Ratatouille on the menu – building the huerta

Regular readers may be aware of our past attempts at building a grave-shaped herb garden, growing ‘special’ seeds from Órgiva’s very-own seed bank/exchange – and generally planting, pickling and preserving stuff.

We’ve taken a step forward and built two large vegetable beds (20 sqm total) so we can become Tom and Barbara, only not as attractive. A couple of tonnes of soil surrounding our alberca (here it is being filled up) were dumped in piles (via a JCB) as were four years’ worth of weeds and mud that had accumulated on the bottom. It’s no doubt rich in the things that plants like. The vegetable beds are about 40cm deep and will be watered by a simple irrigation system.

Over several days – and with the cats delighted the world’s largest outside toilet had been constructed just for them – we finally got round to planting things last week. Some plants have already turned into green corn flakes (roots not established, too hot a sun, not enough water), while other plants – notably peppers and chillis – are doing well. Even after just three days, garlic cloves were pushing up new, green growth.

Here’s a list of what we have planted and intend to grow: tomato (including Corazón de buey and Black Prince ), garlic, pepper (including Doux de Landes), climbing bean, herbs, onion, shallot, potato, squash, melon, courgette, cucumber (the short, prickly type and the smooth long ones) and aubergine. So it looks like ratatouille, gazpacho etc will be on the menu a fair few times later this summer.

Peppers and chillis

The chillis are particularly exciting to grow as we have several types including seeds from last year – Trinidad Scorpion Sunrise, Amigo Diablo and Antilla Caribbean. We were planning to raise them in our taped-together, plastic greenhouse, but this crumpled in an instant when roaring winds paid a recent visit.

Landmine culprit

Related posts:

Some like it hot – homemade chilli sauce

Flowers of the Mediterranean – by Polunin and Huxley (book)

A pressing engagement: the olive harvest

© con jamón spain