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.