Growing time

 Whilst the UK is plunged back into winter we are at last getting some much needed rain. The very heavy showers of rain, and some hail, are slotted between sunshine and pretty decent temperatures. As a lot of the rain has been after sunset it is soaking nicely into the ground. This is great for our garden and our plot in the campo. We have put in one or two herbaceous plants in the last two weeks and they all seem to be settling in nicely. Our main flower bed is looking good and the soil is very much improve because of the addition of our home-made compost. Fingers crossed the Agapanthus and Astilbe will survive as we loved both these plants. The sweet peas, seeds collected by our daughtetr from plants in Rojales, are doing really well and we look forward to some fragrant blooms later in the year. John as planted a large number of mesembryanthemum on the slopping terrace at the very end of the garden. We hope these will spread to give us a wonderful display of their bright coloured flowers and help to hold the soil in place. Meanwhile in the campo the seeds planted are sprouting merrily and the trees are getting a much needed watering for free.  We have a great variety of trees oranges, lemons, almonds, cherry plums, peaches and we look forward to harvesting the crop. 

A Mellow time of year

A slight chill in the morning is telling us Autumn is really with us, mind you its still very warm during the day. Morning are glorious at the moment though, golden and hazy with smoke as the local market gardeners light bonfires early in the day. All very atmospheric and mostly sweet smelling as long as its not prickly pear that's going up in flames. Can understand why its being burned, its so invasive. but oh the pong! It must be such a relief for those people who work so hard in the huerta when the weather cools down, its certainly far better for gardening. We are really pleased with how the garden is coming along. We had a trip to the local garden centre recently, only went to look of course, came back with a car full including a fine Buddha that now sits on the side of the pool. it was well worth the time we found a great variety of plants which are all looking nice and healthy in our wee plot. The guy who runs the place is really pleasant and presented me with a huge basil as a gift as we were leaving.
Although the front of the house is mostly patio there is a decent sized border of garden, problem has been the local feral cats, of which there are many had gotten used to using it as there litter tray. I know the whole campo and they choose the garden. We tried various method to deter them, lemons, cuttings from our rose bushes nothing was working. We have been reluctant to put in new plants because of this and then inspiration struck, rocks, of which we have many. We have gone for a Zen inspired look, lots of rocks with plants growing through. if we want to add more plants we can just move a rock and pop one in, perfect. We have seen a number of disgruntled looking moggies in the last few days though.