anonimouse

Any body had any luck with a veggie plot here in Spain?

I fancy a try but somehow it doesn´t seem to be suitable soil to me, so yellow and dusty.

What do you reckon, what grows well here?

pwwm

lol cactus, almonds and figs, oh and the odd yucca, no chance of growing veggies unless under plastic with grow bags

bxpuser24710519

Depends where you are, I have seen many huertas in different areas with a great selection of veg including beans, cucumbers, green/red peppers, tomatoes, squashes, potoatoes, courgettes, aubergines, onions and garlic. Also some with some fruits.

Edit I forgot the cauliflower and broccili :-) all direct in the soil.

Dick Dasterdly

They do pretty well in my neck of the woods.
I don't bother so much now, being away much of the Summer, but my neighbour grows a good variety in his garden, which is partly shaded with large trees.

bil

We have a very sandy plot, so I am composting like a mad thing.

We grow squash, chayote, strawberries, blackberries, parsnips, sweet potatoes and chillis.

Cabbages don't do well her, nor rasberries.

fionamw

Despite being on (steep terraced) mixed shale, and despite getting sun quite a lot of the day, our plot would, I think, do well were it not for the struggle to get watering right. I've got the irrigation set up, got the (saved) water ready to use, but all it needs is to be away for more than about 4 or 5 days with no-one to step in and turn the system on and off daily, and the whole thing turns to desert.
My opinion? Timed (preferably solar-powered and not from your mains source in case of disaster) irrigation is key.
Compost, estiercol, carpet (weed suppression), mulch, all the usual permaculture stuff, all very good but without water nothing's going to grow

bil

Oh yeah, you no gottum water, you no gottum plants. Plus, storing rainwater is impractical as it costs a fortune to build a big enough tank, and that takes up a huge space.

It seems that almost anything you can do to live a more green life costs so much as to be hardly worth the effort.

fionamw

Disagree. You have to be organised and lucky with your rooflines - we have a massive roof area, all now guttered and piped into stillages. Remains to get that water to the crops, though, without me there to do it

bil

From june till now, we have had effectively no rain. How big a storage volume do you think it would require to adequately water some 2,000 sq metres?

I'm thinking lots. I would have to excavate a massive tank, and unless it were gravity fed, ie above ground, I would still have to use the eletric pump to get it around. Since I use ground water, where's the saving?

fionamw

Don't know the answer to the second question but the first is a very interesting one.... how much water DOES it take to not only keep plants alive but make them thrive? Obviously every plant's different in its requirements, but as a generality? Do you know? I think it would be a useful formula to know!

bil

Not too difficult. You have a watering can, so work out how many plants say 10 litres will water If you say each one needs a litre a day, we have runs that are 15 metres long, and a superficial watering with a can will take 40 or even 50 litres a day. We have about 20 runs, at least, and that could be 1,000 or a cubic metre a day, without even looking at the orchard with 20 odd trees and a few flower beds, plus all the pot plants.

Let's say we scrimp and use 4 cubes a week, then that's 16 cubes a month, and for the last 4 months, that's over 60 cu M.

For GOD'S sake check the maths. I have been known to lose decimal points.

If that's correct, 64 cubes is a volume 4 x 4 x 4 metres, or a two metre deep pool, 4 metres wide and 8 long. Hardly olympic, but it's still quite a volume.

(If we add the orchard and call it closer to 30 runs, and water the whole lot every other day then that's 5.25K litres every other day, that would be 320,250 litres, or about 320 cubes.or a 2 metre deep pool, 8 metres wide and 20 long.) That would be 1.5 times the size of my house, or as the house is 3 metres tall, the pond would be the same volume as the house.

That's a big container to construct.......

Retired in Euskadi

Here in Bizkaia I guess we're blessed with rain more than you poor souls down south. That said, we've had terrible dry spells, like this June-Sept.
I managed to secure an allotment, without water! Dug the ditch behind it deeper so it holds water when we get lots of rain, but eventually it drains away; so we store what we can in 4 old 200l containers & 1 1000l one.
The size of the plot is about 12m x 12m, so not huge.
I bought a trailer load of muck for €60, which should last about 3 years. Chuck lime on as well, as it'll help keep the soil open & less acid.
As to suggestions, probably the easiest thing to start growing is broad beans. I don't bother raising from seeds anymore, other than broad beans, parsnips & runner beans; otherwise it's so much quicker to buy say 2doz lettuce, tomato, pepper plants to make a head start. Onion sets are easy too, as well as garlic.
Many old boys here garden according to the moon; if it's "menguante" (waning), then harvest. To plant/sow, "creciente" (waxing).
Personally I don't bother with that.

Hope that helps.

fionamw

I'd go with that but don't like the poor choice of varieties (not without driving hither and thither to find them!).
My OH has always reckoned gardening by the moon was a good scheme, and now sees he's not the only one!

Retired in Euskadi

You're right about the poor choice of varieties. If I buy cabbages from the local "coperativa" they don't know what variety of cabbage they have. I tend to go along with local knowledge, tho' sometimes rebel. Nobody here has seen runner beans with red flowers (scarlet emperor from UK)!!
Likewise, I buy a green manure from UK (eg mustard) to sow in autumn, & then dig in before it flowers.
Mind you, nobody knows the names of weeds in Spanish such as buttercup or dandelion even!

bil

I've noticed how few people can tell me the name of wild plants etc.