A few surprises

I would like to tell you what has been happening while Ian is visiting friends and family.
To start, here in the north we have escaped the very hot temperatures that some other regions in the country have experienced, up to 43 C. Here the thermometers reached a much more comfortable 28 C with the occasional and cooling rainy day.
My sister Rita and Alfredo spent a few days at La Pasera taking some time out from their busy lives at work and in Barrios. They enjoyed the walk on the Toriello cliffs. The Photo shows Rita and Alfredo in the area locally known as "St Michael´s Bridge", an impressive part of our costal walk.
The vegetable plot continues to surprise us with how well everything is doing. The tomatoes start going red and the first cucumber that I picked yesterday was very juicy and tender. There is a glut of French beans and marrows at present and I think that I need to take the butter nut squash in hand as it has gone rampant, its flowers are very impressive. Some vegetables are producing a glut but it is nice to share some of the produce amongst our neighbours.
The wild life in the garden continues to increase in numbers and variety, some of the visitors are more welcomed that others. We recently had some wild boar in the bottom of the garden but one early morning this week I discovered that the boars had visited us again and although they have not entered the vegetable plot, they churned up a lot of turf in search of orchid and bluebell bulbs. Let us hope is the last we see of them.
On the warm Summers evenings, I have been watching the glow worms at the bottom of the garden, it is as if someone had dropped an LED. Unfortunatelly, they are difficult to photograph. I am pleased with their sighting as we have seen many glow worm beetles through the year.

2 Years Old - Wentworth and Gawber

Did I mention our onions?

They have done really well this year........



Who says size doesn't matter?

Drying and Preserving

Herbs drying in the store room

Lemon Verbena (Herbe Luisa)

Summer at La Pasera is a busy time. Suddenly there is a glut of everything. Mange Tout, Lettuce, Onions, Pots, herbs and so on. Daily collection of fresh produce usually means at least a few hours cooking, freezing or preserving. We have been busy collecting and air-drying various herbs ready for later in the year when fresh are not always readily available. Oregano (loads of it) is grown in abundance and we collect enough for Luis' sister to add to the chorizo she makes at the end of the year. Sage, thyme, rosemary and bay are also collected but in much smaller amounts as they survive most of the year. Lemon Verbena and mint (three types) are collected and dried to make herbal infusions to drink instead of tea. Rosemary also makes a refreshing cuppa as well as it's many uses in the kitchen. We are soon to experiment making various creams and tonics with herbs and hedgerow plants.
2 Kilos of pickled walnuts have been processed and put away to mature for a couple of months - really easy and can be done in any amounts. If you want the recipe - get in touch. Happy to share. Similarly, we have made about 2-3 kilos of Onion marmalade - perfect with goat's cheese and salad or bean burgers.
Making pickling syrup for the walnuts

The flower garden

Gardening at La Pasera continues to be rewarding and a challenge, we are still getting used to the mild climatic conditions and the generally heavy soil. To grow plants that like these conditions we have tried to create a manageable garden rather than fight nature to grow plants that would struggle and take up more resources in terms of water, time and effort.
Amongst the plants, seedlings and seeds that we collected from our garden in Greenfoot Lane, some have adapted very well to the conditions here at La Pasera like the Acers and the Canary Islands lavender. Others like Love-in-a-mist need a strong hand as they self seed very freely and can become a weed - a beautiful weed. A few others we brought with us were lost to weather conditions and slugs or the snails.
The hardy geraniums and foxgloves have given us such a spectacular show this year. We have just cut the wild flower meadows that have been stunning this year with a variety of wild flowers including orchids that have been much appreciated by a variety of wild life.

Another perfect pea

Nine peas in a pod...



Sweet and tender...will they make it to the pan?

















All gone......must pick more!

Three 'P's

Firstly there are Potatoes - Great crop this year from non-commercially sourced seed potatoes. Cropped today:



Then there are Peacocks - up to 6 at a time on a feeding frenzy:

Click > to view:

And finally......Peas, lots of them, sugar snap and pod peas:


All in a days work eh!

Summer Fruits - 'Spot the Odd One Out'

This week we have cropped our first raspberries of the season - delicious with greek yoghurt or just by themselves. It is wonder we have any to crop as Luis can often be seen 'raiding the bushes' as he finishes work on the plot. It will be a good year for fruit bushes but not so good for apples - more of that another time.

The Gooseberry bushes are also bearing good amounts of fruit as are the red currents with black currents not doing so well. We think that the black current bushes need moving to a better location with higher quality compost - a move is planned for later in the year. This year we have also planted a couple of blueberry bushes and they too are fruiting well to say they are such young bushes. As in the UK, there is a pick your own farm not too far away that has raspberries and blueberries but we were disappointed with them when we last went there so having our own supplies will be great. I doubt we will have enough gooseberries to do a great deal with this year but hopefully we can grow them on enough to make one of my favourite pickles: Gooseberry and Mustard Seed Pickle - absolutely delicious.


A quick and easy 'trifle-type' dessert we often make during summer is: layers of home-made chocolate and orange cake, with layers of raspberries, Greek Yoghurt and a sprinkling of sunflower seeds. The layers are built up in a tall sundae glass and as a special treat we sometimes soak the first layer of cake with home-made blackberry brandy. Oh...and the 'Odd One Out'? The young walnuts at the beginning of the post. Technically a nut but green, young and ready to be pickled - summer fruit. This year we are going to reduce the spices a little when making the pickling vinegar as last years were just a little over-spiced.

Artesania La Pasera - New Blog

We have started a new Blog for Luis' mosaic making and chair seating restoration. The link is displayed on the sidebar.

The Blog is written in Spanish so not many of you will be able to read it but for those of you who can.....please let your Spanish contacts know of this new venture. Maybe you know some garden designers, people who need a new name plaque for a house or someone who would like an old chair restored? For those of you who cannot read Spanish.....there are some interesting pictures for you to look at! We will let you know how we get on.

The cycle has begun- Trying new things

Toms undercover for protection:

Seedlings

Luis here:
This year´s vegetable growing season started during the Winter months with the ordering of organic seeds and the sowing of some seeds that we collected last season from a nice sweet pepper called "Isla" and a medium hit chilly pepper. We have started gathering salad leaves from the seedlings we grew. Others have been planted in pots and are awaiting to be planted in the ground over the next few days. Over all we are pleased with the results - the peppers and chillies are still a bit behind but the tomatoes that we raised from seed already show some flower buds. This year we are trying two different varieties of tomatoes one is called Alicante and the other Brandywine which is supposed to be an old variety and the tastiest of tomatoes from the 1800's. This season we are also experimenting with sowing some seeds of carrots and beetroot in PVCu pipes cut in half, once the seedlings get to a certain size, you open a shallow trench in the ground and slide down the compost containing the seedlings into position. Hopefully this will prevent decimation by a grub called a Leather Jacket. We will let you know if this technique works. We have also experimented with chitting certain seeds and this has worked well with the butternut squash, cucumber, marrow, sweet corn and french beans. We also buy seedlings from a local market: onions; leeks; cauliflower; aubergines.

Drain pipes make a handy seed drill:

Orchids

We have two orchids growing outdoors on a sheltered bedroom terrace. These were brought with us from the UK and have survived well and cuttings successfully grown on and given to neighbours in the village.


Wild orchids have become a special treat each spring as they emerge around the garden.



This time of year brings a flush of orchids amongst the meadows and grassy verges. May is the time to see Asturias come to life with large areas of unspoilt lowland and highland meadows. We are lucky to have some native orchids growing in our garden and take care each spring not to cut them. We encourage wild unkempt areas to enable a range of native species to grow and become host to insects and spiders. Later in the year the birds gather grass and wildflower seed.

Artesania La Pasera

Part of the plan when moving to Spain was to carry on the chair restoration work we had developed in the UK. We had built up a reputation for re-caning and re-rushing antique chairs at various craft and antique shows. We brought over 60 chairs and stool with us to Spain, bought in preparation at various antique fairs around the country. These were stored at Rita's (Luis' Sister), in one of the many outbuildings. We have since developed our contacts here and now enjoy a steady stream of clients including local antique dealers,furniture restorers and individuals. In addition, we demonstrate at two fairs locally - a street market in Nueva and a furniture and trade fair in Arriondas. Luis demonstrates rush seating and I demonstrate either seagrass or bergere cane work. We are allowed to take along various chairs and stools to sell, so throughout the year we gradually repair, renovate and re-seat some of the stock in readiness for the fairs.
A Thonet Two-seater for a private client


A Seagrass Stool for the Fair


A Child's Rush Chair in progress


The finished Thonet


More chairs lined up for restoration


Ready for the Fair - A Pair of Armourial Victorian Chairs

Parts of the picture...

Spring is very much here with warm sunny days, cool early morning mists and low cloud on an evening. We have been on several walks in the Picos and surrounding areas, taking full advantage of the weather. The cats are both well now with Wentworth having the few 'off' days when he has been in a fight or is in need of deworming! Gawber is very solitary but is more affectionate either in the openness of the garden or within the security of the house.

Luis is as busy as ever with his crafts and tending to the vegetable garden. We have decided to try and market his mosaics in much the same way as we did with the cane and rush seating: to specialists - in this case garden designers, gardening companies and garden centres; to individuals through various public markets and fairs. The house-name plaques and pebble mosaic paving will be the main focus to begin with. We think that there will be a few interested people out there so we will give it a go and see. He really has developed his artistic flare and understanding of the materials and had become technically competent over the last few months. We will set up another blog/site in Spanish to promote the mosaics and the chair seating. Watch this space.
The last picture is of some planters we made from left over concrete. They have just has a coating of yoghurt to encourage lichen and moss. I think they look rather good.

Spring blossoms and hard grafting

With the arrival of longer days, we start to see greater number of plants in blossom. We have recently finished enjoying the white and purple blooms of a specific plum tree that produces a small sweet fruit and the "piesco", a type of old fashioned asturian peach. At La Pasera we are enjoying the white cherry blossom from our own old cherries. We are told that the biggest one has a very good variety of cherry. We are hoping to try them towards the end of May, it will require the use of a tall ladder or scaffolding to get to the fruits. We intend to graft it next year if we feel it is good enough. If not, the birds will enjoy them and we will continue to use the tree to support the hammock.
The apple trees are behind and as a result we were able to graft one of the apple trees with a nice variety of russet apple that my sister Rita has. This grafting was done by attaching to one of the branches of the parent tree a pencil thin, last year´s growth and non-flowering shoot. This is the first time I have done any grafting and I am looking forward to see the results later on in August. By this month you should know if the graft has taken. I am following the grafting method shown to my by a neighbour. Later in Summer, during July and August, I intend to have a go at bud grafting, this method was explained to me by a small and local fruit tree producer. Fruit and nuts are an important side of our diet and we have increased the number of trees that can provides us with produce. In the garden we currently has several wild hazel nuts, a walnut, two old and a younger cherry trees, three large and a young apple tree. Since we came to La Pasera, we have also added to our orchard two pear trees, a greengage, an orange tree, two piescos and an avocado tree still very young as we grew from seed. Additional fruit and nut trees are scattered around in adjacent fields.

Mountain Walks

Luis here:

With the beginning of Spring, we are experiencing a period of warm sunshine and longer days during which, planting in the vegetable plot has continued. The three varieties of onions reds, whites and early salad ones that I got from the local market, four hundred of them, all have rooted. Seeds of beetroots, spring onions, mangetout, peas, carrots and lambs lettuce will hopefully start germinating soon now that the soil is warmer. As you can see, at this time of the year the vegetable plot requires some time. I have also been experimenting further with the mosaic making to create human and animal shapes.

Not all has been work while Ian has been in the UK visiting family and friends. I have enjoyed some lovely walks in the mountains and coast. I organised some of the walks in the heart of the Picos National Park and was joined by Luis and Tina who both live in Toriello. I was also up in the mountains with a friend, Nigel on two of the most incredible walks in different parts of the region, Piloña and Caso where we climbed Pico Vizcares with 1420 m high and Peña Crespa just a bit taller at 1521 m and a 10 hour walk. Both walks were fabulous with stunning views of remote mountain areas, valleys and high pasture meadows. It would have been difficult for me to do this walks if Nigel, who knows the mountains very well, had not kindly taken me with him. We did not see as many wild animals as we expected but the abundance and range of wild flowers made up for that, daffodils, dogs tooth lily, cowslip, primulas and hepaticas to name a few. In the second ascent we were lucky enough to see all four types of the asturian wild daffodils, some of them in such huge numbers- such a treat! We also gained an insight into the lives of the shepherds by visiting some of the cabañas (shepherd´s huts) dotted along the way. The cabañas are stone buildings in beautiful environments traditionally used by the shepherds when they took the livestock grazing up into the mountain meadows during Summer. Sadly many of them now are deteriorated as there are very few shepherds left.

Pebbles and Winter Flowers

Luis here:

This Winter has been a wet and cold one and as a result we did not manage to plant the oats as green manure. During a recent dry spell we have extended the wood store as we have been given 4 trees for firewood. In the vegetable plot the brasica family benefitted from the wet weather. The cauliflowers have been brilliant and yesterday I harvested the last remaining three, 2.5 kg of tasty, organic home grown cauliflowers floretes. Some of it we made into a very tasty soup that we had for lunch with our home made bread and the remaining of the crop was stored in the freezer to be used at a later date. We have started cropping early purple sprouting brocolli, young leeks and baby carrots. 

I have recently completed mosaics in two different styles. One style is called opus tessellatum which is the traditional roman mosaic found decorating many villas and public spaces throughout the roman empire. Opus tessellatum uses small pieces of stone or tessare in different colours that follow a design, in this case 1 cm square which I cut using a machine designed and constructed by Alfredo, my brother-in-law. At times you also need to make or alter the tessare by hand using a hammer and anvil. My first mosaic made in opus tessellatum is a name plaque for the house. The other technique or style I use is called opus lapilla. This is also an ancient method used throughtout history by the greek, roman and other cultures. Opus lapilla mosaics are made using pebbles of difenret sizes, colours and textures to create a design. At times I incortporate some details made out of other materials such as glass, ceramics, marble, semi-precious stones amethyst), slatehave and even man-made materials such as tile and silextone. Ian helps me not only with the designs but also with the selection os some of the pebbles. My latest pebble mosaic has a central lizard made with slate ands amethyst that still needs to be consolidated using for the first time a special type of cement that has been difficult to track down. Each mosaic is made with thought for the person or the specific garden project. The results are very beautiful.

Shrove Tuesday and Springtime

Luis here: I hope that you liked your pancakes this year, I certainly enjoyed mine with cinnamon, lemon and treacle. Life at La Pasera is allowing us to enjoy some early spring sunshine that has brought into blossom the daffodils, primulas, hepaticas, aconites, daisies, dandelions, crocus and the beginning of spring growth for the orchids. The scent of the violas is a nice reward whilst digging the vegetable plot, planting the potatoes or seeding different vegetables. 

The last few days we have enjoyed some cold mornings and evenings but the mid-day sunshine has been very pleasant and such a change to the wet period we have just had. Sometimes the locals are right in their weather predictions - The Temporas - we have just experienced a great end of month (February) as they predicted. The Temporas are said to predict the weather forecast over a three month period. You need to observe the weather patterns on specific days of a given month, always on a Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, the weather of the first Wednesday will reflect the predicted weather for the first following month. The Friday weather reflects the second month and the Saturday, the third month. Three days approaching in March will be observed carefully as it is the Temporas with the corresponding weather prediction for the next quarter year. I find this a very curious and amusing tradition however, it serves as a very useful topic of local chit-chat. Some of you may be doubtful that such a ritual is based on any logic or common sense. Spookily it can both be accurate and widely off the mark. I will be comparing notes with Luis of local farmer.

Red Sky at night...

Divining for water with Friends at their Yurt

Planning a coop..

Luis and Toni

Cauliflower, baby carrots, fennel, lambs lettuce and lemons

We are planning to have chickens. The thought of fresh, organic and free-range eggs is growing in importance and will be a welcome addition to our food supply. There is a lot to learn and plans to draw up. We do not have a tremendous amount of space so planning where they should be sited is going to be an important consideration. If possible, we will lock them on a night-time and let them roam (with restrictions ....i.e. the vegetable plot is out of bounds) during the day. Talking to 'friends' on other forums we may consider Bantams as they tend to do less damage and produce well. I am currently drawing up plans for a chicken coop and enclosure that is fox proof......watch this space. The winter harvest continues to provide well with cauliflowers, Jerusalem artichokes and cabbage plentiful. Our annual delivery of manure has just arrived thanks to out farming neighbour Luis and his lovely old horse Toni. Two cart-fulls this week with more planned for a couple of weeks time. The soil is still very wet and therefore the potato planting and early onions will have to wait until the warmer and drier weather arrives. We continue to have daily walks - mainly to the cliffs near the village and occasionally to the nearby beaches for a bit of beach combing. My collection of 'raw' amethyst is growing and we have just learnt that there are old mines of Blue John nearby that we may explore in the near future. The tides have been exceptionally high this year and as a consequence the Bufones (blow-holes) on the cliffs have been spectacular. Winter has brought snow to 'our' mountain but never lower than 200 meters so it has not affected us at 47 meters. Violent storms have taken their toll along the north coast with many trees down and much roof and building damage. The latest cyclone, luckily, stayed out at sea but we still experienced winds of 190kph here in Asturias. The poor weather has given us an opportunity to catch up on jobs around the house and workshop and given Luis an opportunity to practice his techniques in mosaic making.