The vegetable garden in early summer.

Florence fennel ready for harvest

Summer officially arrived this week and with it a spell of hot weather with temperatures over the 30’s. The warm weather means there is a lot to harvest in the vegetable garden and it also means there is a lot of watering to do.

Garlic drying in the warm weather

This year we are doing more trials in the vegetable gardens particularly variety trials and planting date trials. The information we gain, which varieties are most suited to our conditions and the optimum planting times helps us to continually improve our cropping systems, which basically means bigger, better and more reliable yields.

Courgettes, courgettes and more courgettes.

The greenhouse we built last autumn has come into its own; amongst other things allowing us to produce the different plants and varieties necessary for the trials we’ve been conducting. It has also meant we have been able to sow earlier and produce larger plants which we planted outside when the warm weather came. The idea of using larger plants at planting time is to start harvesting earlier, and we’ve just started picking our first peppers which reflects the success of this system.

Large plants ready to plant out.

We are now picking a wide range of crops including; sugar peas, french beans, fennel, cabbage, calabrese, romanesque, lettuce of all shapes and colours, leafbeet, beetroot, carrots courgette and more. Also for the first time we have an excellent crop of cherry tomatoes coming from the greenhouse and we’re now picking well over 1 kg of fruit every day. Here we have two varieties a red and orange variety, both selected for their flavour which is outstanding.

Tomatoes in the greenhouse, now ripening high up the plant

Flavoursome gold and red cherry tomatoes

Although we call the ”huerta” our vegetable garden it’s also where we produce our soft fruit and this year there’s an abundance of all sorts of berries including; strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, tayberries, boysen berries and blackcurrants. The hotel restaurant hasn’t been able to keep up with the influx of fruit even though there have been three or four different types of soft fruits desserts on offer each night. I often wonder what we would do without deep freezers to soak up the excess berries.

Boyesenberries on the plant

Boysenberries on a cheesecake

Strawberries in abundence

Blackcurrants ready for picking

There are still a lot of different vegetables growing in the garden which we haven’t started harvesting yet such as cucumbers, pumpkins and aubergines, but it won’t be long before we start. And although the vegetable garden is full of crops waiting to be harvested like nature we can’t be complacent and we have to be preparing for the coming seasons; autumn, winter and spring. So we now we are preparing young plants for crops such as autumn and winter cabbage or purple sprouting to crop in February and March. We are also making the last sowings of French beans for September and October harvest as well as sowing beetroot for harvesting throughout the winter.

Preparing plants for autumn and winter cropping.

Finally we shouldn’t forget the essence of life; seeds, so important and yet so often taken for granted. We try to produce seed from some of the different crops and varieties we grow. Priority is given to saving and maintaining varieties which are of local origin such as our land race of onions which we estimate has been kept in this area for over 40 years. When saving seed we select the healthiest plants with the characteristics we consider interesting and then let them “go to seed.” So it’s quite common to walk round our vegetable garden and see a large plant often looking rather out of place. These are the plants we have chosen for harvesting seed and if only in a small symbolic way help keep seeds in the hands of farmers and small communities where they belong.

Saving seed; leek flower heads.

Changing the Ram

"Navito" The ram who was with us for the last two years and who has just left to be with new females.

Our ram is a lucky guy with not much on his mind other than roaming freely with the forty odd females that comprise our flock of sheep. What’s more every two years just when he could start to be getting bored with the females that surround him, he is moved on to a new flock of sheep with a totally new set of females, and that’s when we get a new ram for our sheep. The reason we change our ram every couple of years is so that he doesn’t end up mating with his own off spring with the consequent degeneration of the flock associated with inbreeding.

Navito and two of his offspring; one white and one black.

The sheep we keep are Xaldas; the indigenous breed of Asturias which was on the verge of extinction. There is an association ACOXA which cares for the recuperation of this breed and controls the breeding and purity of the race. There are various “good” rams which circulate between the association’s member’s flocks, but this year we wanted a ram with “slightly” different characteristics.

Our flock of Xalda sheep

In past years when we shear the sheep we have thrown the wool away which seems so criminal. We have always wanted to find a use for the wool and so are extremely happy with the recent development of its use for felting by our daughter Samantha and a neighbor Jenny. Within the xalada race there is a huge variation in the characteristics of their fleeces and wool. Not only does the colour vary from white to black but the thickness and the length of the wool fibers vary considerably. Some of the wool types are much easier to clean and untangle than others and some are more suitable for felting than others. So this season when we decided to select a new ram we wanted to take into consideration the characteristics of his wool.

The variety of fleeces and wool types from the Xalda sheep

Another important factor partly influenced by genetics is the quantity and quality of meat on our lambs. We sell most of our lambs for meat and the Xalda sheep are small by nature, so we like a big ram who will produce offspring which accompanied with good grazing will fatten up well.

One of our large rams from 4 years ago.

Sam with local farmers looking at possible new rams.

We have just spent a couple of weeks visiting other breeders of xalda sheep looking at their young male lambs to see their suitability as the new ram for our flock. “Well built and long haired” were major features we searched for. Sam came along looking at the rams and feeling their wool giving her opinion on the suitability for working the wool.

Tronco, the new small ram just before he was introduced to our heard.

At last we’ve opted for a young ram, slightly smaller than I would have hoped for but with good wool characteristics. Our previous ram went to a new flock a couple of weeks ago and the new ram was introduced to our flock last week. Hopefully he will now grow big and strong enjoying our tasty flora rich pastures preparing him for the work ahead. Then all that remains to be seen is the quality of his offspring next spring; that is assuming he does his job well this summer!

Eco -Workshop Gathering

Yesterday the 5^th of June was The World Environment Day, a day which is meant to stimulate awareness of the environment. Coinciding with this Gaia y Sofia organised their first Eco-Workshop Gathering at the hotel. For us it was a very special event to have organised at the hotel, an event which gave people the opportunity to share insights and experiences, stories of sustainable livelihoods and participate in a gentle agenda of activities.

The floating maize made out of painted gourds

With the help of the artistic intervention and two beautiful sunny days the setting was stunning; a landscape born of the marriage between art and ecology. Carmen a local artist created 23 pieces of landart for the event, made from materials found in the area, no nails, screws or glue were used, just balance and equilibrium. These were carefully placed around the farm under the hotel and the effects were brilliant. She also created a “floating maize” made out of painted gourds and there was a colourful tree of wishes where people went and wrote a wish on a piece of coloured cloth then to be tied to the tree.

Landart waiting to be discovered on the farm

The tree of wishes.

There were 3 workshops; the Gaia workshop, the creativity workshop and the artisan workshop. In the Gaia workshop there were short walks and collective experiences telling stories of the earth and living things, looking at the interconnection between all living beings, including ourselves and ecosystems.

More examples of Carmen's landart.

The setting

Part of the Creativity workshop

The Creativity workshop helped the participants guide the artistic expression inspired by the environment. Here people painted together making representations of the place and experiences of the group, trying to express their feelings and memories related to the sounds, smells, etc. that surrounded them. The pieces of paint work will move on with the different eco workshops and eventually help form part of a mosaic made of all the different works produced at the different eco workshops, which along with the land art and its audio visual representation will form part of an art exhibition

Sculptures in equilibrium contributing to a landscape born of the marriage between art and eceology

The idea of the Artisan work shop was to bring people to connect with local resources, cultural identity and nature that make the environment of the Hotel Posada del Valle. Here the participants were involved in the craftsmanship of wool, from the beginning looking at the xaldas sheep on the farm to felt carding and processing. Participants had a good chance to experiment with wool themselves, relate to it and share experiences with people who work the wool, self-taught, available to anyone.

Experiences with wool; the artisan workshop.

The event took place during two days; the Saturday and the Sunday and judging how happy the participants seemed at the end of each day Sebastian and Lidia who organized the event should feel very pleased about the success of the event. Joe and Andres did an excellent job (as always) preparing the breakfast and lunch for the participants and Samantha and Jenny also did a great job with the imparting the artisan workshop.

A time for sharing experinces

This was the first of the "Eco-WorkshopGatherings" and in total there will be four such events held the first weekend of the month at different establishments belonging to the Foundation Ecoagroturism and organic farms in Asturias. The next Eco workshop gathering will be held the 2nd and 3rd of July at La Quintana del Foncalada in Arguerro Villaviciosa and there the artisan workshops will be on ceramics and the natural taming of horses. More information about the Eco workshop gathering in spanish.

Vegetarian Cooking

Probably doesn’t sound too exciting a blog, but for me, over the years vegetarian cooking has been an eye opener, if not a mind banger and then the exciting.

I must admit I eat meat and love raw meat and fish so the vegetarian has been first slightly a reluctant attitude to an, oh well, okay, to a well that’s not bad, to later, m’mm good.

Now the imagination comes into play and the creation of the dishes. First the fruits of the garden, to the produce of the market, what’s in season, what combinations can we make.

Carrot and ginger appertizer

We start our menu with an appetizer this is often made from vegetables, hopefully to suit all palates, carrot and ginger, roasted red peppers with basil and black olive and chestnut pate.

Even our homemade breads sometimes have vegetables, spicy peppers from the garden, to courgette, carrot or onion and herbs.

Beetroot bread

If you take a step into the vegetable garden there is an excitement of seeing these lovely plants growing and then to reap their yield and serve them on your plate, what could be better than to have a lettuce picked fresh and minutes later on the salad buffet, no food miles, no hideous plastic packing just a few steps to the kitchen, washed and served. This is the exciting part of Nigel coming with the vegetable box and thinking how many ways can I prepare a cabbage or mange tout or what ever may be in season.

Fresh lettuce growing in the garden

Our salad buffets certainly run our imagination each evening thinking of combinations and compositions, food is not only to do with favour but appearance also plays a great part. Nothing could be simpler than leeks served with an onion and beetroot sauce, simple but the flavour and colours are intriguing. We work continually to improve.

Vegetable box from the garden

Lentil patties with courgette

Our vegetarian main courses hang heavily on pulses, pastry and grains; we have tried to not over use diary produce, which I think can saturate vegetarian cooking. For me good flavours have to be achieved using herbs or spices; lentil patties with courgette and cumin and aubergine stuffed with chickpea and hazelnut flavoured with a touch of coriander are favourites. Roulades are great favourites too, made with what’s available; onions, leeks, carrots, beetroot or spinach served with an herb sauce; these of course are also made with a little help from my friends, the adorable chickens.

Leek and cheese roulade

Fruits from the garden are the be all and end all of every menu, Raspberries juicy in the hazelnut roulade, to apples in the apple streusel, walnuts from our grand old tree in cakes, bread or biscuits. What better way to finish a meal.

Fresh fruit deserts; strawberry slice.

So maybe vegetarian cooking isn’t too bad after all....................

And for those of you who like me, like to indulge in more fibrous dishes now and again we do always have the option of an organic meat dish.

The setting for the food we serve.

Blog entry by Joe.

Orchids on the farm 2011

The woodcock ophry, this orchid was growing only five meters from the hotel.

Orchids can provoke a sense of the exotic in some people and for many botanists they are the prize specimen. Seeing a new orchid species for the first time is always something special and with a staggering 49 species of orchids recorded in the Picos de Europe, there’s plenty to see.

The man orchid, the rarest orchid we have growing on the farm.

The dull orchid

The butterfly orchid.

On our farm we are very lucky having recorded eleven species of orchid, the latest find being a butterfly orchid growing inconspicuously on a stone wall. Our traditional system of pasture maintenance helps ensure that the orchids (as well as many other types of flora) flourish. We cut the meadows for hay in late June and then graze them with the sheep in November. From December to late June the meadows are left undisturbed so there is no damage to the newly growing orchids shoots. On our meadows the combination of small rocky outcrops, shallow soil and south facing slopes also helps to contribute to the diversity of orchids.

The wild flower meadow next to the hotel full of serapias

There are 3 types of serapia orchids found on the farm. The tongue serapia is the most common, the heart serapia is less common, and the small flowered serapia the hardest to spot and flowers a little later.

The heart serapia

The small flowered serapia

The tongue serapia

One of our biggest problem in maintaining a good orchid population on the farm is the presence of wild boar which frequently roam the farm. They love eating the roots of the orchids and spend a lot of time hunting around the farm looking for orchids only to dig them up and munch their roots, much to our dismay!

Ground dug by a wild boar so as to eat an orchid root.

The heath spotted orchid found in the wetter parts of the farm.

The provence orchid

The earliest orchid to come in flower on the farm is the early purple which normally starts flowering late March followed by the dull orchid. The last to flower is the autumn ladies tresses which fills our Castañarina meadow in late August and September.

The early purple the first orchid to flower

The autumn ladies tresses orchid which flowers late August to September

Happy orchid hunting!