“When we eat good food, we smell and taste the earth, and thereby reconnect with it: that is what it means to eat with grace.”
– Darra Goldstein
I stood amazed this morning as I looked out over my veggie patch. The transformation from a piece of sloping earth into something filled with edibles brings me true joy. What started out as a small no dig garden in early March has morphed into something much bigger and exciting.
It is hard for me to resist buying just one more packet of seed, so I ended up, apart from the original kale, lettuce, eggplant, and zucchini seeds, with nine different varieties of tomato. I tried to limit the amount of seeds I planted in seed trays, but I got a bit carried away, and as they germinated well inside the house, I ended up with way more seedlings than garden space.
I bemoaned my dilemma of having not enough space in the garden for all my tomato plants when Michael was here. His solution was an easy one – “ask Tim when he comes with his digger to dig out a space for your tomatoes – it will be quick and easy, instead of trying to do it by hand”. And that is exactly what I did.
It is said that the average family needs 6-12 tomato plants to provide them with enough to eat in a season. I planted 39. Yes, like I said, I got a tiny bit carried away. Not only do I love tomatoes that are sunkissed and vine-ripened, but they lend themselves to all sorts of amazing ways to be preserved: bottled, dried, dehydrated . . .
All good and well to start the preserving process before I’ve even figured out how I will stake them. At least half are cherry tomatoes, but the rest need to be supported. Well, thank goodness for a practical husband grounding his wife’s flights of fantasy. He got Tim to dig holes for corner posts and welded a steel frame for me to hang string from to attach my growing tomatoes to. Not only will the frame support my hopefully bumper crop of tomatoes, but if it becomes necessary, I can always pull a shade cloth over as well in the heat of summer.
While all of this was happening, my tomato plants were begging to be transplanted, growing to big for their pots, so by the time I finally got around transplanting them, they were looking terrible. I feared that I will lose them all, but Michael assured me that they will pick up again soon after they were transplanted.
I got busy with laying out pathways, digging holes, and as I discovered that the space Tim dug out for me was still too small, the garden grew a bit bigger still. I collected dead cork oak logs, spread some cardboard, and woodchips, while Michael devised a quick irrigation system for me to ease the watering schedule the middle of summer is bound to bring.
I also ordered a big load of compost from friend and official olive pruner, Matthias, spread it out generously, and finished with a good layer of straw as a mulch. The spaces between the tomato plants are perfect for marigolds, sweet and purple basil, and oreganum, so I’ve taken my gamble with the ants, and sowed some seeds. Fingers crossed not everything will be carried away to their nests.
I’ve also sowed some sunflower, watermelon and melon seeds at the bottom, and created another bed right at the top where I want to sow some spring onions, beetroot and spinach. At this pace I should be able to have a fair amount of food on my plate that I’m growing myself, as long as I can keep the pests and birds at bay, and ensure the survival of most plants. I’ve already started eating lettuce, kale, and coriander, which I must admit tastes so much better than the shop bought stuff.
Portuguese Words:
horta – vegetable garden
abobrinha – zucchini(s)
beringela(s) – eggplant(s)
tomate(s) – tomato(es)
couve – kale
alface – lettuce
coentro – coriander
rúcula – rocket
melão (melões) – melon(s)
melancia(s) – watermelon(s)
girassol (girassóis) – sunflower(s)
chagas – nasturtium(s)
Written by: Jolandi
Most excellent, Jolandi! It will be such an adventure to follow your yields and mentally feed with you. The light in some of your photos is glorious. Happy growing! Oh, this is a strange word for me in both languages: chagas – nasturtium. I know I could google it but if you wish, please, explain.
The photo of the plant with the orange flower, next to the zucchini flower, is a nasturtium, Manja. They are wonderful companion plants, the flowers are edible, and one can pickle the seed pods and use in much the same way as capers. The light I think you refer to is early morning light – my absolute favourite time of the day. Fingers crossed there will be some good yields, and if so, I will be mentally sending some your way. – Jolandi
Wow! I completely forgot about this word, nasturtium, when I image googled a photo I took last June in my parents’ garden in Piran only to find out it was – nasturtium. 😀 Find it in this post: https://mexcessive.photo.blog/2021/06/06/cffc-flowers-for-cee/
There you go! Glad you made the connection. – Jolandi
This sounds so exciting! So good to have a large vegetable garden with a little room to add more herbs and vegetables when you need to. I wish I had an irrigation system on my flower/vegetable beds! Watering is such a chore and takes up so much time in the summer. I have been telling my husband we need a cage to keep our fruit in for years and I still haven’t got him to agree with me. Being able to protect our crops from all the animals and birds who are really happy to eat our fruit and veg when it isn’t quite ripe enough for us would be great! Your steel frame looks really useful.
Have fun and enjoy your gardening!
Clare x
An irrigation system really makes life so much easier, Clare. Like you point out, the ability to protect one’s crops makes such a difference, especially for those veg and fruit that are best ripened on the vine or tree. It is going to be as steep learning curve for me having to share or learn how to protect my veg from all the other hungry critters around. I hope your garden will be lovely this year, and a joy to be in. And good luck with convincing your husband to see things your way. – Jolandi
How exciting and satisfying it must be to eat your home-grown veggies … I think I might be able to eat 39 plants’ worth of tomatoes in a season! I zoomed on on your house in the background, and it looks so inviting. Good luck with all the plants!
Wonderful! Another tomato lover. Well, there was one fatality yesterday, so only 38 tomato plants left. It will be interesting to see what survives and how much I can actually eat or preserve, Lexie. To be honest I love my tiny house. Because of the shape it feels so much bigger than its 32 square metres. Now that summer has arrived I’m spending a whole lot of time outside, which is just wonderful. There are still some inside projects that we have to finish (a bit of tiling and decorating), but once that is done, I will do a post about the inside. – Jolandi
There is nothing like eating from your own garden, right?
A slight clarification on the word “foguete”. Yes, it does mean “rocket”, but only in the spacecraft sense.
I believe “rocket leaves” would translate in Portuguese as “rúcula”.
Enjoy. 🙂
Hahaha! Thank you for that correction, Alex. Google translate can be very misleading. 😉
Yes, indeed, eating from one’s own garden is such a joy. I’ve also discovered that there is a lot of outside work that I thoroughly enjoy, so I’m spending as much time outside as possible. – Jolandi
Hi Jolandi. I’m loving reading about your journey even though it sounds so tough at times. I’d love to send you some of my wisteria seedlings taken from my vine for your steel frame to provide dappled shade in summer. The pos that contain the seed are long and pendulous. When we brought them inside pre planting the popping from the pods was loud and explosive! Nasturtiums are great companion plants, have a sharp almost bitter taste and are great included in salads. The flowers are edible too and look so good as decorations in a big salad bowl. They are easy to grow. Xx
I love wisteria, Christina. And it would look so lovely hiding the steel frame. I wish you could. Perhaps I should have a look around and see if I can’t find some here. Yes, I love nasturtiums – both as a companion plant and to include in a salad. I love the idea of edible flowers. I’ve also planted some calendula and borage. It is so easy to get carried away, but I think this will be a wonderful way for me to learn what is easy to grow and what grows well here. Hope you are doing well. Big hug. – Jolandi
How awesome to see your vegetable garden explode with produce! I wish we were neighbours…I’d gladly take some of those extra tomatoes off your hands. I hadn’t heard that rule of thumb about the average family needing 6-12 tomato plants to provide enough for the season. I only have three (and they are the cherry tomato variety). I find we don’t get enough heat here for regular tomatoes. Looking forward to hearing about your summer bounty.
Fingers crossed there will be a summer bounty of vine-ripened tomatoes, Caroline. I’m such a novice, but at least I’m having fun and learning in the process. I always find it interesting to know where certain vegetables grow well, and I guess where you are the growing season is really short on top of it. Wish you were my neighbour too, as apart from sharing tomatoes, I think I would have loved going on hikes with you. – Jolandi
Love your little (hahahhaa) garden and all the stories and snafus that go along with homesteading, being independent, and growing your own food. I, too, love tomatoes and eat a LOT of them, so canning, dehydrating, etc, sounds like a fantastic idea.
Did you know that you can freeze garlic? We also freeze bananas to keep them longer. It’s also great for smoothies. The bananas, not the garlic. 😛
I didn’t know you could freeze garlic, but I did know about bananas. I always used to have some chopped up and frozen ready for a smoothy, as a smoothy without a banana to me was just not a smoothy. 🙂
Fingers crossed I will manage to get all the tomatoes to survive and fruit! – Jolandi
I’m jealous! I’ve always wanted a large patch of land to build a garden on—but maybe not so much all the work? 😉 It really is helpful you have Michael to build you a frame to support the tomatoes. On my little patch, I use wire tomato cages, which wouldn’t work at all in a large garden. (Unless I could buy several dozen cages, but that would mean having to go around sticking them in the sometimes hard clay dirt.)
You can’t beat fresh picked salad greens from your own garden. I hope it doesn’t get too hot too soon and cause your lettuce and other greens to bolt, as they’ve done here in California.
Yip, like you point out so nicely, Hangaku, a large patch of land and/or garden carries with it the burden of a lot of work. That is why he’s put in a basic irrigation system to help me with the summer burden of watering. And yes, there are various ways to stake tomatoes, and although I still need to hang all the strings, I think this is most probably the easiest for me to deal with. Interesting enough my lettuce is still fine, but both the coriander and rocket started bolting this week. Mmmmm! Still, like you say, there is nothing as nice as picking your own salad greens. I always marvel that lettuce is so popular as it doesn’t really travel well or stay fresh for that long. I will enjoy it as long as the weather will allow me. – Jolandi
Things are coming along splendidly! Unfortunately, most of my seedlings from that supermarket giveaway did not survive me abandoning them while we went to Cairns. I did leave them with a gardener friend, but he pointed out I had planted them at the wrong time of the year, which makes one wonder why the promotion ran when it did.
Anyway! Two cherry tomato seedlings have survived … so far :(-
How disappointing for you, Gwen! The supermarket was a bit sneaky, I guess. But this is how one learns, isn’t it? By doing, and exploring. I always say to Michael that if there is too much information/guidelines/rules/suggestions, I simply feel overwhelmed, shut down, and don’t even attempt a project. I’ve decided to trust mother nature instead of trying to know or control everything. I initially did a bit of research, wrote down some notes in my veg garden diary, and as a result it is now a quick and easy guide. Apart from that I will use my intuition and consult Dr Google if there are any pests . . . . 🙂 – Jolandi
I’ve always dreamed of having a vegetable garden, and in the first few months of the pandemic that was exactly what I did, sort of. I started growing kangkung/water spinach (a popular vegetable in Indonesia), bird’s eye chilies, and kemangi (Indonesian lemon basil), among other things. It felt so good when harvest time arrived and I got to eat what I planted. However, this all happened in my apartment balcony, which is far from ideal for growing not only vegetables, but a lot of other plants properly. Reading your blog post reminded me of last year, and of my dream to own a house with a big backyard.
I love that you started a garden on your balcony, Bama. Even if it is perhaps not ideal, one can still grow so many things, and you clearly managed quite well. The satisfaction of the harvest makes even planning a balcony garden worth it. I hope you can realise your dream of a house with a big backyard. Ten years ago, if you told me that Michael and I would own a 3 ha property in Portugal, I would have told you that it was impossible. So keep dreaming. – Jolandi