Kitchen Garden Forum

I'm hoping these upload properly. Just a few pics of my shady tunels and veg here in hot Spain lol.

Very jealous! Must have been sooo hot in your tunnels lately. Mine reached 106F recently. What variety of tomato is that?

No they are not hot tunnels Steve. They are shady tunnels made from fine green netting. I have 2 tall ones that I can stand up in for tall crops like tomatoes and runner beans and 2 others for shorter crops that I sort of duck my head under. They work very well and even filter the wind that blows across the valley. I made them by bashing 1.5m iron rods into the ground to .5m then putting water piping over to create the hoops at the required heights - horizontal stabilisers were then attached to the tops of the hoops . Then covered with nets that are secured with enormous crocodile clips. These make it easier to remove netting for storage or as in the case last year of unexpected hailstorms. My veggies really appreciate the extra protection as currently it is 43 degrees C in the sun - PHEW!!!

Ah of course! Sounds perfect for your climate there. It has suddenly dropped 10C today with quite a brisk chilly wind so back to business as usual here and my sun-loving veggies such as sweetcorn, tomatoes and squashes are looking confused and a bit disappointed - but I feel much better for it!

Oh for cooler weather - but not for me until end of September lol. Didn't have to worry about excessive heat when I lived in the UK. Talking of the UK I used to take KG magazine there too and our garden (Brick Kiln Cottage) was featured over 6 pages in the magazine. April/may 1993 I think. I still have a copy of the article lol.

That's interesting - I'll look it out! Must have been hard to leave your garden here, but sounds like you have made yourself at home and doubtless another lovely garden in Spain.

KG Steve wrote:Very jealous! Must have been sooo hot in your tunnels lately. Mine reached 106F recently. What variety of tomato is that?

The toms are Golden Sunrise. I also have Red Cherry, Black Cherry, Moneymaker, Roma and some Spanish seedlings that popped up in my Spanish neighbour's compost that he gave me. It will be interesting what the fruits will be like. They could be the enormous Marmande varieties or the green tinged with red ones - goodness knows.

I'm growing Marmande for the first time this year as I am the only one in the family that will eat raw tomatoes, but we all like tomato soup/sauces etc. Also trying Coure Di Bue which is an ox-heart type for the same reason, although do have some cherry toms for myself and Akron F1 for my sarnies!

We're abouts in Spain are you

Hi robot. We are in the hills outside a wonderful town called Cocentaina.

You are a bit farther south than us our place is near ginestar not far from the river ebro

Mediterranean diet anyone ?

Ha, I just returned from Greece. Very peaceful holiday poor to horrible tomatoes and the Greek salads were NAFF. Best in show was the fruity oils which were a pleasant change from mostly peppery oils.

Look at the choice from the local store mostly, I imagine, which ended up on the compost heap because it ripened so quickly on display.

Everything is grown under cover.

Unfortunately we have not been to our place in Spain for twelve months at the end of this month, to many family problems ,I don't half miss not going but we have had to put it up for sale life will not be the same

robo wrote:You are a bit farther south than us our place is near ginestar not far from the river ebro

Some good fishing in the Ebro I believe

The ebro is brilliant for fishing and wildlife in general, carp regularly over 20 pounds the village record for cat fish is 280 pounds there is every type of bird you can think of as well as snakes most none poisonous to humans but always a chance of the odd adder, large mouth bass although very rarely caught loads of different species of fish some quite surprising but I've never seen a trout