Mad, Muddy March

Rain, rain and more rain. Sun here and gone, frost, and yet more rain. Basically that has been this month of March.

The fields are marshes and the small water reservoir by the second field has overflowed to add to the deluge.




We asked a neighbour, Antonio to come and plough and harrow the second field since it hasn't been tended for more than 20 years and we wanted to aerate it and level it up.

We are removing the centre line of old vines (bar one) and planting forest trees there instead.

However the ploughing was combined with opening up the reservoir to direct the overflow into the tiny brook that runs to the side of the field. That was two weeks ago and it is still running!
So we are still waiting for the harrowing and levelling to happen so we can plant the trees and sow a couple of rows of sunflowers and scatter some wild flowers round the trees.

We dug out the exit point for the original pipe that comes from the reservoir only to discover that the closure is old and of course not working so we will have to lay a new pipe once the field is dry.

So in the meantime we have cut

 carried  

and stripped cane to use to reinforce our outdoor log shelter to prevent the rain from creating great bulges of water in the 
plastic.

 

 The dry husk that was left over makes great tinder to start our log fires.

The veggie patch has gone this year, too much hard work for too little return so........
Fraser stripped out the fencing and rotavated the area and we have made it into an open orchard and planted  2 apricots, a pear, 2 persimmons and a plum. We really love the open look of the little terrace..good decision!
The trees have since been mulched and we have cast wild flower seeds around the tree perimeters, so we will see what happens.






Once the rain has stopped we will plant the odd crop of easy care veg in the spaces too to help keep the weeds at bay. Planning for spinach, chard, pumpkins, courgette, sweet potatoes and yard long beans.

Bonfires this month too and all the trimmings from the olives, fruit trees and vines have been burned before the bonfire ban comes in, usually late April but maybe not this year with all the wet weather








Having cleared and mulched round all the fruit trees now,  hopefully they will do better this year than last, if the rain doesn't take all of the blossom off!



Managed to find tubs of grease too so that we can band the trees to stop the ants from using them as green fly breeding farms this year.

Fraser found this gorgeous little wild orchid growing in the field, 4 inches (10 cms) high. With the help of friends and some useful websites we were able to name it for our collection. Hoping to make a kind of virtual flora list with photos of the wild stuff we find on our land and in close proximity.

Once it is over though we are going to have to move it to a safe place as it is in the direct path of where we drive the jeep into the field.

Another exciting evening was spent looking for Comet Pan Starrs as it heads away on its long interplanetary orbit. We were lucky and had clear skies on 13th March and although we thought that the speck we could see through our binoculars to the left of the moon was a star, Fraser's camera revealed that it had a tail!!! Fraser was very chuffed to have seen it, although a bit disappointed with the size of the thing. You can just see it at about 10 o'clock from the moon.

So still waiting for the rain to stop so that we can complete tending the land ready for full spring. I have to say when we do get the odd 20 minutes of sunshine it looks deliciously fertile.