The School Garden

Jim and Linda joined me this morning, the fist time going early. Definately a great time to go as it's cooler and the light is amazing. Jim helped fix some of my knots on the supports and put up more shade netting. Linda measured the soil pH. Seems it's mainly around pH 7 which is good, phew! Jim hasn't seen the garden since the early days of a few tiny plants and was quite amazed at the difference. Heartwarming for me to hear as I see so many neat and organised gardens here that I get a little deflated by my meagre looking effots. However, I am heeding my own words, it's all about the experiments not the cosmetic appeal nor producing for abundance. 

Harvest number 2, tomatoes and chillis 😀 Hopefully I'll get enough tomatoes to make a relish. The ultimate goal is to make sun-dried tomatoes but it's hard to get enough as they only ripen a few at a time. I'm gaining new insights into food distribution and demand. I look at vegetables in the shop so differently now.

Each time I visit the garden, I make a beeline for the aubergine. I'm fascinated by it.  I think we'll get a good number of peppers. We just need a barbeque to roast them on.  These are very strange tomato plants. They have a huge amount of flowers but no fruit. Way too many flowers and the plant can't support that many tomatoes. Some of the flowers are dying off. I gave them a feed so let's see if that helps. 

I'd put it off for long enough....it was time to get out the wheelbarrow and move some earth to mound up the potatoes some more. It looked like I'd put clay on them from another pile, no wonder it was so hard to dig up! I've found some better soil on the other side of the school area and way easier to dig. I piled it all up on the potatoes and put up some shade netting. Already they seem much happier, with only a few burnt leaves as a souvenir of harder times.  I found a small dish that I've put out for thirsty visitors.  Oh the excitement. 5 tomatoes and 2 beans! A welcome present for Jim on his return from hiking across the pyranees.  

Who can resist a lush leaf in the desperate dryness. It's unrelenting. I found a few of these on the padron peppers along with another little bug. Not sure if these are friends or foes so I erred on the side of caution and got rid of them. I felt terrible.  I've seen another recently but it ran away when it saw me coming 😉  

With still ground to be filled, I started some more seedlings. Tall beans, beetroot, brocolli, Swiss chard. Such different behavour. The beans are solid seedlings. They push up a huge mound of earth as they emerge, still in their casing. The first photo looks like the Kelpies in Scotland! Only 2 days later and the beans have full leaves. Unfortunately, something munched the top off one of the beans. Hope it enjoyed the tasty new leaves.  

One of my favourite aspects of gardening is planting seeds and watching them grow (more on that next post). My other favourite thing is watching how the fruit forms. I'm avidly watching the aubegine grow. It's the coolest sight! First a beautiful, strong purple flower, larger than the delicate tomato and pepper flowers. Then the flower closes itself up. Our first aubergine flower was filled with ants and I gently opened it up and quirted water inside in the hope they might flee. Ha! How foolish to think a bit of water would deter these tiny, yet powerful animals. Seems the aubegine didn't mind and and is slowly developing inside the flower and now, oh the excitement, the auberine is popping out of the flower casing.  The pardon peppe behaves slightly differently. The flower forms then withers and then comes the tiniest of peppers. I'm told that these peppers can be picked when they are 2cm but I'm going to leave this first one to see what happens.  The potatoes seem...

A trip to the Garden of Ideas revealed this. There is still something digging down around the damp ropes to get to the moisture. I reset the rope and put a stone on top. Let's see!  I also put down more straw around the plants, did some pruning and general inspection of the plants. I spent a while sitting with each plant, getting to know each of them and how they are growing and spreading. I haven't spent much time with each plant, unlike in my own garden on my terrace where I have time to shower much affection and care. I feel more connected to the Garden of Ideas now :-)    

A few tomatoes are changing colour! The padrón peppers have the tiniest pepper starting and the single cucumber is getting big. Such joy. 

One evening, while animatedly describing all the events in the school garden, John came up with a name.  The garden of ideas El jardí de les idees I love everything about the name, all that it represents, the collaboration that is now and in the future and all the possibilities 😀 but the aspect I love the most is that when all the opinions come, I can explain that this is the Garden of Ideas. There's no one way of gardening, there are a multitude of ways, ups and downs and being open to something different brings dialogue and learning 🙏

On my recent visit to Scotland, I brought back two small clay vases. I buried one next to a small green bean, struggling in the heat and dry earth.  So I gifted my tiny pot. It looks much more like the original system and way easier to fill up.

Everything else was fine, yippeeeee 😀 There's a cucumber in full swing, lots of tomatoes coming, red chillies and the first padrón pepper flower 🌼 It's so joyous watching the growth, the flowers, the butterflies, and seeing the first signs of a vegetable. It's even fascinating watching the wasps land on the cotton strips for a drink.

I went away for a weekend event from Friday to Monday. This would be a test of all the systems and a comparison of the plants that have no water source. It was with trepidation I arrived on Monday afternoon, after a weekend of baking heat.  Almost everything looked alive, with a bit of heatstroke but the sunflowers looked finished! They have no water source and although I'd given them a deep water on Friday, they looked rather dead.  But after a thorough watering, they bounced back 😀

The cotton stips are a mixed bag. The thicker ones are working well. The two coming out the top of an upright bottle are working well. Others are dry at the point of entry into the ground. Perhaps it's just too hot.  Another observation is that the cotton strips are starting to disintegrate. They are biodegradable after all so it's not surprising yet somewhat unanticipated. I didn't want to replace them with the thick ropes because then the students won't see what works and what doesn't. So I put the ropes next to the cloth, with the usual few nails to weight them down. But low and behold, the ropes floated to the top! I found some rocks and used a macrame technique to tie them on. So far so good. I also dug the ropes down deeper to the roots.

Something is thirsty in the garden! Some of the cloth strips have been dug up and I can only assume it's a thirsty animal looking for water. Its so dry and there there are no water sources available for the local wildlife. I also discovered something had dug around the strawberry plants where the ground is moist. I dug the cotton strips a bit deeper and put a stone on top.  I need to find a way to provide some water for thirst animals.  Let's see. Another idea I had was to cover some strips with tin foil. Some have stayed and some haven't.

Some plants can handle full sun better than others so after watching the movement of the sun, I put up this shade netting to provide some protection for the habanero and padrón peppers. It was soon evident they prefer some afternoon shade in these super hot days of 30° plus! I think I need more over the watermelon and tomatoes at the tree end of the hort.