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SilverCoast Holidays - Portugal |
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November 2011 |
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Week Forty Four
Nice sunny start to the week but by Weds it was rain all the way to, and over the weekend. Finally put the pool to bed for the winter, with the weather staying good later in the year we were able to use it longer but towards the end you had to be brave or crazy to take a dip.
The final batch of cider has now finished fermenting so was decanted into 5ltr water bottles for storing.
Some work was carried out on the land, the lemon grass was planted out in the ground as they are too big for their pots now, garlic too was planted out so we have a nice early crop next year.
Peppers are being cut into small pieces and bagged up for the freezer and we are preparing Christmas packs for Union Jacs open day.
Week Forty Five
Quiet week for us, makes a change! The weather was a little mixed so did some clearing up on the ground when weather allowed, not to be overly lazy some baking was done including our Chocolate chilli cake which does not last long trust me.
Week Forty Six
Antonio our neighbour had some excess pepper plants which he grew and has passed 10 on to us to grow over the winter in our poly. This man knows what grows out here so who are we to question this so in the poly they have gone, at the same time we have decided to bring in some of our herb and chilli plants and sown some seeds too … why not, nothing to loose!
Went to Campera which is about a 45 minute drive to purchase some jars for our produce. A lot of Portuguese like to make jams etc for Christmas gifts so the jars get short at this time of the year so we must keep our numbers topped up as we can’t afford to go short. On the way back we ran into a bad storm which got worst the closer we got to home, it was throwing hailstones so hard we pulled over under a tree minutes from home until they eased up. We got into the house and the heavens opened again, I have never seen anything like it. Hailstones the size of golf balls, the noise was horrific, luckily the house and car were undamaged but a couple of the outside house lights took a beating. With the hailstones came the rain, the volume was so great the land could not cope so we had rivers of water running down our land and through our plantings, we lost many peppers and chillies including some plants and the big poly is now peppered with holes. You can see the pictures on our facebook page.
We had a request for some lime marmalade so made a batch, we also made 2 new lines which turned out really nice some of which we sold the very next day - honey and lemon jelly and jalapeno jelly.
Week Forty Seven
Alcobaca has a sweet and liquor convention at this time each year, we went last time and again this week, it was almost identical even the stalls were in the same place I believe! It was rammed with people all paying 1 Euro so someone made a few bucks over the 3 days! The price of the cakes were rather high but were being bought despite this. The Portuguese love sugar products hence the reason for the crowds. Its worth a visit even if you have no interest in the sweet products as 1 euro is cheap to look around the cloister areas which are normally charged at, at least 6 euros.
Most of this week was taken up by preparing for Union Jacs Christmas open day which is at the end of the week. We wanted to go with plenty of produce and gift packs. The day was a success and it was great meeting faces old and new …. Thanks Jinny.
November Sowings, Plantings and Harvesting. Sowings/Plantings - Garlic, Peas, Onions, Leeks, Radish, Peppers & Lettuce.
Harvestings - Chillies & Peppers.
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