My story so far, we have lived in Portugal for 8 years now, we lived for 7 years in the Algarve which is very nice but I was yearning for a bigger garden so that I could grow veg after watch all your videos on YouTube, I was so inspired, I bought your No Dig book, Compost book and calendar. I did grow tomatoes in pots in the Algarve but didn't have a decent garden to grow veg, so we sold up and moved, we now live in a lovely old place with a good plot of land in central Portugal, the house is about 100 years old and I have 1.2 acres in all, mostly fruit trees dotted around, I have some woodland and inherited 4 x raised beds, so it was a start.
We moved in December 12th (9 months ago), second day here I weeded one raised bed, gently raked to top crust, added a bag of chicken manure and and planted a bed of garlic, the garlic were a bit on the small side but then I had lost 3 months growing time, no worries, this year will be better.
My second job was to make a 3 bay compost, I'm so pleased with the results of the compost I've made, I just need to get it a bit hotter to kill the grass seeds, otherwise it is beautiful compost.
I've been following all your advise, things have gone well this first year, I've only ever grown tomatoes before so it was all new for me. I just can't wait to add my compost to the beds next month and see how it will improve the soil and growing conditions.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my first year, struggled at times but had some fun. I say I look forward to next year but the growing never stops and always something to tend to.
We did make 3 more little No Dig raised beds and one new No Dig in ground bed for the rhubarb, grown from seed it's done fantastic in it's first year. I have dedicated one of the new raised beds to my asparagus grown from seed.
You are probably wondering why everything seems to be raised beds, well just under the surface is rock, I have found an area that I will be preparing and 'in ground', I plan to plant a nice long row of grapes and have wild flowers to try attracting more bees in the main area where I plan to put a small greenhouse in the spring, I've struggles a little without one to be honest, using my house / workshop and grow lights did the trick and a small 'Amazon' tent for outside seedling.
All great fun, thank you so much Charles for making my retirement years busy.
