To grow fruit and veg or not...?

We've just completed our second summer in Catalunya and we're getting used to the differences between our vast, terraced, sun-beaten plot here and the small north-facing back garden we had in London.

In spite of the chill, rain and gloom in London, we managed to grow a lot of produce outside our little ground floor flat - tomatoes, courgettes, chillis, basil, rocket, beans, cucumbers - even mini-melons. It took a lot of commitment, a drip watering system and a greenhouse, but we loved doing it - and eating the results (pics below).

I also became an expert in cooking and preserving damsons; we had three trees in the garden and one overhanging it (they were there before we moved in and we couldn't bear to destroy them). Each year we rushed to pick the kilos and kilos of hazy purple fruit before the wasps moved in to suck them dry. We had damson chutney (I've just started my last jar from 2010, and it's dark and rich and delicious), jam (not as successful), flavoured vodka (just damson, and a Christmas-themed one with raisins, cinnamon, allspice and ginger), crumble, sorbet, etc, etc.

When we moved here, we dreamed about how easy it would be to grow all the Mediterranean fruit and veg that taste so much better sun-warmed and plucked straight off the plant. But if you take a rational approach, there's a balancing act to be struck. We can get cheap, fresh and delicious fruit and veg from the groceries in the village, as well as from the little old ladies who, for a few summer months, open their garage doors and sell figs, tomatoes and peppers grown on their own plots. At the same time, we don't have mains water, which means that there's a significant cost to be borne in keeping everything hydrated during the dry summer (and sometimes, spring, autumn and winter) months. 

So last summer, as we'd just moved in, we didn't grow much - just a few tomato plants that the previous owner kindly left, some chillis and some basil in a pot. We had a lovely harvest of figs from the tree on the drive too. You can read about last year's harvest here.

Early this year, though, my (I won't call them green) fingers were itching to get started on some planting. I'm the most impatient gardener - I get frustrated if the seeds haven't germinated within 24 hours - but still I love it. I spend most working days indoors, on a hard chair typing away at my computer and it's wonderful at 7 o'clock to turn off the machine, stretch, pour a glass of cold white wine and go outside to soak up some warm sun and potter around with some seedlings and some soil.

More soon on our mixed successes with this year's fruit and veg.

Wild asparagus

The April showers (well, torrential rain and hailstorms) mean that what was once hard bare ground is now lush with bright green shoots of new growth.

Impending rain

Hailstorm, 14 April

Icy cactus

The brambles are once again making their prickly way over the garden, but the terraces that we've not yet tidied up are full of the bright colours of wild flowers - purple thistles, yellow cotton lavender, and lots of plants - pink, red and orange - that I haven't yet identified.

Best of all, there's wild asparagus. 

When we arrived in Catalunya in March last year we often spotted people walking slowly by the side of the road with big handfuls of long, slender spears. I looked out for it too, but never succeeded. After a few weeks of determined effort though this year I've got my asparagus eye trained.

It is much more slender than the asparagus in the shops, often very dark green, and, when it gets overgrown, all those little buds on the sides shoot out to become prickly branches.

Wild asparagus

After 10 minutes of foraging

I fry it quickly in a little olive oil and some salt. With a little bread it's a good starter. It tastes smokier than cultivated asparagus and somehow a little more green.

There's also wild garlic springing up now, hard green apricots and almonds are already on the trees, and the cherries are definitely on their way.

Little green hands: the first fig leaves in early April

Eco-conquering the washing machine: part two

I've been using Ecoballs with mixed results in the washing machine. (See part one for background to this post.)

In their favour, they massively cut down water and energy use. I've been running the first part - the washing part - of the cycle as usual off the generator. (We tried the heating-the-water part directly from our off-grid system, but got scared when it started sucking more than 100 amps of power out, so switched it back over to the genny.)

Then, as the Ecoballs say they don't need a rinse cycle, when this first part is finished (after about half an hour) I stop the machine, turn off the generator, plug the machine into the wall (so it's running off the solar and wind) and flick the dial around to the final rinse and spin, thereby missing out two rinses and another half hour or so of washing machine churning.

So, by doing this, I've halved the water used and cut the use of the generator by about 60 per cent, which is very good.

However, I'm still not convinced by the cleaning power of the Ecoballs. Some smells and stains linger more than they would with the traditional method. And I can't get the tea towels clean in spite of soaking overnight in Ecover laundry bleach and then washing at 60 degrees.

I think the way forward might be a compromise between washing the less dirty stuff with Ecoballs, and the tougher stuff with soap.

Eco-conquering the washing machine: part 1

The other day a clever man suggested that instead of running our washing machine directly from the generator, our solar/wind-powered system could handle a cold wash on its own.

Until now I've been too frightened to even consider trying to run the washing machine without the generator. All that water-churning and spinning must, I assumed, take loads of power: too much perhaps for our little alternative system. As a consequence, doing the washing is a noisy business with the washing machine and generator thundering away together; and not very green or cheap at all as it uses up half a tank of petrol (and, incidentally, about 80 litres of water).

What I do know about washing machines though is that heating up the water takes the most energy out of of the whole cycle. As I needed to wash some sheets and I didn't want to wash them in cold water, I decided to experiment.

I ran the first half of the wash as usual from the generator. This meant that the water was heated up to 40 degrees by petrol power. Then I switched off the genny (oh, the silence!), crossed my fingers and plugged into the other system which was being powered up nicely by the midday sun.

With my hand hovering over the washing machine's off switch in case anything suddenly went horribly wrong, I watched how much energy it was using. It turned out that the sun could manage perfectly well - the machine's needs were relatively modest. (For anyone interested, it took about 15 amps to turn the drum around each time during the rinse cycle, and spinning took about 29 amps.)

A success!

Next step: to reduce the machine's water and energy consumption by getting the ecoballs out of the box and cutting out a few of the three or four rinses that it seems to think that it needs.

Next step after that: to supply water to the washing machine which has already been warmed by the sun (or at least gas until we get a solar water system).

• Spotted today - a lovely big hairy bumblebee and - I think - a hummingbird hawk moth.

Before we turn on the tap: replenishing our water supply

We were really hoping that it was going to rain around now. Last year when we came here on holiday, we got drenched in September. But, as yet, there has been nothing more than a short shower since June.

Our water is supplied from a cisterna under the house. This is filled up by the rain running off the roof, or by Juan the water man (which costs 90 euros per delivery, or 45 euros if we share the delivery with next door).

As the cisterna was nearly empty and we didn't want to spend lots of money, we decided to get our water from another source. In the village there is a well for the farmers. As we live in the countryside, we have bought a swipe card to gain access to this supply too.

So we took our 1,000-litre plastic water cube on a trailer down to the village, swiped our card at the well and filled up. We hadn't used the cube or the trailer before, so we weren't quite sure if everything was going to survive such a heavy load. But we checked the trailer tyre pressures, made sure everything was secured as best we could and drove slowly back up the hill to the house.

Filling up the water

Everything was going very well indeed until we turned off the tarmac road and up the hill on to the track to our house. We hit a massive bump which dislodged the cube so it slid back on the trailer, burst out of the trailer's back gate and hit the ground, wedging the corner of the trailer into the ground and leaving the cube at 45 degrees, half in and half out of the trailer. We tried to drag the trailer and the cube (which was still half-tied to the trailer) forward with the car, but one of the car's back wheels just spun round and round on bare rock. It looked as though we were going to have to open the tap, let all that precious water run down the road and start again

But our Nissan 4x4 (which until now, I've thoroughly disliked for its bigness, its redness and its unwieldiness) didn't let us down. We tried again and again with the four-wheel drive engaged, changing the angle of the wheels until at last that back tyre found some traction and we could edge forward. The trailer righted itself and - with the cube still hanging out of the back - we crept towards the house.

After that, things were easy. We attached a hose to the cube and ran it down to the entrance to the cisterna. Because the inside of the cube was dirty we held a tea towel over the end of the hose to filter the water. After five minutes or so our cube was empty and our cisterna was a bit fuller than it was before.

And most of you, dear readers, just turn on the tap...

PS - seeing that water is a finite resource really makes us think hard about how we use our water. (See this blog post too.) According to BBC Panorama, the average person in the UK uses 150 litres of water a day.

I think we're using at most about 1,000 litres a week between us, which is an average of 70 litres a day per person - which is still a lot of water when you see it in front of you.

Where does it go? Our washing machine is extremely thirsty - it needs about 90 litres for a wash and we do about two washes a week. I also hand-wash some things using the run-off from the washing machine followed by clean water for rinsing. So I guess this accounts for about 400 litres a week.

That means that we each use about 43 litres a day for washing ourselves, washing the dishes, flushing the toilet and watering a few plants - gosh.

Late summer in England

I spent the last two weeks of August in the UK, and it was cold. I packed for this trip in the middle of the day, when it was 35 degrees and sunny, and I really couldn't imagine feeling cool, let alone very cold indeed.

So it was a bit of a shock to arrive in England and find that it really wasn't warm enough to be wearing just skirts, T-shirts and sandals. In particular, it wasn't warm enough to be wearing such flimsy attire when I went camping with friends for the August bank holiday weekend. One night in my tent I slept in and under the following: trousers, socks, vest top, t-shirt, hoodie (hood up), silk sleeping bag liner (stretched over cold nose), sleeping bag, fleece blanket (doubled), anorak, bath towel and – getting desperate now – slightly damp hand towel over feet. I was still cold.

Nevertheless, the rain managed to hold itself back for most of the weekend, the hailstones that hit Suffolk didn't hit us and we even managed to pack up the tents when it was dry, which made life much easier. And we had a lovely time.

I spent some of the fortnight relishing a few of the things that are good about England: smoked bacon, soft (albeit slightly damp) grass, multiculturalism (yes, even after the riots), deciduous trees, fish and chips and mushy peas, bitter, the first conkers, overpriced East End trinket shops...

I also stepped out of a few eco-habits. When it's tipping it down outside, there's really not much point in saving the few drops of water that you've rinsed out the teapot with to put on the tomatoes. And when it's chilly in the morning it's a real wrench to turn off the lovely warm shower while you wash and shiver.

While it's turning to autumn in England, it's still summer in Spain - hurray! It's great to be back!

Should I get a mangle? Sensible and not-so-sensible energy-saving ideas

We're off grid - we have no mains gas, electricity or water.

Gas is easy. It comes in big orange bottles which, when empty, you exchange for full ones from garages or the gas man who comes into the village every Wednesday morning.

Under the house is a massive concrete cisterna which stores rainwater drained from the roof. When there's no rain we can get Juan the water man to fill it up from his lorry (90 euros per delivery - last time we shared it with our neighbours), or we can put a water cube on our trailer which we can fill for free from the well in the village. The water gets from the cisterna into the house by an electric-powered water pump.

Electricity comes from our solar panels on the roof, our little wind turbine on the highest point on the hill behind the house or our generator.

Even though I've always tried to be frugal with resources, the whole world changes when you can no longer take them for granted. Here are some of the sensible - and a little bit crazy - procedures I've been putting in place.

1) Not flushing the toilet very often. This saves gallons of water, plus lots of electricity as the water pump takes a great deal of power. Am I a little bit strange for telling visitors who come from the world of plenty that they're very welcome not to flush? NB if you go to a party in an off-grid home, it's perfectly acceptable not to flush.

2) Re-thinking clothes washing. The washing machine has to run directly off the generator. It takes about an hour and a half and 3 or 4 euros-worth of petrol to do a wash. The waste water gushes straight out into a bucket so I can see the huge amount of water that it's using. I'm thinking hard about whether clothes are really dirty before they go in the machine, hand washing some more clothes in the outflow (the water is used twice that way), and beginning to wonder if I could stop the machine before the spin cycle and rely on the sun and the wind - or even a mangle (it's one of these, kids) - to do the drying.

3) Trying to read by candle-light. That doesn't work very well.

4) Buying more batteries. We've been running the CD player off batteries so that we don't have to worry about it draining the electricity system. But do old batteries pollute the world more than us having to put the generator on a little more often?

5) Unplugging things when they're not in use. We've been told for years that phone chargers suck up power, even when they're not charging your phone. I never bothered with unplugging them when they weren't being used - I do now.

6) Trying to work out what volts, amps and kilowatt hours are. I'll get back to you about this.

7) Saving water. I take a bucket into the shower to collect the water that I'm too chicken to wash under before it's warmed up - I'm getting about three litres a day from this, which is enough to water quite a few plants. We're using eco-friendly washing up liquid and clothes washing liquid so that we can throw the grey water onto the garden without worrying about poisoning everything. Obviously, turning the tap off when teeth-cleaning. And doing the washing up all in one go rather than turning the tap on every time a cup is dirty.

8) Not opening the fridge - unless it's absolutely necessary. Because every time you open the fridge it warms it up so the power has to kick in to cool it down again. No more staring into the fridge idly wondering what to have for lunch - a decision has to be made fast.

9) Loving sunny, windy days. This means power!