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April in Review

May 1, 2011 in Camping News, Campsite Improvements, Den, Environmentally Friendly, Frugal Living, Fun Stuff, Making & Baking, Nature, Organic Gardening by fullmonte | 3 comments

What’s fresh?

(Noting what’s fresh & local to know what I can grow & when and a record of fresh pickings from our garden to improve future planting plans, manage gluts better etc)

From the store:

  • Lettuce
  • Poriluk (spring onions)
  • Spinach

From the garden:

  • Rocket – 2 varieties
  • Radish
  • Lettuce
  • Herbs – chives, basil, coriander, parsley and from nature’s garden wild thyme & oregano

And some April 1sts:

  • 1st flowering of newly planted apple tree
  • 1st salad picked from the organic garden

Nature’s floral display this month was stunning.  The juxtaposition of the fresh lime green of new leafy growth and the vivid pinks & purples of Spring blossom was breathtaking and the short-lived but stunning wisteria flowers adorned many trellises in Herceg Novi.

Sowing & Planting

(Building a record of what I need to prepare for next in the garden)

Apart from sowing a few more flowers and herbs and some more peppers & chillies, because the germination rate on the first batch was poor, this month’s been mostly about potting on or planting out.  I’ve managed to ignore my own advice already – so much for a neat gardening folder with monthly tasks (!),  I keep forgetting to consult it and have planted my aubergines and cucumbers out too early.  They’ll survive but they’ll be stunted.  Beans & sweetcorn I sowed direct into the beds this year after my first 2 attempts to germinate seeds in pots failed.  It’s  a relief to see these guys appear:

The second of the sisters, peas, are now flowering and we await the emergence of the third, the mighty corn.  In other beds, courgettes, marrows, pumpkins and (to a lesser extent) cucumber are romping away together.  Brassica seedlings are emerging.  Tomatoes & aubergines will soon be joined by peppers & chillies and are interplanted with marigold, borage & parsley.  Thanks to El via this amazing blog I now have carrot seedlings.  I was admiring the lush fronds of her carrot tops in this post & asked her how she did it.  She told me that carrots like to be in the cold & damp a while to germinate so to try soaking cardboard, weighed down with stones, and get them started under that.  It worked a treat!  Onions, leeks, spinach & beets are keeping the carrots company and in the last bed lettuce is growing away with rocket, radish, onions, leeks, sorrel & spinach.

The 15 or so sweet peas seedlings were planted as centre-pieces in 2 of my new flower beds.  Yes, I’m trying again with flowers…  This year I’ve made small beds within the orchard area, dug out all the soil and replaced it with compost & leaf mould and am watering it daily.

I reused scrap metal mesh to make a sturdy tower for the ornamental peas to scramble up and the 2 sunflowers were planted up against this frame too, to support them as they reach for the sun.  Nicotiana were the centrepieces in the rest of the flower beds and alyssum, lavateria, californian poppy, nigella & nasturtium were sown direct around the feature plants.

Comfrey has been planted out in the grey-water baths & the flower garden.  I’ve sown borage in amongst the tomatoes.  And dill, curly-leaf parsley, tarragon and purple basil are new additions to our herb family.

Baking & Making

(A chance to reflect on the culinary success & failures of the month & share crafty moments)

Absolutely no time for creativity this month – too busy working & having fun – and the only notable culinary success was an Indian meal a few of us pulled together for a friend’s birthday at short notice.  Therese did one of her delicious Thai curries, Hayley did poppadoms and rice and I did dips (chilli jam, kiwi chutney, creamy chilli dip & raita), a delicious dahl (if I do say so myself), onion bhaji and Aloo something-or-other, my signature potatoe dish.

Reading

(Love sharing the books I’m into)


“The Closed Circle ” was an open book to me.  I found myself predicting what was coming next – it was just too obvious.  And the series of snippets of people’s lives just didn’t coelesce into an enjoyable book for me.  It didn’t hang together into an overall story and for me the sum of the parts wasn’t greater than the whole.


It’s a sign of how busy I’ve been this month that I haven’t even started another book.

What’s the vibe?

(This month’s gut reaction)

It’s been a month of doing not thinking, which has been very healthy for me.  Hours toiling in the sun, making great progress on the campsite (post to follow soon, I promise) has left me feeling positive and fulfilled.  I’m so proud of what we’re doing and it’s hard not to be in love with life when the great Mother’s garden is so beautiful, the birds are singing and my skin (over toned muscles!) is turning brown.

Quality time with my Dad made me feel lucky and deeply happy & sad at the same time.  It was great to have him around but time is marching on for us.

We took time to seriously enjoy ourselves this month and have had some magical moments.  It’s been a reminder of how blessed we are: great friends, great space & time…

Bookings are continuing to come in, slowly but surely.  We won’t make a fortune this summer but I’m confident we’ll survive with some pennies in our pockets and that’s a good vibe.

Listening to

(Trying to listen to some new tunes every month)

Aurally challenged.  Still.

Fun Stuff

(‘Nuff said)

It was great having Dad around & watching him enjoy contributing to our project.  He grouted one of the toilets:

And cleaned and repainted the BBQ:

We had a day trip to the capital, Podgorica, and paid a visit to the local monastery in Savina:

Dad was delighted by the puppy and it was during his stay that we finally settled on her name: Daisy Marmite.  She turned up at the same time as the daisies on the campsite; she’s Marmite coloured & Steve LOVES her…  It’s a name she’s really growing into and she’s been a lot of fun this month.

A couple of nights before Dad had to leave, we went out to Konoba Izvor for a meal and I invited a few friends to join us and meet my Dad.  Maja, Keith, Matt, Amy, Therese, Hayley, & Simonida joined me, Steve, Dad & Nik and we had a lovely evening together.

Amy’s birthday was a good excuse for an evening out.  It just so happened that a great Jazz band from New York was playing a free gig on the night of her birthday in the new Marina development in Tivat.  Fiona & Dave very kindly offered to pick us all up in the rib and we whizzed over the water in minutes.  Once tied up in the Marina, Fiona popped some bubbles to celebrate Amy’s birthday.  Then we headed into town to grab a pizza before enjoying the foot-tapping delights of the Eli Yamin Jazz Quartet.

Next up was Danny’s birthday and Fiona & Dave kindly offered up use of their friend’s luxurious house, in a stunning setting looking out over Zanjic across to the island of Mamula.  A bunch of us turned up & partied with Danny for 2 amazing days.  Here’s the birthday girl opening her pressies:

We spent the days doing this:

And in the evenings, after delicious barbecued meat & yummy salads and plenty more bottles of bubbly, the wigs & masks came out & the sillyness ramped up!

Lounging around on huge bean bags by the pool, eating delicious food, drinking bubbles in the sun, laughing until our faces hurt, I wondered what exactly I had done to deserve all this!  It was an amazing couple of days, making new friends, enjoying the company of old ones and thanking our lucky stars.  Daisy Marmite had a wonderful time.  It was her first long (over an hour) trip out in the van and she was fine on the journey.  Once at the villa in Zanjic, she was be-friended by Robin’s ‘puppies’ (more like dogs now, being 9 months old & HUGE) that have become part of Fi & Dave’s extended dog family.  The ginger & white gang (Boydy, Hang, Missy & Shortie) were surprisingly tolerant of the small silly puppy and Hang, in particular, played with her & protected her.  Daisy went happily mad – gambolling about furiously and even enjoying the odd dip in the pool.  It was good for her to socialise with other dogs, get the odd nip when she got out of hand and learn how to play nicely!  I think they might have also taught her to bark though, because she seemed to find her yappy little voice after that… Oh joy. Not.

When we finally left Zanjic on Saturday morning, a little jaded and definitely feeling like we’d been ‘indulging’ for 2 days, we got a call from our local friends to say they were coming to the campsite.  We were used to making tentative plans with these guys and stuff not actually happening so when we got a call from them the day before to say the gang was in town (Alena & Tomo back from Belgrade with Banja etc) & wanted to come over, we didn’t take it seriously.  But Alena really wanted to get a hit of nature in the Boka after big city Belgrade and hassled the guys to get their act together & get over to the campsite.  It was a wonderful, impromptu ‘Big Saturday’ (that’s what they call the day inbetween Good Friday and Easter Sunday: “Veliki Subota”).  We were drinking loza in the sun with these lovely people by noon.

Despite getting on the alcohol so early, we managed to salvage something of the day to get some jobs done.  Tomo was a star & helped Steve re-construct another compost toilet chamber:

Later with Aleksa and Nik’s help, they knocked up cement and got the floor in the last toilet chamber sorted.  Meanwhile I led the work on the tyre wall and got the guys levelling tyres & shovelling soil:

Meanwhile, Alena scoured the grounds for wild asparagus (not asparagus as we know it but tasty when chopped up and served with egg, garlic & onion) and cooked it up for us and Jelena & Ankica played some Swingball.

Mid afternoon Nikola took control at the bbq, cooking up the mounds of meat, whilst Jelena created a tasty salad by shredding cabbage & garden greens & tossing them in a delicious dressing.  Aleksa cooked up some fish to add to the feast:

Then it was time to play:

Or crash out on the sofa:

Bebu (Aleksa’s dog, pictured here) gave more opportunities for Daisy Marmite to learn how to be with other dogs.  She got a few nips & was growled at a lot but they figured it out and co-existed peacefully in the end.  And you can imagine what fun Daisy had chasing the big metal balls…

Easter was a complete non-event in the end.  I had great plans for intricate treasure hunts and competitions but there were too many people away or busy so no teams were entered.  Since  Easter Sunday directly followed Danny birthday binge & Big Saturday fun, we didn’t have the energy or compulsion to do all the Easter things we’d originally considered.

Tim Time

(Bizarre & extraordinary happenings?  This is Montenegro)

This month’s story is an old one.  Our mate Amy S was back for a flying visit with her 2 lovely children & we were chuckling about the time when Jasper was a baby and a Doctor friend of Amy’s insisted on looking after him for an afternoon, freeing Amy up to do stuff.  When Amy returned to her friend’s house to pick Jasper up, she was ushered into a bedroom where her baby son was nestled between Grandma & Grandpa tucked up in bed.  Can you imagine the uproar in the UK of a friend (a Doctor no less!) handing your son over to her parents (who?) to mind… in their bed! (Where? What?!)

One Green Thing

(One more step along our green journey)

I‘m running out of green things to do with no money.  Rain collection is our current longed-after green thing… Watch this space for breakthroughs in creativity & funds on this one!

Weather Report

(Charting the weather for us and our garden)

The sun continued to shine.  Watering plants, flowers & grass was a daily task this month, trailing lengths of hose around the campsite trying to quench the thirst of our young.  We’ve been working loads at the campsite & finally decided it was time to move up there to maximise our efforts – being on site, with limited internet & no TV, we get so much more done.

May 1st is a big holiday here where the tradition is to go up into the hills, build a fire & camp.  Perfect!  We decide to invite friends to camp out with us and moved on site on Friday to start the task of cleaning the building, tidying the grounds and getting everything set up for easy living.  Yesterday the rain came.  It bucketed it down all evening and we were literally in the clouds, unable to see the trees beyond the boundary of the camp.  We spent a chilly, soggy night & today cancelled the camp out & headed back to Topla.  It’s been raining for 24 hours at this point and set to stay wet for the next 5 days.  Daisy Marmite is not amused.

So, the campsite opening was a damp squib (thank god the first guest of the season – due to arrive on May 1st – had cancelled) but the earth is drinking deep and that’s a great thing.  I am looking forward to seeing the transformation in growth after this deluge.  Even before the rain, the campsite looked like this:


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Life goes on…

April 23, 2010 in Nature, Organic Gardening by fullmonte | 2 comments

The cow came back.

I know, I know… we were supposed to have made the camp cow-proof by now, but Steve only managed to get the barbed wire barrier erected along & across the stream (dodging the hailstones), before the storm soaked him to the skin.  The hammering the weather gave him that day probably helped his man flu to develop.  This illness, plus days away in Dobrota helping a friend, meant we were away from the campsite for nearly a week and on our return the bovine bugger’s recent presence was immediately obvious (the cow only, mysteriously, visits when we are not there…).

The cabbages (they might have been brussel sprouts – they had never actually grown to their adult form… they were munched within an inch of their lives last summer but we left the stalks and they had started to re-grow) were the only victims:

If the munched stalks weren’t evidence enough, the 3 cow pats (on the grass in this picture…) left us in no doubt.  Thankfully, this time it didn’t trample the raised beds so the little cucumbers (in the photo above) escaped a crushing.

How now, <insert colour> cow? <insert rude word>!

Due to all the rain, the soft mud had preserved it’s hoof-marks well.  We followed these prints carefully, noting the direction of the hooves to determine which way the cow was ambling.  Flanking my Sherlock, I pointed out be-headed tufts of grass and we noted more droppings.  We paced the entire site, methodically and carefully, looking for clues; flattened undergrowth, trampled ground… We had been told that cows don’t climb steps – was this an old wive’s tale or fact???  We detected this may be true…

The stream defence (we are 99% sure) is cow-proof so we have eliminated one line of enquiry.  It seems the cow entered through a gap in the boundary at the lowest terrace.  The route from the land beyond onto this terrace is an overgrown slope but not impassable for a determined beast.  The route from the lower terrace to the next one up is a walk along the top of a stone wall.  It’s precarious for us, but apparently cows aren’t unphased by tiptoeing along the edge of the wall!  The route from there to the next terrace up is via a couple of steps… There were hoof-marks either side of these steps to suggest it avoided them but the climb wasn’t high enough to deter the cow.  The new terrace walls with their steps, were simply walked around and over by the cow and, interestingly, whereas last time the cow barged up the slope leading to the orchard/ flower garden area and gobbled the newly formed fruit on the pear tree, this time the simple steps cut into the mud bank had seemingly deterred the animal and the pear continues to blossom, unmolested:

And at every point where the way down was via a long set of steps and where all other routes down or up were too high a climb, we saw the hoof-marks turning round and going back the way they came….

We have erected a barbed wire barrier across the gap in the lowest terrace – too low to be got under and too high to get over – and have started to pile up against it all the prickly, thorny undergrowth we have cut down.  We hope that by the time all the strimming and clearing is done this Spring, all the cuttings are piled up against the boundary and the brambles start to grow up it, the boundary will appear to be naturally intact.

We await further visitations.  If it comes again we will be beyond baffled.

In the meantime, let’s celebrate the green life that continues to flourish.  The beans are running away (we noted that one leaf was munched from one plant but seemingly the cow prefers its greens older and stringier!):

The courgettes may have suffered from a little slug damage but they are mostly flourishing:

And the green shoots of the lovely legumes proves Steve (and John Lennon) was right: Give Peas A Chance

The herbs remain lush… here the parsley, mint & thyme is flourishing:

Above the flower garden, the passion flower – the sole survivor of all the cuttings we tended last year – has made it through the winter and is now growing new leaves and extending its tendrils up the palm fence:

And the sweet peas are leaning towards their supports in the flower garden, hopefully getting ready to stretch themselves up the trellis and begin their scented ascent.

Last autumn Steve put 3 walnuts in 3 pots and we mostly forgot about them, occasionally checking for signs of life.  Two of the seeds have sprouted and here’s a tiny nut tree:

However, in the third pot, the seed had been dug up and the nut-muncher left behind some hair:

Phew, it’s survival of the fittest here in our organic garden!

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Eating a very small Elephant – with a side dish of veg!

April 12, 2010 in Nature, Organic Gardening, The Build by fullmonte | 1 comment

The elephant task of dealing with the ditch and its resulting spoil is almost done.  There’s just an ickle little (not-so) jumbo Dumbo left!  We’ve been so busy working, my blog’s been abandoned and now I’m struggling to catch up with myself…

Most of the landscaping on the first 2 terraces (well 3, if you include the flower garden by the palm fence) has been done.

This is the view of the newly levelled ground, covered with as much top soil as I could find in the surrounding area (no budget for loads of bags of compost) and then sown with grass seed.

This terrace is doing ok, but the one below it has been ravaged by ants.  The day after we sowed all the grass and watered it in, we arrived to find mounds of seed everywhere that the ants had found, stockpiled in one place and were ferrying down into their nests!  We’re just hoping some germinate before the busy little workers get them all!

Steve continued his dry stone walling all the way to the raised beds, so all the greywater pipes are hidden under earth and contained within mini stone-walled beds.  There’ll be a separate post on the greywater system, coming soon.

To finish the whole series of stone terraces off and link to the garden, he found a railway sleeper bowed perfectly to fit the space and give an attractive curved finish:


We’ve done a ton of stuff I haven’t got pictures of, including:

  • moving the pallet fence monstrosity that contained our compost heaps.  We now have a bigger grassed area in between the stream and the garden, a perfect 4-man tent pitch.  (No new compost heap yet though, a new addition to THE BIG LIST!)
  • tidying up the remaining soil and clay we haven’t had a place to put yet by cutting rough steps into it so we can more easily access the flower bed & orchard
  • raking, tidying and sowing grass seed all over
  • planting flowers (marigolds, cinias and geraniums) in the new bed at the bottom of the stream steps
  • making a start on cow-proofing the boundary with barbed wire

We also had a tidy up of railway sleepers but needed some hunky lads to help us shift the buggers.  Shame we could only find these lot!

But they were super stars, helping chuck the sleepers down 2 terraces for Steve to use for his tent pitch project.


I’ve been busy planting flowers & herbs all over the place.  You can’t really see much in this photo but trust me, this new bed around the first bath in our greywater system is full of aromatic herbs: basil, coriander, fennel, chive, mint…

My veg plants romped away well on our sunny terrace…

This year we have taken more care to harden the plants off before planting them out and resisting the temptation to plant them too soon.  The ‘babies’ have become my new obsession, lots of veg on the menu to help digest the last of that elephant!

So far we’ve planted out:

  • sweetcorn
  • 6 types of lettuce (might be too soon for them, but it’s a small window of opportunity before it becomes too hot & too late)
  • cucumbers, this time around a trellis so they will climb UP   (the way the locals do it,  saves space in the garden and makes them easier to pick when they hang down)
  • courgettes (ditto as above for trellis)
  • runner beans
  • marigolds – everywhere as they were the perfect companion plant last year to just about everything and were such good value, flowering for months

Pumpkins, cabbages & sweet peas should have been planted out today but the torrential hailstorm rather put a damper on those plans.  Hopefully tomorrow!

Andwe have  sowed:

  • peas (not a single one has come up having been planted direct into the ground – have sowed some in pots today as insurance!)
  • carrots
  • radish
  • rocket
  • various herbs: dill, parsley, oregano, basil, coriander, fennel, chives

(Beets should have been sown today after soaking overnight but they’ll get sown on the next dry day)

The melons, tomatoes, peppers & chillies will be ready to plant out soon and I’m sowing more sweetcorn and beans because I want lots of them!  Failures this year were caulis (again!).  Lesson learnt: don’t plant these in toilet roll tubes – that method is only for things that germinate quickly (like corn & beans).  Also, parsnip seeds didn’t germinate – they were gifted by a local friend and I think they were old seeds).  Successes: peppers & chillies using last year’s collected seeds.

Today I read a great post over at the Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op which is very timely because it’s given me some new ideas for companion planting and there’s still time to juggle my planting plan around to accomodate some ‘helpers’.  Interestingly, I read that you should avoid putting carrot in the proximity of dill.  I’m sure last year I read something to the contrary and planted dill in my root veg bed.  The dill flourished but the carrots did not!  Time to try something different and see if we get better results.  Aliums are good companions apparently so will plant the last of my onions there; peas & chives will be fitted in too, as healthy helpers.

I have a few random pots with seeds of fruit I’ve collected (plums, dates, tamarind, japanses apple).  Nothing’s really sprouted but a walnut that Steve stuck in a pot last autumn has!

So now it’s time to sit back and let nature do it’s stuff… let the grass grow over the elephant, let the vegetables flourish in a cow-free zone and let the flowers & herbs blossom to attract nicer beasties like birds, bees and butterflies.

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Weathering the storms

July 13, 2009 in Organic Gardening, The Build by fullmonte | 1 comment

We’ve taken quite a battering lately – funds running low, tasks mounting high, the global economic crisis as an unwelcome back drop – but most dramatic has been what nature’s had to throw at us.  We’ve had a week of mental weather – even when the day has stayed dry, the evenings have brought us incredible thunder & lightning…

Lightning strikes

We have no blinds or curtains in the top 2 floors of our house and there have been nights that the whole place has been lit up from all over the sky with the most amazing flashes.  And then of course, there’s the rain.  It has rained buckets and buckets and one day last week, Steve & I were working in the shower block as a storm raged overhead and we watched in dismay as the land turned to mud around us in minutes.  The water poured off the road and through the palm fence in a stream that gushed into the raised beds.  And the basement room filled up with water.

Although disheartened at the time, seeing where and why the water flowed onto the land and into the building was a valuable lesson and definitely better to learn it now than at a time when the camp is full of tents!  The water was flowing off the road because a) the main drainage gully was blocked with leaves and debris and b) there is a low point by the side of the road that needs building up or a pipe putting in to divert the water.  OK, we can deal with that…

The basement was filling up because water was flowing in through holes left for ventilation at the back of the building. We have dug a trench to divert the water away from these holes and have bought pieces of pipe which we will fit and have risers coming off so the air can can in but water can’t.  We have siphoned out all the water from the basement and now need to tackle the final messy job of shovelling out all the mud that has collected there, allowing the (now hot) ambient temperature to dry it completely and then sealing it good and proper from any potential dampness from below and around. We will be mindful of the land drainage issues as we develop the camping terraces, restoring the trenches dug along terrace walls to ensure there are decent soakaways, with plenty of gravel.

The upside of all the rain is that the garden is flourishing again.  It has been a joy watching nature repair itself.  Here are some of the raised beds looking not so cow trodden!

Raised beds - early July

Thankfully, most of the tomatoes are flowering again…

The tomatoes will not be squashed!

And look at the cabbages and broccili – unbelievable progress, from munched stumps to this!

Bravo brassicas

And after all the drama, the cucumbers are fruiting well!

Cool as a cucumber!

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