2009 could well be the year of home vegetables. The economy is eating into purses, more and towns, villages and urbanisations are surrounded by abandoned vegetable plots, the percentage of imports goes up and the Santana Books we site indicates that their best selling book in the months before Christmas was Growing Healthy Vegetables in Spain. We have now become self sufficient and by growing them ecologically we can not only grow the varieties that contain the most healthy vitamins instead of buying them in bottles but know they are not coated with pesticides or fungicides. If you have started collect a few large tree containers and start on a min scale.

although i have not got the outdoor space for this sort of project i’ve got to ask

what sort of vegetables do you find grown well in spain. If you are tring to be ecological you must be quite limited in your options.
Do you use a drip system for irrigation, etc…

Hi GF… was inerested in your post.  We run a small cottage ‘nearly organic’ outlet near Malaga.  We have only been doing it a year but no shortage of takers!  We do not call ourself 100% organic as we have not been able to find a good source of organic seeds. (Any ideas?).  There is a gardening web forum for people on the costa del sol - google ‘campo girls’... some useful bits of info there. 
Anyone - please let us know if you have any ideas on organic seeds!

——
As an overview of fresh/pesticide free veg - yes - this is the way to go! So is growing in your own back yard if you have the space.  Although Spain is THE largest grower of Organic veg in Europe - nearly all but all of it is sold to other European countires.

We have come to the conclusion that the reason we are so much in demand is the prices in the local health food stores is way overprice - and we know ours is fresher and better!
😊 

ps - we are looking for solutions to keeping production going through the summer… but nothing seems to like the searing heat. We have tried all sorts of things to keep the ground watered, sheltered etc.
Still working on it! 😉

HWe run a small cottage ?nearly organic? outlet near Malaga.  We have only been doing it a year but no shortage of takers!  We do not call ourself 100% organic as we have not been able to find a good source of organic seeds. (Any ideas?).  There is a gardening web forum for people on the costa del sol - google ?campo girls?? some useful bits of info there.
Anyone - please let us know if you have any ideas on organic seeds!

Hello,

We might be able to help you there..we cultivate and breed our own stocks in Galicia, although not acclimatised to Malaga our seed stocks are all fully organic Heirloom lines that can be maintained by simple methods. We are long term members of a few seed savers clubs and might be able to share some your way if you let us know what your looking for.

we are looking for solutions to keeping production going through the summer? but nothing seems to like the searing heat.

I guess the key thing is not allowing moisture to escape from the ground fast and this really means surface composting / mulching is really the only chance you have. You don’t want the sun hitting the soil directly and building up a big stock of green matter over winter, spring is the best way. Try to keep that surface covered throughout the summer. Water at night to soak the ‘‘mulch’’ this will keep the soil temps down. Its the soil temp which is key, as the plant’s root system is most abundant in the top few inches of soil which can get very hot. This is what hurts them, not the searing sun on the leaves.

Once you have some heirloom varieties, basic breeding will help you select plants that adapt best to your conditions and over a few years you should see some improvement in the varieties ability to deal with the temps and micro environment you have. Its very rewarding to see the results of your own breeding endeavors. Where we are in Galicia, we are surrounded by self sufficient farmers with heirloom lines.

All the best.

you learn a new tip every day here thanks Kachina

Hola

I am a “Campo Girl”, thanks for the mention!

We have a lady from Alora Seeds on the forum, she is a lovely lady called Sherrill and she owns Alora seeds, have you thought about giving her a mail and see if she can help you?

I live in Monda and we have 2,700 sq metres of narrow land, although not hilly or terraced we do have a slope which goes all the way down the land

We have planted
Strawberries
Carrots (strange lookers!)
Raspberries
Blackberries
Melons (we have wild watermelon also hehehe)
Pear Tree
Pomegranate Tree
Leeks
Cabbage
Lettuce
Italian Peppers
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Nectarines
Garlic

I think I have covered all of it LOL!

We just buy seeds from the garden centre and to be honest until recently I was not aware there were organic seeds!

We are novice gardeners and that is why we started the forum, to connect with other locals who are gardening and get help with sexing plants and finding out what to do 😊

I have learnt so much since last year and instead of growing our tomatoes in front of our strawberries we have planted them well back from everything now and they start the vegetable patch

I am off to tend to my veggies and fruits, with a glass of wine

Speak soon

Simone

Back to the old issue of keeping things alive through the summer…

Thanks K ^ for tips on mulching. (We have a combination of wet newspapers and old brezo on the ground at the moment)...
But still need to get our thinking hats on regarding irrigation.
I am off to Alhaurin in coming week to check on prices of the black small tubing that gardeners use here.
I am hoping it is economical to start up, and I understand one should only pierce a hole/put a spiggot in where you want to direct it at the base of the plant. Not forgetting to water at night time only!

Any tips on watering with this/other systems welcome!

(We are trying tomatoes this summer after 2 years of nothing from June - Sept.  We did have another successful ‘winter’ crop tho of broccoli, onions, leeks, chard, cabbage, carrots, lettuce, beetroot etc, etc. No problems there!) 😊

This is really nice information. i really like it.

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Glad to say the watering system is A1 and we have tomatoes, courgettes, lettuce, cucumbers, green beans etc, etc.
AT little outlay! Eu 16 for 100M of main tubing, plus Eu15 for bits and pieces!

We are SO pleased! (Plus it is saving us a packet 😉