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[Scooter]

Hi I am Andy, Karen and I live in Arriate just outside Ronda.

New Years Eve 2008/2009 we made a decicion to change our lives and lifestyle.  All well and good I hear you say.  Well... Yes.

I am 50, a web designer and SEO marketing guru, Karen a little younger with a cleaning business.  We lived in a nice 3 bedroom rented country house with great gardens, pool etc etc.  We wanted to go a bit greener and do the self sufficiency bit now the last of our 3 children had left home and we have growing concerns for the environment.

We moved out onto 17,500 m2 of rented land and put a caravan and a small wooden shed on there as well as out tent.  We aquired 2 goats who so far have resisted becoming pregnant so there is no milk, cheese, yoghurt etc.  We have 9 chickens who have stopped laying just lately and to top it all........ I know sausage-all about gardening!

Well the land has water and electricity but the earth had not been turned for at least 30 years, just a tractor passing through compounding it!  Not a shovel, spade or pickaxe would penetrate the crust!  So, in came the jcb of Antonio and the rotorvator of another chap.  12 hours later there was a tilth, sort of.  This year we managed 12 tomato plants two mini water melons and two mini honeydew melons.  Nothing else grew!

We have now got it to an even better tilth after a summer of putting the goat poo, chicken poo and some horse poo on it which we are going to continue to do over winter to get some goodness into the ground.

We have a list of veggie and fruit trees we would like to grow, we are attempting to form a garden with flowers, bushes and trees, and we are going to work hard at the goat/chicken thing.

So why am I here?  TO LEARN.  I have discovered that self sufficiency only works if the ingredients are correct AND you know what in the world you are doing... which I don't so please be prepared for some really basic dummie style questions.

Thank you, please don't ban me immediatly for being a gardening nunkie.

Andy

[CampoGirl Gina]

Hi Andy,

Welcome to the forum, great to have you on board

We are a friendly bunch on here so dont be affraid to ask any questions, sure that someone will be able to answer them

Myself and Simone (Campo Girls) were both thrown in at the deep end when we moved to the country, with large gardens and not alot of experience with them! But now we are growing all sorts of veg, fruit and plants with good results. At first though it was trail and error, but now we both have a lot more experience with what grows best for our gardens, soil etc..

Will look forward to hearing how you are getting on with it all and dont forget any questions, ask away

Happy gardening

Gina

[Campo Girl]

Hola Andy and Karen

From one SEO to another nice to meet someone in the business, you might come in handy!

Gina was right, don´t worry too much about the silly questions that is what the forum is for you are not expected to be an expert

From the sounds of things you just need to cultivate your soil, when I moved to Monda we were lucky as we converted a stable but prior to that it was full of horse poo! yummy

We put all this horse poo on the section of our garden that we chose to grow from, over the past 18 months more compost has been added to the mix, hand weeding (which is good for turning the soil and adding extra nutrients) - I do not use RoundUp or chemicals on my soil where I grow, all weeds are picked by hand (yawn LOL).

We have a section here while details what plants grow in what soils, we have very clay soil here in Monda, as does Gina in Coín, so top soil needs to be prepared or plant thrown in that enjoy clay.

We now successfully grow
Tomatoes
Olives (who doesn´t lol)
Oranges
Grapefruits
Lemons (still trying to keep the tree alive!)
Raspberries
Strawberries
Kiwis
Onions
Garlic
Nectarines
Passionfruits
Melons
Blackberries

I failed last year with cauliflowers and carrots but that is because carrots like crap soil so if you have a lot of that get going with carrots! They like sandy, rocky earth, good soil makes them grow funny, some of mine last year looked very deformed because I placed them in the lovely rich earth

Anyway I will stop going on

Send us some piccies when you get time (although you will need to do 10 posts to allow your username to post images - spammers get everywhere so we have to protect ourselves)

Speak soon

Simone
PS What are your websites so we can have a look
PPS Are you on Twitter?
Simone Icough Twitter

We also run a blog which you might like
Gardening Tips Spain and UK

[Scooter]

Hi again Girls.  2 years, I know, we were wiped out by the floods.  we awoke one morning to find we had a lake and two rivers that we didn't have the night before and our van was a disaster so we have been trying to recover.  I went to try and change my profile (old email address no longer valid) but cannot edit my profile. please give hints and clues.

We are about to re-embark on our quest and need this website more than ever!  Are you still active?

Regards

Andy n Karen

[terry]

Hi Andy & Karen

What type of soil do you have? In the foothills around Rhonda the soil is very rich as the nutients wash down the mountain sides but if you are higher up the good top soil tends to get washed away.

I live in that sort of area so my gardens has raised beds to stop it washing away when we get heavy rain or God forbid a Gota Fria. The beds are easily created but I will not bore anyone to death until you reply and maybe move this under a topic.

All the best

Terry
Above Altea la Vella in the Bernia Mountains

[Scooter]

The soil at the new place is superb!  It is in an area which has some of the best soil in the Ronda area, there is a vineyard not too far away where they produce a most famous wine.  The land has been abandoned and untouched for 25 years, the trees have shed their leaves and mulched it superbly!

We are on high ground and the drainage is excellent, the soil friable and a glorious rich reddish sort of color.

Yes, lets have a new section for raised beds Terry.

Andy

[terry]

Yes, lets have a new section for raised beds Terry.

Andy

I will post an entry under DIY:Jobs for the boys to start this off.

Terry