WINTER VEGETABLES

WINTER VEGETABLES

There has been more torrential rain to the north and east of us, and this morning we were watching on Spanish TV film footage of the floods in Almeria, Murcia and Alicante. These areas are still on orange alert for more heavy rain. Up here in Los Guajares we have escaped the worst of the weather and the rains have been welcome. Showers, punctuated by long spells of warm sunshine, have provided ideal conditions for replanting our vegetable garden with winter produce.

We have sown broad beans, carrots and spinnach. Broad beans (habas) are a very popular crop in Andalucia during the winter. They are very sweet and because they don’t have the tough skins of beans grown in colder climates, they’re often eaten raw. When the first crop is ready, you often see piles of discarded pods on the floors of the local bars, where they’re offered as tapas. Habas need to be sown early because later crops suffer from blackfly infestation, a garden pest which is on the increase, and occurring earlier with each consecutive spring, due to climate change. We have also planted seedlings of winter lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, red cabbage and onions. Our vegetables are grown without pesticides and we compost all our kitchen waste. We also collect goat manure from the nearest corral.

Our organic vegetable garden is a wildlife haven. The compost bin is literally alive with all kinds of insects, worms and grubs. Spotted flycatchers perch on the bean canes all day long, making frequent forays to snatch flying insects. Frogs and toads have also taken up residence by the compost bin, again because of the plentiful supply of insects. I’ve seen numerous male spiders of the Argiope lobata genus, which favour rank vegetation, but only one female example. Five times larger than the male, it is a most striking creature with a pale, yellowish abdomen, lobed around the edges and shaped like a limpet’s shell. Small rodents are also attracted to the vegetable garden and are hunted at night by owls. By day, eagles circle overhead, looking for the lizards and snakes which feed on the insects.