather wet recently!
When I get it home, if it's less than 10 cm diameter my chop saw makes short work of it :thumbup:
Back to gardening... The sawdust and bark chips all add to my compost :-)

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

Firewood seems expensive in other regions. Roundabout here its 75€ a tonne and for that you get a choice of pine, oak, or olive

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

We lived in Playa Flamenca, and just near the junction for the hospital on the N332 were a number of orange groves, most years at least one lot were just allowed to drop off and rot on the floor. We were told it cost more to harvest than they would get, particularly in a glut year.

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

We have similar but not with oranges. At the back of our village is a whole field full of pear trees. The farmer just lets them drop to the ground and never harvests them. he got the eu grant to plant them years ago, but they are not worth the cost to harvest them so they rot.

Some of the expats go and collect a few without his knowledge:rofl: he is not one of the spaniards that embrace the expats at all. Karen is going to get some this summer and pickle them.

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

You can pickle oranges?

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

You can certainly pickle lemons.

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There's a woman in the next village who cures orange skins (like leather) and forms them into cute little inside out round boxes. They're amazing and she sells them to tourists for 5 euros a time. I think they sell well, I've certainly bought a couple!

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You can make Hungarian Parlinka with rotting pears, it's strong stuff too:p

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Yeeessss, but unless it is distilled or fortified, it can't be that strong, can it?

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

Cider csn be as strong as sherry, and this would be a perry, which is jusr pear cider, so yes it can be..

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

Ah, but most hardware shops sell distillers here, so I guess they do know how to do it properly, my neighbor makes her own, it's fire water lol, they make wine too.

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

Well, that would be a first. My understanding always has been that yeast can't stand alcohol above 15% or so. You can have a cider as strong as a strong wine, but not as strong as sherry etc which is a fortified wine, ie has alcohol added.

I did, in my reckless youth make and run a homemade still, and produced a most entertaining liqueur, a bit like velvet razor blades.

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

We made the very same kind. :eek: :rofl:

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

What sort of still did you try? I used an old pressure cooker with the valve connected to a glass tube full of marbles to act as a fractionating column.

That plus a couple of tubes to make a Leibig condenser and I was in business.

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

Ours was Lab equipment, all tubes and glass flasks and condenser and a book giving details of how to do it, it also said how very dangerous it is....equivalent to cooking petrol on a stove. (:eek:)
We distilled some pineapple wine, it was so strong the only person who enjoyed tasting it was an Irishman that my husband worked with. :D

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

Tres posh indeed.

Mine was held together with corks and blobs of resin. I used to catch the distillate in small shot glasses. You test it by taking a teaspoonfull and putting a lighted match to it. When you start producing condensate that won't ignite, you do a couple more shots and then those last shots go into the next batch.

I had a friend come round who laughed at it, assured me that it would never work, and casually tossed down the shot glass I gave him, which was the first one off a good batch. Nearly pure alcohol. Next second he had his face under the kitchen tap, desperately washing his mouth out.

Happy days....

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

They were indeed Bill......
The stuff we made was near pure alcohol too, it was good for fortifying the wine we used to make...twenty demijohns were always on the go at different stages... back in those days we use to have lots of dinner parties. :drinkwine:

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

The good thing is that you can use anything that contains sugars to ferment into alcohol. Potato peelings, the works.

We too had several bottles with the little water traps at the top glooping away. When it stopped glooping, it was ready for the still.

You can also freeze distill I think.

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

So how on earth do they make this stuff then ?


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/s...st/8517607.stm

or this,

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/...ed-in-scotland

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

If you read the links, it says

"the production process is intricate and expensive. "We freeze the beer down to about -70 celsius repeatedly. The water freezes before the alcohol does, and the ice crystals are extracted, concentrating the flavour and the alcohol content. We repeat that process several times."


To expand what I said, to the very best of my knowledge there is no yeast that can survive much above 15% alcohol, so when the yeast turns the brew into 15% alcohol, it dies off. Therefore, you cannot brew anything stronger, and all alcoholic drinks above 15% are either fortified or distilled.

A footnote I made was that you do not need fractionating columns, condensers and the like but you can freeze distill.

OK?

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

My local ferreteria seems to sell things which look a lot like stills, Of all sizes) to me!

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I imagine they will.....
Some of the best 'moonshine' I've ever had was here in Spain, in the campo producing the stuff is a national pastime . :rofl: :drinkwine:

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I had no idea that the Spanish were a nation of moonshiners.

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

And I had no idea meg was a moonshine drinker! :lol:

Re: 'proper' gardening thread!:-)
 

Rather endearing tho, isn't it?