Lanzarote Information

I was interested to read in Jules’s blog about the allotments available from Teguise council as I love to potter in the garden.

I get a huge sense of achievement when I cook what I have grown from the smallest of seeds, and there is just no comparison on the taste of freshly picked veg. I am by no means an expert though and feel my best successes come from plants which are able to survive my somewhat sporadic care and attention.

When we moved to our present house a few years ago the previous owner told us that she had had a huerta on the NE side of the garden but it had long been neglected. This terraced part of the garden is quite sheltered and very shady all afternoon. With our gradual refurbishment of the house we attempted a general tidy of the garden and I decided to plant a few veggies just for fun.

We started with a variety of plants but we have found those which are generally available in Lanzarote are obviously most suited to the climate and conditions.  Courgettes, pumpkin, melon and green beans all do well but do benefit from a daily visit. Our two older children both attended a school with a thriving veg patch and it was left to my older son to explain to me the finer points of a courgettes’ sex life!

We planted two aubergine plants and during our first summer we furnished our whole street with more aubergines than they wanted, we saw the looks of resignation when we were palming them off daily with ever more. Spinach, radish, carrots and broccoli have all had turns in the patch but by far our best success is tomatoes.

We originally planted about 10 seedling tomato plants around the New Year, and then once they were well under way we prepared a few drill holes and each time we ate tomatoes we would plant up another row of seeds, thrown in directly from the bread board.

Once the plants start flowering they generally need to be strung up to encourage growth, but other than that you can just leave them to get on with it. This winter has been characterised with several very large downpours and so during the winter months I haven’t watered them at all. After the recent calimas I would hose down the whole of the plants to wash the dust off or water them about twice a week.

For the past few weeks the tomatoes have been ripening bit by bit and we would generally pick around 5 a day, however there is a point when this quantity just explodes exponentially and last year I was processing up to 10 kilos a week for a month. I happily made chutney, homemade ketchup and pasta sauce storing them in my pantry like a miser counting his cash! The tomato chutney lasted the whole year out with the last few jars going out to mates at Christmas, by which point it is so mellow and tasty it spurs you on to get the plants in again for the next year.

I’m not sure I would be able to look after a large allotment but would love to hear from anyone who is doing so.

Tracy is a staff writer for Lanzarote Information, you can read more about her here.