Snippets

I have cheated in the preparation of this article. A long spell of wet weather up until mid-April and low temperatures thereafter left me with a very late start to a spring and summer work schedule that I cannot complete, but I must do as much as possible. That has left me no time to write a blog and the next few weeks will be no better as I have begun hand harvesting about 1.6 hectares/4 acres of beans. It is almost three months since I last posted, and that is far too long. I have been thinking what I could do instead and have a brief opportunity to post now.

Since publishing about my almost 70 years of rural living, a huge number of people around the world have accessed the book’s home page at Smashwords, and many have taken up the option of a free sample, but this sample is the opening pages and does not properly reflect the whole content of the book. So I decided to post a few later snippets that I have “on file” for proposed adverts. These snippets give blog readers an opportunity to learn about where I have been and some of the thoughts I have on rural living even if they have no interest in the book. When things slow down I will prepare a blog reporting on the year to date at the Monte.

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With the combined resources of ten years shining the seat of my pants on various office seats, and some help from my friendly bank manager, I was able to buy nine acres, a few buildings and a large house that would benefit from some improvements.

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The Church of England Commissioners decided to sell this small hill farm they had acquired with Queen Anne's Bounty. Now Queen Anne died in 1714, and I doubt whether the Church Commissioners had spent any money on the place since they acquired it.

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The first Monday morning after I ceased being an employee was undoubtedly one of the happiest days I have ever experienced.

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We found a sheep and cattle station in the Bingara/Barraba area we thought would suit. 3006 acres. A typical weatherboard Australian house that was in decent condition, sound, with mains electricity, water from tanks and a deep borehole.

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Christmas Night, 1982. My wife announced she was going to have a baby. Well, I knew that, I thought he was due to arrive in March sometime; but she meant NOW.

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Out of idle curiosity one day I had called in at a goat sale. The first animal into the ring was this Angora buck that had not only been Supreme Champion at the Sydney Royal two years previously, but had sired the Champion group of doe, buck kid, and doe kid the following year. The auctioneer tried to start him at $A8000 failed to do so and began drastically reducing the opening price, but could not get any takers. I offered him $A200 to get the ball rolling.

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We had discovered on our visit from Australia, and another occasion immediately after returning permanently, that we both felt we were home once we were north of Pitlochry. You know when you are somewhere you will feel happy to live.

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We had help in the growing of the mushrooms from what we referred to as our Mushroom Ladies. These were some local schoolgirls who would work on Saturday afternoons and were extremely adept at the precision work of mixing growing mediums and inoculating with precise amounts of spawn. Another area where I feel the female of the species is likely to be better than the male.

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We had already decided we were unlikely to find anywhere better than one of the places we had seen near Castelo Branco.

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You will be restricted in what you buy by the amount of money you have available or can borrow, but there is one thing that it is imperative to remember before you buy. Someone, sometime will sell it again.

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That is the purpose of these Chapters, in fact the whole book – not to force my opinion upon you, but to give you information that allows you to make decisions when you consider your own particular piece of soil and what you will do with it over the next few years.

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Think of your land as a series of accounts at a bank. Every time you grow something you write a cheque.

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Bare soil is never a good idea. Bare land is more subject to erosion by wind and water, and is doing nothing towards improving your property.

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Weaver’s research, which involved digging pits as deep as necessary, showed that almost all plants we are likely to grow on the farm and in the garden will send their roots to six feet deep, and some to more than twice that depth – if they are able to penetrate the ground.

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If you have livestock that are housed then they will as a matter of nature produce the finest organic material there is, and mixed with the bedding for them I believe it is the absolute pinnacle of feed for your soil and underground workforce.

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Having land permanently stocked, even if very lightly, is not the correct approach. There has been a fair amount of research on this topic in several countries confirming that rotational grazing is required.

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There is not much point in cutting down a healthy tree and turning it into charcoal just for the purpose of making a carbon sink. About 50% of the carbon in the tree will be released into the atmosphere in the process of making the charcoal.

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Personal experience of ploughing out a grass ley that has been down for four years has given me great confidence in the system.

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If it is true that energy is wasted for one crop, say maize, then it must be true too of tomatoes, cauliflowers and all other directly eaten food crops which the anti-grain feeders are telling us to grow instead. There is not a lot of energy in a 95% water content lettuce.

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My experience of Mediterranean diets is that the old country folks living their simple lives consume a lot of high quality animal meat and fats, and enormous quantities of eggs.

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A lot of the existing forage in these upland areas is really only suitable for some classes of ruminants because of its lower feed value. This lack of choice by farmers is, of course a major stumbling block to the theories of non-farmers on how to produce food.

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POULTRY. We will start with something that I am confident to claim I know a lot about, and I have a great deal of experience, so have no hesitation whatsoever in destroying some widely held beliefs and myths. I will go into much more detail than with other species, but I repeat my warnings that this is not a text book, so what follows is an extremely long way from containing everything that a poultry keeper needs to know.

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Advice on machinery is even more difficult than livestock. One thing is certain, and that is that all machinery will cost you money to buy and keep on costing you money every time you operate it.

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Simply sowing nuts can be a very cheap way to produce the trees. I planted some almonds, as well as walnuts and sweet chestnuts, in the first Autumn we were in Portugal, 2003, had a harvest of almonds in 2010 and planted more nuts from this harvest so have numerous trees for a few cents and some time.

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Garlic. A necessity of life. I would like to believe the miraculous powers attributed to garlic as a preventative and curative of all sorts of illnesses and diseases.

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For those who want to know, the order of courses is Hors d’oeuvres, Soup, Fish, Entrée, Remove, Game, Entremets Sucre, Entremets Savoreux, Cheeses, Desserts. We harvested olives in the November and the Hors d’oeuvres were our own olives with home baked tomato bread (incorporating tomatoes we had grown and sun-dried ourselves) and the first tasting of our first vintage.

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I really do enjoy specific wines for specific courses, but at the same time I have no objection whatsoever to those who drink only whites or only reds with everything. If that is what they prefer, then that is fine by me.

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SEAFOOD WITH PASTA

This can be either a starter dish or a main course depending upon quantity served. Any seafood you like, garlic, parsley and cream. Heat the lot whilst the pasta is cooking. Drain the pasta and mix everything together. Some like ground black pepper over it. Can be eaten cold as well as hot, and with a lot of cream and only a little of the seafood and pasta it makes a good thick soup course too. For a soup you could replace some of the cream with milk so that it is not quite so rich.

More about food and drink

My post about Portuguese wines continues to be very popular, so I thought I would write something more general about food and drink.

Having lived in several countries my wife and I have had the opportunity to discover a variety of dishes that are popular in certain parts of each country even though they may not be common across the whole country, and often never heard of or known internationally. This applies even more so to table and fortified wines.

I will begin with a dish that, to me, was the worst I have ever eaten. I have been presented with, and failed to eat, tripe boiled in milk, but I did manage to consume a Buckie Whelk. Now in case you are not familiar with the term Buckie Whelk, Buckie is a Scottish word for the common whelk Buccinum undatum. That is only the beginning. Buckie is a town on the Moray Firth coast of Scotland. So, combining the fact that the town is named after a whelk, and this particular species of whelk is named after the town, one can begin to imagine the size of these things. One of my idols, Max Boyce, talks about a pig coming in three sizes - big, huge and…. Duw! Well, these Buckie whelks are, as Max would say, Duw, Duw whelks. They were a gift, along with a lobster and some crabs from a Moray Firth fisherman.

We prefer crabmeat to lobster, but only just, and there is a lot more on a lobster than a crab so I am quite happy to eat them, and this one was delicious, but the Whelks (there were two on my plate) were a different matter, and I only managed to down one, and that with copious amounts of Chablis. To me Chablis is the wine of choice with all shell and white fish, and essential with lobster. My wife prefers Champagne. We very rarely drink either, simply because both are expensive. For more oily fish such as salmon, trout and mackerel I prefer a red wine – not too powerful otherwise it will outcompete the flavour of the fish, but there is a very extensive suitable range in most countries.

Second worst is a particular Portuguese sausage. It is an anaemic white before and after cooking because it is made only of pig fat and cornflour. It tastes every bit as bad as it sounds and looks. I admit to not being a great fan of sausages, but I quite like all the other of the vast array of Portuguese ones I have tried. As with southern Europe generally these sausages are mainly eaten raw, but the white one is cooked. I doubt if there is any wine that would make it acceptable.

Although I failed to eat the tripe on its own, I do enjoy a dish local to the immediate area where I live and very slightly further north in Oleiros and Pampilhosa. It is called maranho and uses tripe. It is similar to haggis, except that goat meat and rice are used instead of sheep and oatmeal. Presunto (Portuguese dried ham) is also included, along with the usual onions and some flavourings, with parsley often included. The bag containing the maranho is made of the goat’s stomach lining (i.e. tripe), replacing the sheep’s in a haggis. I do not eat the bag. Note: Ready made haggis as bought in butchers’ shops is bagged in synthetic skins. Recipes for maranho vary slightly from household to household, but in the immediate locality mint is included. Several species of mint grow wild here, and there is only one that is chosen for the maranho. I am no botanist and have been unable to identify it with certainty.

Just to add a bit to probably most readers’ knowledge, the four different chambers of a ruminant’s stomach – the rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum have different types of lining and this give rise to different styles of tripe. In many cultures only the linings of the rumen and reticulum are used for human food, and very few use the abomasum lining. The river that runs as my boundary and very close to my house is called the Tripeiro. The origin of the name is said to be because the river is so clean that people washed their animals’ tripes in it. They still do and it is still that clean. Some still do their laundry in it too. The people of Oporto are sometimes known as tripeiros, or tripe eaters, because that was all they had left to eat after they had supplied Christopher Columbus’ 1492 journey with meat. It is then possible that the river is so named because the people on its banks have always been tripe eaters too.

I am aware of a meal that two of my cousins and their mother were to have but could not. My eldest brother called to visit them one day and on the way up the garden path was met by their pet, a very old, very fat, three-legged dog, and my brother said it was running flat out. Now this dog only moved when it was absolutely necessary, and waddled with difficulty. He knew there was something not quite right. He entered the house to find the occupants sitting shocked in the kitchen/living room. The reason for this was that the old fashioned range – a fireplace and oven, were totally demolished and there were pieces of food, debris and soot all over the room walls, floor and ceiling, as well as coating the occupants. Miraculously none of them were injured. It seemed that they had intended to have a few vegetables to accompany a pie. Somehow, the instructions on cooking the pie had not been followed. It was in a tin, and the tin had been put in the oven. The lid of the tin should first have been removed.

My mother was renowned by friends and relatives as a superlative cook of “afternoon tea” dishes. Of course I could never understand the raptures of other people at our always very large Sunday afternoon gatherings (never less than a dozen people) because I had the same things for tea every day of the week. Meals at home were breakfast, lunch (the main meal of the day), tea and supper shortly before bed-time, and supper always just a snack. Father worked permanent night-shift down the pit so that he could run the smallholding during the day and needed his main meal when he was at home to eat it.

Probably mother’s best was her Girdle Scones, similar things being known as Griddle Cakes in other places. Following my usual system of giving recipes, I assume that the lady who is to make these already has some cooking knowledge. Plain flour, butter and currants in the ratio of 4:2:1; baking powder (bought as a propriety product that is a mixture of Bicarbonate of Soda, Cream of Tartar and some starch), the smallest amount of salt you are comfortable with, and enough milk to make a crumbly dough. The girdle is a flat plate of iron that is heated from underneath, either an open fire or modern means. The Australian style of barbecue that has such plates, and not these silly grilled bars of metal that others use, would be ideal. Roll out the dough to three-quarters of an inch (20mm) thick and no thicker! Cut into rounds. Butter the girdle to stop the scones sticking and cook quickly on each side, turning only once. How well done you like them is up to you, father liked his as the outsides were beginning to go black, whilst others seemed to prefer mid to dark brown. I liked the lot. Some prefer them warm and whole, others split them and butter the insides of both halves. I liked them cold and split because I could put more butter on. Strawberry jam is good – on top of the butter of course.

I have eaten in an enormous number of restaurants and hotels in quite a few countries of the world. Ownership and management of these places change through time, and chefs even more quickly, but places worthy of mention are Canberra International, Australia; Morangie House Hotel, Scotland and the Buçaco Palace Hotel, Portugal.

The Buçaco is the most recent we have visited, and I am sure the standard of the hotel will have been maintained, its own aged wines (although expensive) will still be in top class order, and the surroundings are magnificent. Napoleon’s troops suffered their first defeat in the Iberian Peninsula at the Battle of Buçaco. The Canberra International is remembered for its extensive menu, the quality of the food and the fact that the Head Waiter and Chef both went out of their way to provide for a seven year old boy who liked his food, knew what he wanted, and had what the Head Waiter said were “sophisticated tastes”. In fact it was him who suggested that the boy try a strawberry flambé and cooked it with great flair at the table. When we returned six weeks later the waiter said to him “I remember you sir.”  

Morangie House is situated in a beautiful part of Scotland not far from my favourite whisky distillery of Dalmore, and very close to my second favourite, Glenmorangie. There had recently been a fire in the kitchens when we were there and rented field kitchens were in use, but the food was still superb. The thing I remember most was that the hotel offered several of the better wines from their list as single glasses at the equivalent of the bottle price. I know most places offer wine by the glass but that is the only place where I have seen the better ones offered, and nowhere with such a wide choice. In the room was a bowl of fresh fruit, a carafe of sherry and some mints. The usual chocolate on the pillow too. Not a lot of extra cost to the hotel, and undoubtedly that cost is allowed for in the room charge, but just those little additional touches that all hotels could provide, but fail to do so.

I sometimes wonder if my wife and I are alone in enjoying our meals so much. I hear so often about people eating whilst watching TV or “eating on the go”. What a way to live, or more likely to cease living at a much younger age than necessary. Proper food is cheap, time for preparing and cooking it is minimal, enjoying eating it takes a little longer. It is possible to have a top rate meal on the table in under half an hour from entering the kitchen. Obviously you need the ingredients in the cupboards and/or refrigerator, but it really is that quick. Even urbanites would be hard pushed to pick up their car keys, go to the local takeaway and have the food on the table in less time.

Something else I have noticed in recent years is that people have stopped eating butter. On the rare occasion we have visited other people who know the way we eat, there is normally cheese and biscuits provided after dinner. At home we never have less than four cheeses nor six different biscuits. This is never reciprocated. I can live with that (provided there is a reasonable quantity of Port) but I cannot live without my butter. I sometimes just butter a piece of cheese and forego the biscuit. At other times I enjoy a piece of butter, placed under my tongue, and then draw Port through it. Delicious. People generally nowadays fail to eat enough animal fat and consume industrialised vegetable fats instead. Definitely not the way to live a long and happy life.  

..... you will have to provide your own.

In truth, providing your own lighting is probably the easiest task to be performed if and when modern services fail. Various types of lights were around for a long time before gas and electricity.

At the time I last posted I was working on plans for increasing the amount of food we produce for ourselves as well as feed for the animals. We are fairly well along the route of providing for the goats (the only four-legged animals we presently have apart from the essential farm cats) but buy some compound feed and this ensures an adequate supply of all necessary vitamins and minerals, as well as providing a higher protein level than the hay and maize that has until now formed the bulk of our home production. The bought in feed is also an eventual source of additional plant nutrients once it has passed through the goats and become incorporated with their bedding. I have not previously been able to grow sufficient pulses, nor have I grown as much comfrey due to previous stock not being inclined to eat it. The rest of this blog is written on the assumption that we will not be able to purchase compound feeds from agricultural suppliers, and that we need to supply all our own feed for all livestock plus food for ourselves, and as much of our other requirements as possible.

So far as I can ascertain from agronomists and feed and fertiliser suppliers there is no known problem of any trace mineral deficiency in the local soils. If there is a deficiency this could possibly lead to sub clinical trace mineral shortages before it was noticed, but we do have some control over intake. I would rely on average analyses of feeds for calculating that we would be supplying sufficient vitamins and trace minerals in the correct ratios. There are some good sources of feed analyses on the Internet. One that covers a very wide range of feeds across most of the world is www.feedipedia.org and it is produced by the French organisations CIRAD, INRA and AFZ together with the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations. Consequently I expect the analyses to be accurate – given the limitations that analysis of a growing crop changes throughout its growth to maturity, and seasonally.

My wife and I have never come to any harm from our present diet and we do not even consider our intake of vitamins and minerals. We certainly see no need to take any “supplements”. I would expect all livestock to be reasonably productive from an adequate provision of energy and protein even if the ration was not perfectly balanced for maximum 21^st century levels of production. Every farm is different, and everyone else’s requirements would be different, but hopefully by outlining what I would do on my present property it will allow others to consider what they could do on theirs.

I am taking a very long-term view – to the extent that the systems put in place might have to be continued for several decades until new technology replaces that which we have lost. At the same time I am being practical and making a feed self-sufficiency plan even if the lights do not go out. If the increasing world population is to be fed then extreme increases in the cost of animal feedstuffs can be expected, with similar rises in the cost of human food. Large rises have already happened in the last few months due to reduced grain harvests in several areas of the world during 2012. So far as possible, half the land will be in pasture and half cropped at any given time, rotating through 4 years’ pasture and 4 years’ cropping. This way the pasture phase rests the land from cropping and builds up organic matter and fertility through the grazing livestock. Hay will be cut from part of the pasture land, although the goats do not need a great deal due to being able to get out all year round unless it is raining. They do not like winter rain so stay indoors by choice when it does rain.

Cropping will be based upon growing grains and pulses for concentrated feeds. Pastures, comfrey, other forage, squashes/pumpkins and root crops will be grown for bulk and Ca:P balancing since the grains and pulses are much higher in P than Ca. It should be noted though that some roots share this reverse ratio and it is well to have a record of the analyses of those crops that can be grown to ensure the correct balance can be supplied. Maize will be the standard grain used and a wide range of both summer and winter cropping peas and beans will provide the high protein pulses. By using different seasonal ranges of pulses the harvesting period is greatly extended and less storage is required.

There is an overlap between feed for livestock and food for ourselves, since we eat many of the crops grown primarily for the stock. Amongst these crops are all the leafy brassicas, some of the pulses and squashes, plus the root crops Jerusalem artichoke, beets, swedes and turnips. I grow a red beet known as Bull’s Blood which is a very quick maturing crop ready in mid-summer and has a large root. Mangels and fodder beet are also grown, and since we are considering maximum self-sufficiency then sugar beet would replace some of these.

We may need draught animals in our proposed survival group in addition to cows for milking. High producing dairy animals are not required. The milk from traditional beef or dual-purpose breeds is just as good. I think one cow to each couple (plus children where appropriate) should suffice – staggering calving so that milk and butter are always available. Cheese making is a natural part of this plan and whey plus surplus milk, if any, is relished by pigs. Cows do not have the pulling power of equines, so a horse or large pony capable of being ridden as well as used for draught may be worthwhile. Donkeys are easily fed and the larger breeds (such as already exist in Portugal) are strong enough for both jobs too. Merino sheep are common here and provide a heavy and fine fleece. Goats may not be required if we have both cattle and sheep, so at this stage I am non-committal on the need to have them. They are more difficult to keep fenced in, and I am not alone in not liking goats’ milk except as cheese. Pigs, bees and poultry would make up the remainder of the livestock, although rabbits can be fed very cheaply too. One hen per person will provide enough eggs in its first laying year, after which it should be replaced. A heavy breed provides meat from surplus chicks and discarded hens. I eat meat or fish twice a day, but not large amounts since I enjoy vegetables and, unlike when I was younger, prefer several smaller courses of food rather than just a large main course, consequently I have an annual requirement of about 60 kilograms of meat/fish. Other people will have a different requirement, but some idea of total need is essential.

Cereals for baking would be a necessity, and based on our current bread consumption and other uses think that 100kgs of grains (mainly wheat with some rye and oats) per head is more than enough. Many of the vegetables would be taken from the livestock crops, but in addition we would grow whatever we could to suit the individual tastes of the group members. Potatoes are the first that spring to mind. I have always found it difficult to sow exactly the right quantity of seed to produce the number of plants we require, but generally aim for a slight surplus on the basis that stock will consume any we do not. Not all stock like the alliums (onions, leeks and garlic) but they will generally clear up the remnants of all vegetables we consume, and I do believe a feed of garlic every couple of months helps to control intestinal worms. My theory is that the garlic creates a hostile environment for the worms and they move as far away from it as possible down the gut until they are voided. Just a theory, and others claim it kills the worms if fed fresh or the extracted juice is used. I do not normally grow carrots specifically for stock due to the high sugar content, but have no qualms about feeding some on a regular basis.

Textiles would come partly from wool of course, with leather from the skins of sheep and cattle. Pigskin makes very fine leather too. Linseed (flax) used to be a common crop in these parts, and nettles can make fibre through the same process as flax made into linen. Cotton is probably marginal at current temperatures, but they are close to where we lived in Australia, although a few degrees short of maximum summer temperatures, and there were vast acreages of cotton grown not too far away, so it could be worth a try, especially if temperatures rise slightly as they have been doing in the few years since we moved here.

In the previous post I covered our means of providing fuel. Electrical power can be provided too, although almost certainly not to the extent I now use it (two 3-phase pumps for irrigation) but a re-arrangement of pumping requirements, using old-fashioned methods to fill some storage at the high points, and this is easier on Patrick’s property than ours, will provide some gravity fed irrigation water. The means of pumping water without electricity are so vast that they would fill a book, and I suggest anyone interested in more information does a little bit of searching on the Internet – look for things like hydraulic rams, Stirling engines, spiral pumps and windmill pumps. Heat can be provided through fires, stoves and simple water circulation pipes and radiators. Gas is also an option. Not automatic full-scale central heating perhaps, but we do not have that now. Light within the house is fairly straightforward without electricity. Beeswax candles are probably the cleanest, re-using the wax that melts and solidifies again; and even rushes dipped in oil, wax or grease can provide sufficient light in a room. Oil lamps are so easy to make too. Any fireproof container with a wick in it will suffice, but they are not as clean burning as beeswax. Some power would be useful in the buildings and it should be reasonably easy to maintain sufficient for lighting in the buildings when required.

On the same theme of providing for yourself I have found many articles relating to small-scale home-made tools and equipment on the ‘net simply by diligent searching. Much of this information is from sites in places like Indonesia, Nepal, Ethiopia, India and Pakistan. Pedal power is another area with fascinating human-powered tools and equipment. Decide first what you must have, then what you would like to have in addition, and do some research to find out how to do it. With modern knowledge I am sure it will be much easier to survive than it was a few hundred years ago.

When the lights go out..............

As I post the 21^st December 2012 is about half over in Mexico where the Mayans lived, and I am confident that the world will not end today as predicted by some, but have you ever wondered what would happen to you, your family and friends if there were none of today’s electronic forms of communication, no transport due to lack of fuel, and no imports of food because of there being no transport? I have been doing a fair bit of tractor work recently, as well as many hours shelling maize and busting up olive stumps with a big hammer and steel wedges to reduce them to firewood. None of these jobs are particularly mind taxing, so thoughts just drift from one thing to another. Then I began thinking what I could do – with some help, so my mind wandered along several tracks before coming up with a few ideas of what I would like to do if that happened. Whilst it is only imaginative, I feel it is something worthy of consideration because it automatically led to thinking about what I currently produce myself, and what I currently buy, then led to considering what more I could produce so that I spend less. You can do the same.

I have not considered a sudden worldwide catastrophe where almost everyone is killed and infrastructures destroyed. There is no knowing what might or might not be available in that situation. Instead, I decided to form an outline of a possible plan for if and when the power goes off, there is no fossil fuel, and food is DIY. It is just a hypothetical situation that I hope never happens, but having an idea of what you might do cannot do any harm. To develop your own ideas on similar lines you would need to be living in a rural area, which I expect most readers of this will be, and, of course I am already part way there because of my lifestyle over many years being based on living on low income, and this would really be an enforced move further towards self-sufficiency.

The scenario includes a reasonably slow move towards the position. I was not prompted to think about it by the end of the world today predictions, but by reading an article about a TV show where people are asked to give details of their preparedness for an unforeseen event, and an internet forum thread along the same lines – both referring to the USA. It seems most people would stockpile and in fact some already have bunkers and fall-out shelters fully equipped with living accommodation, and food and water for several years. The supplies will run out at some time, even if the people survive to use them all and then they have to rely on another source of food – or die of starvation. Others are stockpiling food in a remote location, and, very frequently, excessive quantities of guns and ammunition with the attitude that they will shoot anybody who attacks them. Obviously they are expecting to be attacked – and why not? If so many people are relying on guns then they will be used. The trouble with that is that John Wayne and a couple of friends seeing off a large band of gunslingers in a film is a lot different to what would happen in real life. The enemy just needs enough firepower that can be used at a distance, especially against those (and there are many) who think they will survive best on their own. Everybody needs to sleep and a group can easily deprive an individual of sleep.

So, I decided that the US is not for me. Gun ownership in Portugal is fairly common, but not universal, and restricted in numbers and type of weapon - a shotgun and a rifle probably being the maximum owned by anybody who hunts (some will have more) but gangs of heavily armed raiders are unlikely, and in fact I would expect many family groups around about carrying on as their grandparents did. Such family groups have always been able to survive, so why not in the future? Indeed it is extremely common for the sons and daughters originally from the villages but who now live in the towns to return “home” at the weekend and help out on the property. For those not familiar with Portugal, almost all rural people live in a village that is surrounded by individually owned blocks of land known as a quinta. There is not often a house on quintas, but there is very frequently a building of some description.

The envisaged scenario would mean only a step-back in time, but with modern knowledge; and there are millions of people in the world currently living with less than I would anticipate us having. Portugal is a poor country, but relatively modernised, and many more countries are much more badly off. Indeed there are many people in other countries that would not notice any difference. Even here there are a very large number of houses without water and electricity connected so their inhabitants would not miss the power going off.

I decided I would prefer to stay where I am and bring into a group some others, including Patrick and his wife who are only five miles away and living on a similar property to us. They would continue to live there. We already share farming equipment and work together on building some items we need and cannot buy at an economic cost. Our house is an enormous 3-storey stone and concrete building that was formerly an olive mill and with several separate entrance doors into various parts of the building. It would easily split into several apartments. All doors are steel and the windows have vertical steel bars so the building is relatively secure. It is wired and plumbed throughout. Several other buildings totalling a few hundred square metres are also wired and plumbed and with lockable steel doors, therefore also reasonably secure. Some are set up for various livestock and others general storage. Included in the ex-olive mill building are a bakehouse with domed oven, a meat house, dairy and cheese store, olive storage bins, and a large wine making room and cellar.

The land totals about 16 acres, all ploughable, and has almost 500 olive trees, plus various fruit and nut trees and a productive garden area next to the house. Patrick’s property has less olive trees and not as many buildings but otherwise more or less the same. We currently have adequate machinery and the ability to repair or make more equipment.

The group comprises me, Patrick, my son and a friend who was at school with him, plus our wives and whatever children the two younger couples have when and if the worst does occur. We have, I believe, an exceptional range of knowledge and skills amongst us as well as being of above average intelligence if academic qualifications are an indication. This in itself means that the group are able to learn. The “end of the known world” has been discussed on a few occasions in a semi-jocular fashion and the ideas for long-term survival are not mine alone.

At a professional level we have a medical doctor, a veterinarian, two scientists – chemistry and physics, a teacher of cookery and needlework, a computer and electronics whiz with very good mechanics knowledge, and accountancy and administrative qualifications. Now some might question the usefulness of the more academic qualifications, but the knowledge of related science subjects makes the scientists useful in many of the things we would need to tackle, and an ability to crunch numbers or organise work sharing rotas, maintain supply records, crop rotation details etc. are also required. I have the most farming and gardening experience but everybody else is “countrified” with a combined experience in seven countries around the world. Several languages are spoken. Everybody can ride a horse and most have good shooting experience if the need arises, and wild meat is always a useful extra. The four youngsters, not blood related to each other, are keen hill climbers and walkers, capable of carrying a heavy pack for many miles.

Skills wise, we can keep our machinery going so long as we have no major parts to replace. Animal power is within our reach if all tractors fail. Many people around about now use donkeys or mules, and I have seen cows used as draught animals. The olives can supply oil for fuel, plus we have PV, generators, compressors, pumps, and the ability to make methane, ethanol and grape spirit. It is legal in Portugal to distil your own brandy, with stills and other equipment readily available, and absolutely everybody in the country has grapes, so fuel (and drink) should not be a problem. We would have birds and animals for eggs, meat, milk, cheese, butter and clothing if required, with the ability to shear, kill, skin, tan, butcher, design clothes, felt, spin, knit and sew whatever is required. I am sure weaving would not be too big a problem either. We also have experience of making mats for floor coverings. Cork for insulation is a further possibility, although not something you decide to use and then be able to grow your own supplies in a couple of decades. The cork oaks I have planted need about another 30 years to their first harvest.

Cooking and food preservation skills are excellent. The long growing season and reasonable temperatures, rarely above 35ºC and even more rarely below minus 5º, means we can grow most temperate crops, and some short-season sub tropical ones. We already produce a large range, and increasing that production would not be difficult. A river and farm ponds are useful for fish and irrigation, with boreholes for household water, although there are numerous potable springs every few miles along the highways. I need to do more planning of the crops that would be most beneficial to grow if we were totally reliant upon our own production. I have been increasing the amount of home grown stock rations each year, and have begun work on a plan to be self-sufficient in livestock feed because of recent problems of price rises and lack of availability of some products, and I shall extend this plan to cover our own needs too. I am drafting it in a form that can be altered to make it a blog, and it will be the next one after this.

Much of Portugal is still a peasant based economy so there are hundreds of thousands of people with the land, equipment and skills to survive, plus a family to assist in the work. Consequently I do not expect any large scale violence if modern ways cease and I believe the country will simply get on with life as it always has. Like my wife and myself, most of the older people have lived with limited money so they have had to fend for themselves.

Bartering is always a possibility, and although I think most rural people would have the same items, I also expect there would still be some urban life, and their skills could be bartered for some of our fuel, food and drink. There is a lot of vacant land around the country too, huge numbers of unoccupied former small farms complete with a building, olive trees and grape vines, and there is a lot of space for present townspeople to move out and start farming again. All in all, it is probably one of the countries least likely to suffer from a collapse of modern society. How would you cope?

Comfrey

In English, the word comfrey is used as the general name for Symphytum species. The same term has been in use in various languages since at least the 1^st Century. Pliny, a Roman, called it conferva. This later became cumfria, then (Old French) confrie, and, with a few alternatives in between, eventually the English spelling of today. Symphytum is derived from Dioscorides, who was contemporary with Pliny, and a Greek physician. His word for comfrey has been variously reported as Syumphuo, Sumphutum, Sumphuton and no doubt other similar words. Symphytum officinale or Common Comfrey (so called because it was the common species in Britain) with white or cream to yellowish flowers also has a red to purple flowered variety S.officinale var. patens. It is totally erroneous to refer to S.officinale as “True” comfrey as some Internet sites do, since about 40 species of Symphytum have been identified. They are native to most of Europe and Western Asia and all are called comfrey in English, the norm being to use a descriptive term or place-name before the word Comfrey, e.g. Prickly Comfrey or Palestine Comfrey. Symphytums cover the range of colours from white through to yellow, and blue through purple to red. The Common Comfrey was introduced to North America at least as early as the 17^th Century, Josselyn (1672) calling it comferie. Some of the other comfreys followed at later dates and some have also been taken to other parts of the “New World” and Eastern Asia.

Some current day herbalists believe that S.officinale is the preferred, or even only, species for safe medicinal use, Officinale meaning “of the (herbalist’s) shop”. They may well be correct, but historically more species have been used. S.officinale is uncommon, or absent (and other species are common) in some areas where comfrey has traditionally been used medicinally. With 18 of the species in Turkey alone, it is not surprising that Dioscorides was familiar with, and apparently used, more than one species since presumably nearby countries have at least several of the species found in Turkey. Gerard in his Herball gives an unusual use for the root juice in ale; it is “given to drinke against the paine in the back gotten by wrestling, or overuse of women”. 

Of most interest to those people wishing to use comfrey for plant food and livestock feeding are hybrids, specifically of the species Symphytum x uplandicum, a cross between S.officinale and another Symphytum and now widely known as Russian Comfrey. S. x  uplandicum is a naturally occurring hybrid, the original being found in Uppland, Sweden and not Russia. Later discovered hybrids were from Russia.  These hybrids rarely set seed, but will provide the pollen to cross with S.officinale and give yet another variation. Borage, Borago officinalis can also provide pollen to produce a hybrid. Both Borage and Comfrey are in the family Boraginaceae. When an unsorted mixture of varieties of S. x uplandicum was sent to North America from Britain in the 1950s there was a “Cold War” between the USA and Russia, so it was given the name Quaker Comfrey. Lawrence Hills was instrumental in exporting this mixture and he was the founder of the Henry Doubleday Research Association. The HDRA was named in honour of Mr Doubleday, who was a Quaker, and he had probably the first ever Russian hybrids in Britain, sent to him by the Head Gardener at the Palace of St.Petersburg.

The most common cultivar in use amongst gardeners and livestock people is S. x uplandicum ‘Bocking 14’ but some, such as myself, use ‘Bocking 4’. Together with all the other Bocking cultivars, at least 21, these were first identified by Lawrence Hills from amongst a large assortment of collections from various people and places. He called each collection a strain or mixture after the people or places where they originated. He did not breed or “develop” the cultivars as is often reported, they already existed, but nobody before Lawrence Hills had identified them as separate cultivars of the same species. In this context please note that a lot of current Internet sites replicate other sites in their supposed “information”. Lawrence Hills warned against such incorrect repetitiveness long before the Internet was invented.  He made great efforts to identify some of the highest yielders, but time and space prevented him doing long-term trials of every hopeful, so if you have a mixture there could be a world-beater amongst them.

All comfreys only actively grow from spring to autumn in temperate climates, dying down before mid-winter, and timing depending upon how “temperate” the climate is. In tropical climates they will grow year round if there is not a long dry season and in temperate areas with a long dry summer they need irrigation for high production. S.officinale sets seed that germinates very easily. So do some of the other Symphytums. Stick to the Russian hybrids if you want to control the size of your plot. Anyone buying named cuttings of a Russian comfrey hybrid, whether root or crown cuttings, also called crown sets or offsets, should find that all plants are of the same cultivar. That means the flowers will all open with exactly the same colour, and fade to the same colour, although there could be some slight variation during the phase from fully open to faded.  If the flowers are not all the same then you have a mixture, and will need to do your own work on identifying the high yielders, just as Lawrence Hills had to do.

Knowing the wide variations that Lawrence Hills found in his mixtures I collected samples of as many collections as I could find when I farmed in the North of Scotland prior to moving to Portugal, with a view to trying to find something that might outyield the Nos. 4 and 14 I already had, along with some S.officinale. I failed to find one in the collections I acquired. I did not have many years to experiment, up to about 7, but with only around 100 plants it was not difficult to spot low yielders and anything that looked promising. Nothing I had acquired was near the 4s and 14s for yield.

I operated a commercial free range egg enterprise on this farm, using mobile night shelters holding either 80 or 120 hens and the hens had free access to all the comfrey beds. They were not interested in the plants at all. This is not unusual, and if you want to offer comfrey to poultry it is best to cut and wilt it first, possibly even chaffing it. I understand this is particularly important for No.14. Poultry apparently find the higher potassium content of this cultivar distasteful when it is growing or offered freshly cut. On the other hand I have heard of people being able to feed it fresh, so it is worth a try if you want to feed it to poultry. I did not attempt wilting and chaffing because I was not interested in feeding it. I had a specially formulated layers’ ration made up for me and delivered in bulk pelletted form. The hens did pick up various tidbits every day, including some greenstuff, but being on a commercial basis, I had regulations to meet as well as endeavouring to sell particularly high quality eggs, and wanted the hens to concentrate on eating the ration I provided. Too much greenfeed can colour the albumen and give an “off” taste.

I kept meat rabbits until the increasing egg enterprise meant I had to cut back on the workload and the rabbits had almost all taken readily to most comfrey leaves they were offered. Some did not like it fresh, wilted or dry. Those that did saved me the cost of bought in hay.

I brought a couple of crown-sets of No.4 with me to Portugal because, following the advice of Lawrence Hills, this is better suited to livestock and I intended to use it primarily for this purpose, the 14 with its higher potash being preferred for plant food, although both can be used for stock; as well as in compost, as a mulch, liquid fertiliser, dug into the ground or laid in drills underneath potatoes. As it happens my land is naturally high in potash so the lower level in the No.4 is not a problem, and the amount is still substantial in any event. One of the analyses made by the HDRA showed No.4 to have 2.35% Calcium; 1.25% Phosphoric Acid (about 0.9% of the P in the N:P:K figures shown on fertiliser sacks) and 5.04% Potash. An analysis of No.14 on another occasion showed 7.09% Potash and lower Phosphorus, with an analysis of No.15 showing similar results to the No.14. Mineral content of the leaves will alter over the course of a season, and I may have my own samples analysed.

I increased the plants from crown sets but only to about 30 plants. I keep a small goat herd of up to 20 does, and they have never been particularly fond of comfrey, often pulling the leaves out of the feeders to try, and then discarding them. I tried many times each summer with only a few does and kids being interested – until this year which began with a particularly dry winter and the usual dry summer, therefore no fresh grazing and very little browse.

Most of the goats took to the comfrey by about the end of July, and my limited stocks had to be fed very sparingly. I have increased the number of plants I have and earmarked another area for a further increase in the spring in the hope that the goats will continue to readily eat comfrey. I hope they do because it makes an ideal complement to maize and beans with a reverse Ca:P ratio to them. Comfrey is higher in calcium. It is also high in protein so can at times replace the beans. I feed some grain and pulses or concentrate all year round, but more in spring and late summer when the comfrey is available and there is limited grazing, either because the fields are shut up for hay in the spring, or because of the dry Iberian summers when pastures do not grow. These two times also coincide with peak lactation of the does and the flushing period (see the Amazing Maize blog). If the goats decide not to eat the comfrey then I shall use it as a mulch around fruit trees.

Whether or not the goats do eat the comfrey I intend to trial it in the Ribeiro Grove of 180 olive trees which I finished planting earlier this year. It will be labour intensive but I believe will be worth the effort. At 6 metres spacing of the trees a comfrey plant can be placed 2m each side of the trees to give two plants per tree. The olive trees have a fairly small root area for a number of years, and not a particularly large one when mature so the comfrey and olive roots will not be competing for space in the soil. The nutrients which the comfrey removes from deep in the ground is kept in the same area under this system, so whilst the soil is being mined, concentrated minerals are returned no more than 2m away and the land does not lose them. Instead they are recycled. Harvesting the leaves and using them for any purpose elsewhere means that the comfrey land loses nutrients.

Obviously some of the nutrients will be locked up in the trees, and the olive harvest will remove some, as does any cropping between the rows, such as the maize this summer, and a current crop of beans. These nutrients need to be replaced, and since I will be fertilising for the crops, they will be. The comfrey and trees will automatically receive their share of the crops’ fertiliser since I use a broadcaster across the whole grove. The area is irrigated via overhead sprinklers and my other grove, the Estrada Grove of 299 trees planted in 2006, is irrigated through drippers, which means that the irrigation is only along the tree lines, but consequently also suitable to take comfrey plants. That is a possibility for the future, but this area is only fenced to grazing livestock standards, and wild pigs occasionally make a foray. I am sure they would destroy a comfrey crop the same as they do a maize crop, so the boundary would need to be pig proofed first.

Another means of using the comfrey would be for me to make liquid manure, simply allowing the comfrey to liquefy inside a container and draw-off the concentrated liquid fertiliser. This could then be fed through the irrigation systems. I have some filters on the lines, but anyone planning on doing this might find that additional fine filters are needed for drip irrigation systems otherwise the drippers can become blocked. The overhead sprayers would not be a problem since they would not block with small pieces of vegetation. If I do use this system, then I will have the concentrated liquid analysed.

A further alternative use that I am also considering is the use of comfrey as part of the feedstock for a small-scale biogas plant. Due to its low C:N ratio, around 10:1, it would make a good feedstock alongside vegetable waste, or a higher carbon crop grown specifically to feed it - especially the forage part of maize. The digestate from this process can be used as a replacement for compost, saving some fertiliser costs, or further used to produce ethanol. I have done a little research and whilst a household sized methane digester is cheap, and feasible on a DIY basis, I have not gone into costs of a slightly larger scale plant, and done very little work on the ethanol production stage because obviously I could not do this without first producing the digestate. My personal use of methane would be to power a generator to pump irrigation water. This means I would only need to produce methane during summer, which fortunately for me is the time when ambient temperatures are ideal for methane production. Consequently I would be using a batch process rather than an all year round constant flow digester. Batch production is cheaper and the equipment less complex although less efficient. This idea too is for some unknown date in the future, and I would work in collaboration with Patrick (see the old blog entitled A Glossary followed by a blog on Olives) since he is much more knowledgeable than me on the technical aspects.

"HOW NOT TO MAKE MILLIONS..........."

Yes, this is a blatant ad for my book.  The price is 4.99c U.S.  It was much reduced for a while, but some retailers will not sell so large a book for very low prices as they are unable to obtain sufficient commission to cover their costs. Go to www.smashwords.com/books/view/84252 to read the first few pages free of charge, although my more recent blog "Snippets" gives a far better insight into the contents.

Amazing Maize

Maize, known as Corn in Canada and USA, really is an “amaizeing” crop.

This year I grew about 0.6 ha., say one and a half acres, in what I call the Ribeiro Grove, this being the latest grove to be planted and as detailed in previous posts. In addition to the local forage variety I trialled 3 non-GM hybrids. In order of maturity the varieties were Local forage, Suzy, Surreal and PR33A46. The first two hybrids are from Dow and the third from Pioneer.

The last soil test was in the spring of 2010 with results of a pH of 6, 4.5% organic matter, with high levels of both phosphate and potash, and much improved on a 2004 test, particularly pH and OM. Since 2010 the land has received a further three tonnes/ha of ground limestone plus estimated maintenance levels of P and K to suit the forage crops grown in summer 2010 and winter 2010/11 together with nitrogen for production. The local forage variety was sown on part of the area in summer 2011, and mainly cut green for feed, with a tiny amount allowed to ripen for the grain. This crop was very poor due to severe weed infestation despite two cultivations with the tractor and a lot of hand work too.

The main purpose of this piece of ground for the next several decades is the production of olives from 180 trees. Inter-row cropping must not be at the expense of the olives, so it is necessary to be generous with fertiliser and to maintain or improve the OM. This means that as much as possible of the crop residues need to be returned to the soil. At the same time the crops are required to feed my goats, consequently the aim of the 2012 maize crop was first to make use of the ground amongst the young olive trees without depleting them of any nutrients; next to produce some green feed for the goats (absolutely essential in what turned out to be a desperate year for fodder given a dry 2011/12 winter); then OM to return to the soil, and finally, if possible, to harvest some grain.

To recap – the olives are at 6 x 6 metres spacings in a wedge shaped piece of land. Using my home-built two row seed drill I fitted 8 rows in between each long row of trees, leaving about 60cms each side of the line of trees bare. The whole area can be irrigated by overhead sprays – provided the river keeps flowing. Prior to sowing on 17^th May, and after soil temperatures had been or exceeded 18ºC for five consecutive mornings, I incorporated 20.5%N fertiliser at a rate of 750kgs/ha. 98mm of rain had fallen between 2 and 3 weeks prior to sowing. There was no rain after sowing. Sowing rate was heavy at about 120,000 seeds/ha or 48,000 to the acre. I am happy with this rate since it is much easier to thin a crop if necessary than it is to try and make up a shortfall after emergence. Seedlings pulled up by birds is sometimes a major problem. Magpies are the culprits here, and this year took all my sweetcorn except five plants. It is normal practice in many countries to sow heavily, and to use the thinnings for sheep or goats.

Immediately after sowing I sprayed the pre-emergent herbicide Activus and watered it in with a light irrigation. I also had Laddock Plus available as a post-emergence, but this was only required in a few isolated spots where I think I had not been sufficiently accurate with the pre-emergence. The field had previously shown extremely heavy infestations of a variety of summer weeds, and is just as bad in the winter, and I had been unable to control them.

The crop germinated well and grew at a rate of between 25 and 30 cms per week, the Pioneer variety reaching a maximum height of 3.20 to 3.25 metres. The others were not so tall. At the beginning of June all pasture on the property had dried off and total hand feeding of stock was necessary. The river was falling rapidly and I began to feed maize thinnings, taking the plants least likely to survive lack of water first. Within a few weeks I realised some of the plants were not setting grain and I concentrated on harvesting these in preference to those with grain. From late July I was using plants that had set grain too, aiming for 50% of the plants used each day.

With a planned goat mating period to begin on 17^th September I increased feed levels by giving an additional daily feed of immature cobs, including the husks. This increasing level of feed for a few weeks prior to mating is known as flushing, and is of great benefit to all livestock. I always increase hard feed levels over a six weeks’ period before joining and maintain that level for six weeks more, then reduce over the next few weeks. How much is fed depends on many factors, but mainly other available feed and the condition of the animals.

These cobs were used from 6^th August onwards by which time the CHUs were 1807. The plants that had cobs removed were left in the field for OM. This harvesting was continued until 22^nd September (storing an increasing quantity as the cobs were maturing) on which date I completed the harvest. CHUs totalled 2918 at 128 days from sowing. I de-husked the mature cobs in the field and put the ears to dry in the sun - on a tarmac area at first then in open weave bags as they became drier. I harvested by hand so had to commence whilst the cobs were a long way from being dry. I may have lost a very slight amount of yield by commencing very early, but not much. Since I did all the harvesting myself I was able to ensure that each bag held the same volume of ears.

So far as production is concerned, the Pioneer variety produced the most fodder because of its height, and also the biggest cobs where they were left to maturity, but too many of them failed to set grain. If growing only for fodder and no grain this would be my choice of variety. The local un-named variety produced small cobs and not as much fodder as any of the others. There was extremely little insect damage throughout the crop, but this variety had a disproportionate amount and I will not be using it again. Suzy was sown on the driest ground and most of it was cut for fodder, but produced cobs on virtually every plant, although smaller than the other hybrids. Remember this is the earliest of the hybrid varieties sown, so smaller grain yields are expected.

The best yield of grain on visual appraisal was from Surreal and I left an area of 72 x 6 metres, including bare ground each side of the 8 rows in the area, to be harvested when mature. This 432 sq. m. is close to one tenth of an acre, so, mixing Imperial and metric measures, a little mathematics allows us to calculate yield. Some test weighing of shelled sample bags of the total harvested showed that there was marginally more than 300kgs of dry grain from this area. That is 3 tonnes to the acre or 7.4t/ha. Not a world beating yield, but good under the circumstances of a bad season together with having approximately 20% of the land uncropped due to the bare strip either side of the olives. Add an extra 20% and the yield per hectare becomes very acceptable in a bad season.

Whilst costs and value of the crop obviously vary from country to country and year to year, my costs for this year were Seed €150, Fertiliser €150, Sprays €25 and electricity for irrigation approximately €80. This gives an overall cost of €405. In addition to these costs there was, of course, work with the tractor. This is where costing becomes slightly inexact when more than one crop occupies the same piece of ground, but if the proportion of fertiliser, spray and irrigation costs attributable to the olives is cancelled out by the proportion of the tractor costs attributed to the maize (and that is being generous to the olives) we can leave the costs as they are. The dry grain in store was very close to one tonne with a value of about €400 so the stored grain covered the cost of producing the crop. This may not seem like a big return, but overall it was very profitable.

This year was particularly harsh for the crop with irrigation needing to cease just after silking. This is the very time when irrigation should be applied and I was surprised at the way the crop continued to grow and mature its grain. In addition to the whole cobs and grain that was harvested, I am left with a lot of OM to incorporate, and the quantity of fodder I removed was 3,000 goat days’ forage. In other words I was feeding the equivalent of 4,500 goats for one day (450 for 10 days etc.) for each hectare of land in use, plus growing 270 olive trees per hectare and still left with a grain harvest of 1.5t/ha. I am growing a crop of beans through the winter too. How does that compare with your grass acreage that grows only forage for your stock? You would need to feed more than 12 goats every day of the year for each hectare, or 24 continuously through a 26 weeks’ grazing season merely to equal the forage I removed. Amazing grazing if you could achieve it. I know I cannot.

T-sum, CHU, GDD, GTI and CRM

They are all acronyms for formulas that are used in connection with the growth and maturity of agricultural and horticultural crops, and follow the same basic principal of measuring daily maximum and minimum (max and min) temperatures.

The relationship between temperatures, and growth and physiological maturity of crops, has been known for a long time, as has the preferred (and often essential) max and min requirements of many plants. Agriculturists have made use of these measurements for more than half a century to my certain knowledge, and probably longer. The first one I ever used was the T-sum. In the northern hemisphere it is a measurement taken from 1^st January each year and is the mean of daily temperatures, in ºC not ºF, added together. The timing is to coincide with the lengthening of the days, but begins when there is no pasture growth due to low temperatures. When the total, i.e. the T (or temperature) sum reaches 200 then grass will be able to make use of Nitrogen fertiliser. All you need is a max/min thermometer, which you should have anyway, and you can make use of the same temperature measurements in your home garden or on the farm.

CHU, the acronym for either Corn or Crop Heat Units, also using the daily mean, is sometimes used for maize, known as corn in USA. GDD (Growing Degree Days) is slightly more complicated, ignoring temperatures above and below certain readings to give a base max and min temperature and appears to be the most common measurement used in the USA. Please note that the USA does use ºF. On the other hand, some Canadian CHU systems are even more complicated in that they use different base temperatures for day and night readings, so more calculations are required. Additionally Canada tends to use calendar and minimum temperature data to create a starting and ending calculation date.

GTI (General Thermal Index) can be used, but is also complicated for maize because it uses a different formula for the period before and after silking. The silk is the female part of the flower that appears out of the top of the unfertilised cob. The silk is fertilised by pollen blowing from the tassel which is the male part and appears out of the very top of maize plants. Bees work the tassels and I have occasionally seen them on the silk, so some insect pollination may occur, but wind pollination is the norm.

CRM (Corn Relative Maturity) sometimes referred to as the Minnesota Relative Maturity Rating System is a means of showing the relative maturity of different maize varieties against a set of standard varieties, using dates rather than temperature, and includes a formula for giving approximate conversions from or to CHU and GDD. There is a considerable amount of research information and guidance notes from agricultural departments on the Internet for anyone who wishes to pursue the various measuring systems in technical detail. Merely input the acronyms in a search engine.

My philosophy is always that something easy and simple is best for an individual grower, so I use my own version of CHU to build records of different crops and varieties within them. I take measurements of the previous 24hrs. max/min air temperatures, plus soil temperature and any rainfall at 9.30 am every day. I record these on a spreadsheet that calculates the mean for the day too. There is also a table with the monthly values, but that is for annual historical information and does not form part of the CHU calculations. I total the daily mean results from sowing to harvest.  

My limited use of this simplified system suggests that there is a good year-to-year correlation for CHU requirements for spring sown crops, which is precisely the reason it is used so extensively for maize. But, the maize research has consistently shown that there is a different heat unit requirement for the same varieties in different localities – and this is extremely important. Every property is different and CHU requirements can be expected to vary between properties in close proximity to each other, so do not rely on anyone else’s figures except for use as a general and rough guide. Factors such as daylength, soil fertility and crop stresses like water shortage or water logging will have an effect on maturity too.

Due to its economic importance, researchers began to look for other ways than estimated days to harvest from sowing. Maize is the crop that has been most researched, and varieties now always come with reasonable information relating to season length required to reach maturity. It may not be in the heat units format a particular grower uses, but it is at least the breeding company’s knowledge of relevant maturity dates of its own varieties and comparisons can usually be made against other varieties from other breeders.

Whilst I have not used it for overwintered crops I have the data for several years of such crops - oats and beans on a field scale, and beans, onions and various brassicas in the garden, and can do the calculations. There is not the same necessity for me to know CHUs for these winter crops because they are naturally watered in the vegetative stages and harvested before there is a need to irrigate, but the extremely dry conditions of last winter and the whole of this year (apart from 12 days in late April/early May) proved to be an exception and irrigation was used during winter for some garden crops. This has led to me to consider pursuing this extra “management tool” to winter crops and the permanent ones.  I will use it for olives and may extend it to other tree fruits (using flowering to ripe fruit) and it takes literally only a few seconds to do the calculation on a spreadsheet. If you lack spreadsheet skills then it would be no great hardship to do things the old-fashioned way with a pencil and a piece of paper. CHUs do not apply to such things as the return of the storks, but that, like the arrival of the first cuckoo for Europeans, and other birds elsewhere, appears to depend on other factors, which is understandable since birds migrate from elsewhere. It might apply to the blooming of spring flowers; although I do not record the flowering dates, just being pleased to see them when they do bloom.

The main purpose of knowing CHU requirements for different varieties is ease of management decisions as to what to sow. In farming and gardening there are frequently problems in sowing a crop exactly when one wishes to do so, and it is useful to know how long it will take to maturity if there is more than a few days’ delay in sowing. I know there are often guidelines given as to the number of days from sowing, or transplanting, to harvest – similar to the CRM, but I have always found this to be a rather vague way of deciding on a variety because I have no idea where these days were calculated, nor the growing conditions.

This year I had to cease irrigating on 27^th July due to lack of water in the river. This cessation has happened twice before, but never this early, and most years we have been able to irrigate right through. The only rain we had allowed crops to be sown into good moisture - and rain can continue to the end of May in some years, but I hedged my bets with maize, and grew four varieties with different maturity dates. The two earliest are making decent crops, the third probably will, and the latest variety might, depending upon how far down its roots need to go for moisture and how much remains down there. Some plants of this variety are already showing moisture stress and I expect these to fail to produce any grain.

As anyone who has grown early and maincrop potatoes will know, there is a yield penalty with early maturing varieties of most crops; late season varieties yielding much more in a normal cropping year, and maize is no exception. An advantage of early maturity though is that I would have continued irrigating the later varieties of maize if the water had been available and this costs time and not a small amount of money. An early variety saves this time and money, albeit with a smaller crop in a good year.

Everyone will be in a different situation, some need to harvest certain crops before it becomes too hot and dry; others before winter sets in; others are restricted by their irrigation capacity or water allocation, and some could be following on with a more valuable crop and need the land cleared. Armed with your personal CHU requirements for what you want to grow you are in a better position to decide which varieties suit your sowing date, seasonal expectations and overall management plan.

I think it is time for an update on some previous posts about the quinta, and to add a few random thoughts. I do hope that what I post makes readers think about their own situation and land rather than people feel I am giving out instructions, or merely reporting on happenings on the property. It is wrong to attempt to dictate to people about the way they live their own lives, but relevant reading that leads to a stimulation of the mind is different. I have always read as much as possible about gardening and farming around the world and I continue to do so. It is impossible to know everything that might be suitable for the use of your land, but I try to keep learning through reading.

I planted up the extra olive trees as planned and we now have 483. Most of them are not yet bearing fruit, but those that are have just completed flowering. According to the Ag. Dept. flowering was very variable across this part of Portugal this year, with some flowering well, and others very sparsely. My own trees show similar variances, with some that I had expected to flower in abundance only showing a few. It seems the extremely dry winter was part of the problem, and I have seen a suggestion from a bloke in England that I know only by the name of Owd Fred, that a similarly dry winter is the cause of spasmodic flowering of apple trees this year too. The older olive trees that I retained have all flowered very well, and it suggests that they were able to extract sufficient moisture from their bigger root system, but they are all in favourable positions too and consistently bear well, and that is why they were retained.

Another problem was that Spring never did spring. It is a short season here anyway but this year we went straight from Winter to Summer. April was a full 5ºC cooler than last year and we had overnight temperatures just above freezing, with only 5º as late as 1^st May. Then it began to rain – very late, but most welcome, in fact essential to avert a disaster for many people. 110mm were recorded and we needed every one of them. Areas nearer the west coast continued to receive more, and I am sure they needed that too. As soon as the rain stopped the temperatures increased to around the 30ºC mark and remained there until St John’s Day (celebrated overnight on 23to 24 June in Porto and other places as well as other countries, especially I am told, Estonia)) when it moved into the high 30s. The overnight minimum on 26^th June was a new record high of 23º and the soil temperature at 9.30 a.m. next morning a similar record at 26º. I know that farmers across Britain were complaining at the same time about excessive rain. Perhaps that is going to be a feature of weather patterns for Britain. A few years back some climate forecasters were predicting more extremes of temperatures and rain in future.

It is much easier to cope with wet weather and even temporary waterlogging or flooding, than it is to farm or garden through a very long dry spell (such as we experience every year in the Iberian Peninsula, and elsewhere, of course) and real drought conditions as occur in Australia, parts of the USA, Africa and other places, often mean just waiting it out without hope of doing anything practical. I appreciate crops can be lost through wet weather close to harvest, and I had a total wipe out of over 200 acres of millet due to excess rain one year in Australia, but pastures grow in extreme wet, and not in extremely dry times.

I decided not to grow more loofahs this year. It was an interesting crop to grow, but the preparation of the matured fruit to bathroom loofah is quite labour intensive. We gave a few to friends and relatives – some of whom had previously thought they were a marine creature rather like a sponge. I did keep back some peanuts from last year’s harvest, and they are growing well in one of the garden beds. My “grown from seed” apple trees are carrying a good crop too, as are the commercial ones we already had growing. Previous severe crop losses of these, and pulses in the garden, through insect damage; inedible grapes through fungal diseases, resulting in no wine either; and a take over of weeds and fungal problems in agricultural crops has led me to abandon all thoughts of continuing to avoid the use of sprays. Portugal is definitely not an easy area to attempt to be organic. Hard winters and a good growing summer season make life much easier for organic production.

Apart from flat out irrigating, my main job at present is picking the hectare of White Lupins. This is another crop I will not be growing again on a field scale. They grew well despite the lack of winter rain, but I would say a combine harvester is essential for larger scale growing. It is harvested too late to be following on with a summer crop and they are quite difficult to remove from the plant - bunches of pods needing to be cut off with secateurs. As previously posted the pods have very sharp points, making the wearing of leather gloves essential. They are also difficult to shell, but I have a fairly labour intensive method of overcoming this that would work well with other podded vegetables, but only if you have hot dry weather, a polytunnel or greenhouse. I lay the pods on the tarmac entrance road to the house after picking and after a week or so they dry enough to burst open. Being big seeds they do not fly when the pod bursts, just drop to the ground. They then need to be picked up and sorted from the empty pods. In future I will stick to earlier maturing broad (fava) beans for a winter crop, and irrigated maize for the summer, both crops being easy to hand harvest. I am also trialling butter beans to see whether they might be a reasonable summer protein crop.

I decided to make Mk3 of the seed drill. Patrick made up precision sowing seed delivery plates (timber wheels with grooves for picking up the seed) and these are driven by bicycle cogs and a chain fixed to the spider wheels of the original version. It is very successful and the broad bean drill will be completed on the same lines. Lack of rain from mid-November last year meant I was unable to sow the planned crop for last winter so switched to the Mk3 maize drill project. I am trialling three varieties of F1 maize hybrids this year (not GM) and all are looking good at this stage. I have a knapsack type sprayer and used a pre-emergence spray against weeds, following up with a post-emergence where necessary. I am very pleased with the results. Last year’s crop was swamped with Purslane (Portulaca) and although I pulled as much of this as I could for goat feed it was a losing battle.

In the garden, we had a good crop of Asparagus, particularly from the varieties Connover’s Colossal and one of the Washingtons – I cannot remember if it is Mary or Martha, having committed the sin of not recording the variety when I sowed the seeds. Very bad management. I have tried a couple of all-male hybrids in the past, in fact destroyed a bed this year, and have not found them to be as productive as the old varieties. Kelvedon Wonder peas, sown late winter, and Aquadulce beans also cropped well before much insect trouble. The later peas and a second sowing of Aquadulce were badly infested with insect larvae. Overwintered onions Despina and Long Red Florence (aka Simiane) had a good survival rate and are being used now, although not yet mature. Both are very mild varieties, which we prefer. When they are matured my wife will chop them and bag up for the freezer – no storage losses that way and they are ready to use in whatever quantity is required. My special Kelsae and Globo onions are bigger than previous years at this stage, as are my leeks. I grow these exhibition type vegetables purely for the fun of it, and eating of course. Apricots fruited well too and my wife made jam and a thinner version that goes exceptionally well on tiramisu ice-cream. We do have a sweet course on rare occasions – and always a dry red with it.

Ever one to experiment with wines, a few weeks ago I began adding a course of pâté between my main course and cheese. In the past I have eaten pâté either as a starter, or after cheese. We found a good rough chopped pork liver one and my wife has also developed one from minced pork loin, adding garlic but still experimenting with other herbs. Pork loins are extremely cheap here, about €4 per kg and some supermarkets will mince it for you (much preferable to your run of the mill mince at about the same price) so the home-made version is a long way cheaper than buying pâté. Making your own from liver is very messy. Nice, but messy.  I have had Moscatel with pâtés in recent years, but since this course is now followed by cheese, with Port, and then nuts, with Moscatel, I began trying different wines as I did not want to go from Moscatel to Port and back again. A Sauternes or other sweet white would be fine, but I have settled for White Port, preferring Ferreira’s (not the Lagrima, it is too sweet) to several others I have tested. 

I have received an email from Smashwords, the ebook publisher, regarding ways and means of promoting ebooks. If you have never tried one, this is a chance because some of the books published can be free of charge from time to time, and this is one of them. Smashwords is running a special promotion during the month of July. It will have a precise start of 00.01 a.m. on 1^st July and end at 11.59 p.m. on 31^st July, USA Pacific time – so ensure you purchase any books that are discounted by the authors during that time. Smashwords publishes in many languages on a great range of subjects and the site is worth looking at. You can link to this promotion through www.smashwords.com/?ref=OldMcDonald .  To take advantage of the discounts you will need to enter a Coupon Code towards the end of the purchase process. This will vary according to the book or books you choose, but will be, for example something like SSW50 – the Code for my book.