July '08 - San Juan the 23rd of June and the beginning of a busy summer social calender.
However with a buy social life you have to remember the watering in the cool of the late evening's or up early in the morning to water before the temperature has soared. Watering in the midday sun rather than in the cool evenings and watering with scalding water from the hose that has been lying in the sun for the most of the day will damage plant foliage and roots. Always ensure that you run off the hot water onto a terrace before starting to water.
Failure to water hanging baskets, remember to water containers and beds of annuals daily, even twice daily on the hottest days. Useful tip, move containers and baskets to semi shade, don't leave in full sun. When buying new plants do not let them dry out before planting, keep moist and soak well before planting.
Shallow daily watering instead of deep watering twice a week will reach the base of the root ball and tap roots. Spend time cutting off dead heads of roses and geraniums, encouraging further flowering. The failure to weed during the summer will allow thirsty fast growing weeds to smother and starve your annual plants, so an early weeding session once a week is well advisable.
AGAPANTHUS are flowering beautifully at the moment, well worth considering for the garden next year. Grown in full sun or part shade and drought tolerant once established. Exceptional stunning pale blue through to the deepest blue and pure white flowers with evergreen foliage, ideal as pot plants or grown in great clumps along walls or under greater sized trees.

More tips next month from Rosie or email: rosie@thesentinellamalaga.com

June 08 - Firstly, the roses are flowering beautifully, so spend a little time this month snipping off the old flowers and breaking off those little buds growing around the centre bud, ensuring good size roses, and continuous flowers, well worth the time.
Not to be forgotten, Pelargonium (geraniums) what a blaze of colour during the summer months these plants provide, requiring only moderate summer watering, and planted in the full sun. Deadhead regular to tidy the plants and promote new flowers throughout the summer. Unfortunately the geranium moth can be a problem, but this can be controlled with insecticides, available from most garden centres. If you have hanging baskets and pots, plant up with Ivy leafed trailing geraniums, available in whites, pinks, reds, salmon and lilacs, providing an excellent display.
If you are considering planting borders with smaller bedding plants this year, eg. petunias, how about creating "cold beds" choose the flowers of white and mauve and blue grey foliage's or "hot beds" planted with plants that have masses of the most vivid reds, orange and yellow flowers.
As an added feature how about trying a tasteful selection and placement of ornaments and groups of pots, some can be left empty maybe at an angle and others planted up. The use of plants and unusual architectural shapes give those borders extra interest to the passing eye.
Carefully sited groups of succulents provide further interest, possibly the Spanish Echeveria Elegans commonly known as Hens and Chicks. This can be situated in full sun or part shade and is drought tolerant flowering with pink with red or yellow tips. Ideal for propagation, simply detach a "chick" and replant. Also the Spanish Lechetrezna, which is Euphorbia Characias, with blue-green narrow evergreen leaves on the branches followed by broad flower heads of a bright green in the spring and summer, this requires only the occasional summer watering and should be planted in part or dappled shade.
So be adventurous, you will be surprised at the difference.

How to grow vegetables in Spain? - May '08

You may answer this, "Why would you want to when a visit to the market is so much easier" But just remember how those new potatoes tasted with your salad and you may decide to read on. Because of the climate in Spain it is possible for most of us to grow and harvest a wide range of vegetables every day of the year even if living in an apartment or small town house without the space of a large garden.
One square meter of space will grow a dozen types of vegetables. Consider growing potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, spring onions, radishes, beetroot, runner beans, broccoli and peas. For those with limited space the use of containers solves many problems, container growing of tomatoes is usual, a grow bag is a container and so is a large pot, there are few vegetables which you cannot grow in a container. Some crops do much better in containers than natural soil, like carrots, potatoes, all salad crops including spring onions and radish.
If you are cultivating a new area of land, you may well have to remove weeds before preparation of soil. Careful preparation is important, soil needs to be loose and free of rocks, dig in several inches of compost and some sand if you have heavy soil.
Water the seed bed before planting, sow seeds in a 1 inch furrow, an inch apart, with 6-12 inches between rows. Cover the seeds with light compost. Water enthusiastically, light watered plants scorch in the sun, so water in rain quantities.
Potatoes - With a hoe dig a flat trench four inches deep, place potatoes about a foot apart in the trench, cover with three inches of soil. When potatoes are a size of eight inches tall, hill them up by hoeing soil dug from the trench to just below the lower leaves of the potato plants. Repeat in two to three weeks, this keeps the roots cool and prevents potatoes turning green due to sunlight exposure.
Finally consider encouraging the children's involvement, you may find an improvement in their eating of vegetables and salad.

 

For more garden tips you can email: rosie@thesentinellamalaga.com