Wonderful Veg

After our disastrous blight on our tomatoes, which spread we think to our aubergines, it has finally sorted itself out and we are now harvesting all our goodies. For a first - it's taken four years - we now have about 200 kiwis off four vines and they taste beautiful. We offered some butternut squashes to our neighbours who were amazed - they had never seen them before and certainly never tried them. They being typical Portuguese farmers will grow everything from seed, and were horrified to discover there were no seeds in our squashes. When we remonstrated with them and told them there were definitely seeds, because that is what we had grown ours from, Isabela got a knife out and cut across, proving there were no seeds. Ah, we said, but cut lengthways into the bulbous end and you will find seeds. At the moment they are sitting in a saucer in her kitchen drying off for planting next year. We feel the whole of our village will be swamped with butternut squashes next year, but - and this is a first also - we were complimented on how good they were in soups and as a side vegetable.

Our swimming pool is now due for its annual update and with this in mind we have approached the swimming pool people to re-assemble all the runners for the cover so that the sections will run easier. Also, we are getting to that time of year for general maintenance and have a list of about 20 items which need fixing with our electrician.

The vines which we planted last year have not done very well but we expect better things of them next year. Our Americano grapes are full, juicy and nearly ready for us to harvest them and to that end we have been getting our adega ready, emptying aged Jeropiga out of the chestnut barrels and putting them into 5 litre garafoes, cleaning the footpress and greasing the wine press. We should be able to produce enough grapes this year for around 120 litres of Jeropiga. Watch this space. At the moment it is very windy and threatening rain at the end of the week which will be our first rain for over six weeks.

Full Swing

Since 8th August we have been fantastically busy - fantastic because both chalet apartments at Casa Sulo are full and will continue so into September. At the moment we have just said goodbye to four French people who took over one apartment from six French visitors and in the other apartment we still have five Parisiens plus a baby for a further week. They are all getting on incredibly well and the swimming pool is in constant use from 8 in the morning until 11 at night. We sometimes wonder how many people are staying in each of the apartments because the odd head count reveals 14 or 16 in and around the pool, but we know that they are here specifically for a wedding in Aveiro which they will be attending tomorrow.

We bought some Red Top fly traps from http://www.greeneyedfrog.co.uk/ because we had been having some problems with the little devils last year. Apparently they trap the female flies and stop the cycle of reproduction. Anyway, this year we re-introduced another three and, although the traps themselves are pretty full, the reduction in flies this year on our veranda and around the apartments is quite noticeable. Thank you Paul and Rachel.

Does anybody out there know anything about the wasp deterrent which imitates a wasp's next?

Our fig tree is just coming into fruit and within a couple of weeks we will be picking 3-4KG a day, which we will eat most of, turn some into fig and ginger jam, and dry some for the winter with our Stockli dehydrator which we use to preserve a lot of our excess fruit, herbs and vegetables although potatoes are really not worth it.