Growing veggies in Spain is just fabulous fun – you must try it!!

If you are lucky enough to own a little piece of Andalusia, and you haven’t done so yet, you have just GOT to get veggie-crazy!  There is simply no excuse not to, as this wonderful climate that we live in is a vegetable’s idea of heaven.

The nicest thing about growing your own veggies here in Spain is that you can practically have vegetables and fruit ALL YEAR ROUND!  Find a good patch – it doesn’t have to be more than 4m x 4m, and if possible under a tree or some shade that moves around with the passing of the sun each day.  If your soil is not perfect, mix an area with good soil brought from outside, and if you are in an apartment or town house, GET OUT THOSE POTS!!  Don’t forget to set up some sort of watering system for your plot.  This can be a  hosepipe from an outside tap to your plot, with a central dispurser, obtained from any garden centre.  Water in the evenings during the warmer months and ensure the soil is always a little damp somewhere within one fingers’ length under the surface.  Watch out for green runner beans – unless they get a huge amount of water, even if they look good, they may be stringy and hard-skinned – so best reserved for Autumn and Winter growing.

Strawberries, lettuces, tomatoes, onions, spinach, carrots, potatoes, herbs, melons, green peppers, beetroot, beans – you name it, it grows here! 

Plant ‘delicate’ veggies in the Autumn – lettuces, spinach, peas, coliflour and other such tender species are best in the milder months, and there is nothing better than a fresh lettuce from your garden served on Christmas day!  And as each lettuce is pulled up, replace it with a baby one – that way you don’t get all your lettuces at once.

You can buy baby plants for cents at the “viveros” and garden centres, or grow from seed and then thin out later.  Put rows of onions and leaks with next to rows of carrots (the carrots you can sow from seed straight into the ground) – this will stop any carrot fly affecting your crop. 

If you are in an area where there are a lot of birds, you might stick a few canes in the ground and throw a net over the top until the plants are established and less tender – there’s nothing more frustrating than growing vegetables just to feed the local area’s bird population!  There are practically no slugs here, although snails  can be a problem at certain times of the year.   Put gravel around the veggie plot and crushed egg shells - they find it really difficult to get over this!  Also, sink clean jamjars filled with beer into the ground to surface level, at points around the veggies – snails will go to this, get drunk and drown happily - (typically Spanish!)

Try aromatic herbs too.  There is peppermint (menta) as well as ordinary mint (hierba buena), and try out hierba Maria Luisa, and camomile (manzanilla), great, medicinal infusion herbs and very popular in Spain.  In many parts of Andalusia you will also find wild esparragus growing – transfer some to your plot but watch out for prickles- and also the wonderful smelling and deliciously tasty fennel (hinojo).

By March, you should be planting more heat-abiding veggies, ready for the Summer.  Tomatoes and green peppers do well in the hotter months, but by this time there is little point in planting too many of the delicates, as they will “shoot up” and try to flower – not good!  (Having said that, I had NO IDEA how beautiful the lettuce flower can be, so you might like to leave one or two to check this out for yourselves!)  Melons and cougettes are fine in the hotter months too.

In July and August, apart from watering the above heat-abiding types, give yourself and your plot a break.  In late September, dig the plot over, add a tiny amount of natural fertiliser and start again! 

ENJOY – ONCE YOU START YOU CAN’T STOP!

Spanish Language Practice

Veggie vocab

patatas (potatoes)
tomates (tomatoes)
zanahorias (carrots)
cebollas (onions)
cebolletas (spring onions)
remolacha (beetroot)
coliflor (coliflour)
col (cabbage)
espinacas (spinach)
acelgas (a local spinach, with large leaf – very tasty)
pimientos verdes (green peppers)
calabaza (pumpkin)
calabacín (courgette)
lechuga (lettuce)
semillas (seeds)
manguera (hosepipe)
riego (irrigation)
irrigation system (sistema de riego)
planting soil (tierra para plantar)
verduras / hortalizas (vegetables)

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Being in Spain gives you a chance to sample some of the very nicest wines at incredibly good prices -after all, who can afford more than a fiver on a bottle these days!  At the Escuela we are always on the look-out for a bargain to sip at home, share with our students, or offer our guests.

So here are a couple you might like to look out for:

Terra Alta “Vespral” 2004.  Now this is my latest find!  Matured in oak barrels over time, this Catalan wine is bursting with a whole variety of flavours and has a wonderful bouquet.  It is lovely on its own, (sitting in the sun just before

Terra Alta Reserva "Vespral" 2004

lunch – don’t tell anyone! ) - and is a delight when accompanied by meat and game.  And for a 5 year old wine, it’s at a fabulous price – under 2 Euros in LIDL!  Check it out!

If you want something a little more local, I highly recommend the local raisin wine from our own Axarquía region.  You can get it anywhere, although there are subtle differences from village to village.  The commonest of these is a sweet, honey-coloured wine, served in short glasses, with a wonderful aroma and a scintilating taste that seems to linger with you long after you have drained the glass.  But I prefer the dry version, with a slightly more sherry-like feel to it, but still with the zing of those raisin grapes.

The vineyards of Axarquía are almost without exception dedicated to producing raisins, and if you look around you in the countryside, you will see the white raisin drying beds dotted all around, especially on the steep,

Vino del Terreno (Frigiliana bottled)

dry hillsides.  If you join us on a residential Spanish course, you might just get to visit one, sample some wine and chat with the locals!

You can buy this wine, bottled,  in most villages and it is a popular tourist purchase in mountain villages such as

Raisin drying bed

Frigiliana and Cómpeta (such as the one in the photo from Frigiliana).  However, best to spend a while wandering from village to village, sampling the different local offerings – just walk into any bar and ask for “vino del terreno” and they will usually pour it straight out of a plastic container bought from the local farmers! 

Happy sampling!

Spanish Language Practice

Los vinos del terreno de La Axarquía son muy ricos.  Se llama “vino del terreno” y lo puedes pedir en cualquier bar o restaurante de La Axarquía.  El vino se hace con pasas, que son uvas secadas al sol y al aire libre, en zonas de terrenos pendientes, normalmente bien soleados.  Estas zonas se llaman “paseros”.  Los puedes ver en el campo en muchos sitios, sobre todo las laderas de Axarquía Este (Arenas, Corumbela, Archez, Cómpeta, Sayalonga, etc),  y la zona de Cútar, Almáchar, Iznate, etc.  Se puede comprar enbotellado o simplemente en garráfas de plástico.

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