Gozo

Bongu from the Maltese Island of Gozo After what felt like an endless summer, significant rainfall finally arrived on the island in the last month or so. Heavy downpours typically came in the form of dramatic thunderstorms. In their wake, the island’s landscape and scenery were transformed by the rain, which resulted in a mass …

So, here we are once again, with soaring daytime temperatures, heat waves, heat domes, heat bombs and (typically) zero rainfall for the next few months, or maybe even longer. In such challenging climatic conditions, we’ve been attempting to keep our recently planted trees alive and harvest some summer vegetables and fruit. It’s fair to say …

We are currently in the island’s ‘green and yellow ‘season, with cooler temperatures and welcome winter rains. It is also very much the growing time, and both our fields are giving us lots of nice veggies – kale, cabbage, chard, new potatoes, broad beans, and with garlic and broccoli on the way. The ‘yellow’ is …

Had the builders in over the last few days, as we added an extension to ‘Cluckingham Palace’ aka our Gozo chicken coop. We are creating a new, small scale dedicated ‘compost creation area’ in which our chickens will be playing an active role by removing pests, eating weed seeds and scratching and turning over the …

Away from Gozo, we have had the opportunity to re-visit the Vincent’s Eco-Estate https://vincentecoestate.com/ over in Malta. It’s a fully certified organic farm with a local produce shop, and we dropped in after visiting the nearby Megalithic temples at Skorba and Ta’ Ħaġrat. Handily, late last year, Friends of the Earth Malta (FoEMalta) updated and …

For us, another aim is to try build up the tree and shrub numbers on the driest, stone-filled parts of our fields, which have just a thin layer of poor, fast draining soil, covering a limestone bedrock.So far, we have planted Wild Honeysuckle, Cistus, Myrtle (known as Rihan in Maltese – and the neighbouring valley …

Considering the ongoing forecast for enduring drought conditions, I bought a selection of locally grown plants ideally adapted to drought conditions and poor soils, and ordered free seeds from the Grow 10 Trees project, which was established in May 2017. See https://sites.google.com/view/g10t/about-us and https://sites.google.com/view/g10t/obtain-seeds According to their website “G10T has been created for pro-active citizens …

It may seem strange to be talking about the lack of water, as it is absolutely throwing it down outside right now. February on Gozo often brings with it cooler, cloudy weather, accompanied by high winds, storms and (thankfully) some much needed rain. So far, we have received a fraction of the expected annual rain, …

Here, the ‘winter’ weather (last week) was settled, which was fortunate, as a small group of us were walking around the whole coastline of Gozo. Lots of birds and wild flowers (including some native Maltese fan lipped orchids and asphodels – see photos) Malta and Gozo feature on Ainsley Harriott’ new ‘Taste of Malta’ series …