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May in Review

June 12, 2011 in Camping News, Campsite Improvements, Environmentally Friendly, Fun Stuff, Making & Baking, Nature, Naturist, Organic Gardening, Reduce Reuse Recycle, Team News by fullmonte | 2 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
  • Strawberries
  • Cherries

From the garden:

  • Rocket – 2 varieties
  • Spinach
  • Sorrel
  • Garlic
  • Radish
  • Lettuce – reds, greens, curly, straight… that’s as technical as my varieties get!  All delicious!

  • Herbs – chives, basil (purple, neapolitana & thai), coriander (regular, confetti & lemon), parsley, dill and mint
  • Courgettes
  • Peas

Sowing & Planting

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

Everything got planted this month, ready or not!!!  We moved onto the campsite from mid May and had to transfer the nursery from the house.  After a week or so of pots kicking about, I decided it was more practical to plant them all.  I know that some seedlings (peppers, chillies for example) would have benefitted from growing on in pots for longer but in the end I just didn’t have the time to faff about with potting on.  I tucked the little guys under the shelter of tomatoes already growing strong & hoped for the best.  My monthly gardening calendar didn’t account for moving onto site so early so my plan has gone awry but I’m taking good notes on what’s working and what’s not, so… we’ll break the rules and learn some more.

By the end of May the peas had been & nearly gone.  We enjoyed a week or so with the sweet green pods popping up in every other meal and then the greenfly weakened them and the sun scorched them and they began to fade.  The sweetcorn & beans are romping away and lettuce, beets & chard are filling the spaces they left behind.

There’s been a lot of direct sowing of seeds for successive croppings of radish, beetroot, sorrel, chard, spinach, lettuce, cucumber & peas.

I’ve just seen the picture of the flower garden from the beginning of April and chuckled.  The area is unrecognisable now, largely due to the hard toil of Sara & Lluis, our 2 Spanish wwoofers who identified & labelled edible plants & medicinal herbs and have created even more beds for the thinnings from the veg garden that need more space.  They planted up palms too.  Here’s a photo to show ssome of the changes, but it really doesn’t do it justice…

And here’s a classic pic of one of the beauties flowering away now…

My “bo-flow-grove” (botanical garden/ flower bed/ citrus grove) is colourful & abundant.  I am beyond happy!

Baking & Making

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

In complete contrast to last month, the baking & making this month was OFF THE SCALE!!!

Pam & Gerry came to stay for a week at the beginning of May, so that was an excuse to cook nice food.  Here’s a pic of one of the more colourful creations…

The chutney & preserves were all gone so it was time to re-stock the larder.  I found a few bags of frozen kiwis for a new batch of indian-style pickle and oranges were good & cheap again, so I marmalade-d – one of the best so far according to my discerning tasters…

As the volunteer opportunities started to firm up alongside guest bookings I realised that it would be a task and a half just cooking for everyone, especially since 2 of the wwoofers were vegetarian so I would need some pre-cooked ingredients and good ideas up my sleeve.  So along with the preserves, I cooked up dahl and beans and stuff:

Nearly 3 weeks cooking pretty much solidly for 6 people and at times up to 13 with 2-3 vegetarians, was a challenge.  If I do say so myself, I whipped up some pretty fab food and our guests and volunteers were consistently complimentary.  Clean plates and lots of folk going back for seconds are the real sign of succes… The girl done good.

Reading

(Love sharing the books I’m into)


I started reading Sarah Waters’ “Afffinity” and over a month in, I am barely halfway through.  I struggled from the start with this book but I persisted as it was recommended by Fi, the provider of many a great book, so I trust her judgement.  I haven’t even picked this paperback up for many, many weeks.  Just no time or head space to read.  Surprisingly though, it’s central characters have stuck with me and I am looking forward to picking up the story again soon.

What’s the vibe?

(This month’s gut reaction)

May has been, well, frankly, stunning… We have been so busy it has been hard at times to feel anything and there’s been lots of being & doing & just making it through each day – stunned with what we’ve achieved, the community we’ve created and often exhausted with the strain and thrill of it all.

We have been lucky enough to spend time with family, old friends, new friends, volunteers (who have become new friends, I’m delighted to say), and lovely guests.  The cultures, nationalities and talents have been many & varied – Spanish food foragers & gardeners; plumbers, drummers & pickaxers from England’s North West; our first visitors from Albania and first proper paying Montenegrin guest; lots (proportionally) of Dutch folk; sailors & travelling musicians…

Speaking personally, it’s been a month of expectations being exceeded ++.  The flowers, vegetables and herbs have flourished and yeilds of everything are already higher than I dared hope.  Guests have come & gone, with full bellies and smiles – in fact most have left reluctantly and some have stayed longer than originally planned.  Last year we had zero paying guests in May; this year we’ve had 11!!!!  The volunteer experience has been enriching beyond belief.  We’ve got so much done (more of that in a subsequent post…) but more importantly we’ve laughed, cried, played together and created amazing moments & things.  Enquiries from guests and volunteers continue to trickle in and the immediate future looks rosy.  This month we’ve also had a visit from a journalist who was suitably impressed and has promised a glowing review in the Bradt Guide and we welcomed some folk from an organisation who arrange school trips in the UK & are considering us as a possible venue for the future.  The word about Camp Full Monte is spreading.

Listening to

(Trying to listen to some new tunes every month)

This month we’ve mostly been listening to Stefan Pope.  We’ve been lucky enough to have the great man live around our campfire and my only regret is that we haven’t been able to enjoy his drumming prowess.  I vow to go hear him bang his drum somewhere, one sunny day…

Fun Stuff

(‘Nuff said)

It was great having Pam & Gerry around although we did our usual thing and sent folk back more tired than before!  Pam worked her socks off in the garden and planted up our tyre wall:

I know she’ll be mad at me posting this picture but here’s another one, a really lovely photo of a really lovely lady, with Steve mowing the grass in the background:

Pam was delighted by the wild flowers (particularly the orchids and we were thrilled for her that there were so many to see!) and she decorated the campsite beautifully with her tasteful arrangements:

Despite terrible back pain, Gerry was also a great help.  He re-painted our main road sign which had been vandalised and made us a new sign for the basement door:

Gerry & Daisy Marmite got on like a house on fire.  He made her great toys to play with (plastic bottles strung from trees) and the 2 of them enjoyed the odd afternoon kip together!

We were delighted to welcome Annie back to Monte, this time on her own but nonetheless looking good & feeling fine.  Steve & I spent some great quality time with her at the campsite, where she chilled out and tested the hammocks for sleep-ability at regular intervals.

Our first proper volunteers, Nina, Stefan & Hattie arrived towards the end of the month.  The afternoon they arrived I went to pick up Mel, who we’d known in the early days in Monte but who had recently returned after some years in the UK, looking trim & happier & with a new man, Blanty in tow.   As I was driving them back to the campsite from town, we passed 3 young people with rucksacks on their back, which had to be our volunteers.  As I stopped the car to greet them, Blanty from the back seat says, calm as you like: “Hello Stefan”.  Turns out he knows one of the volunteers and they’d played music together in the same pubs in the UK…  Small friggin’ world!  Needless to say that evening round the campfire with the guitars a’twanging was a memorable one indeed.

Dear friends from my  Uni days, Val and Rick arrived on the same day as our first guests.  They got on famously with Nina, Stefan & Hattie and were there to greet the Spanish couple who joined us a few days later.  Val, bravely, cooked paella that night, which went down a storm:

Sara & Lluis had arrived from Croatia, where they had learnt to love Rakija.  They produced a coke bottle full of domaci (homemade) hooch and a guitar which Sara played beautifully & the evening really took off.

Rick, who Val & I have known for 20+ years got the most drunk we’d ever seen.  Not surprising since the range of alcohol consumed that night included: vodka, beer, wine, loza & amaretto…  It was a hoot!  And the hangovers the next days were immense.

There was just so much fun stuff going on this month, I’d be rambling on for an age… so here are some highlights:

  • a delicious meal out at a great Italian restuarant that Pam & Gerry treated us to.  Tooo stuffed for words… we all rolled home, groaning!
  • an impromptu music-fest with 2 guitars, 2 kazoos, some improvised instruments and many wonderful voices
  • an evening of Bridge with Rick & Val
  • playing “Hombres les Lobos” or “Killer” with the wwoofers
  • a crazy hike up to the rocks above the campsite
  • foraging for wild food
  • taking Daisy Marmite for long rambles and finding treasures… laden Mulberry trees, for example!

Tim Time

(Bizarre & extraordinary happenings?  This is Montenegro)

We got post delivered to the campsite!!!!  I’m still in shock about it…

We never give the address of our campsite to anyone as it translates to:

A campsite – sort of,
Somewhere on the road from Prijevor to Malta
Near Herceg Novi

However, we are marketing ourselves via a website called camping.info and address details were obligatory fields in the setup of our details.  They obviously then use these details to send info about offers and upgrading our profile.  We have never seen a postie in the area but one afternoon a mailshot from the camping info website was shoved through the bottom gate.  Remarkable!

One Green Thing

(One more step along our green journey)

We now have a worm bin up & running!  More compost, faster! (we hope…)

We reused an old dustbin donated by a friend.  Nina & Stefan did most of the hard work, helped a bit by Steve.

Weather Report

(Charting the weather for us and our garden)

The weather this month has been mostly gorgeous with the occasional stormy afternoon and the odd shower.  Watering is now a daily task as even when it rains, there’s not even moisture to quench the garden’s thirst.  Despite the hot, hot days, evenings on the campsite are still surprisingly chilly.

Here’s the view of the campsite from the rocks above at the end of May – so much greener this year than previous years when the clay mountains from the building works had clearly been a blot on the landscape, and so much tidier too with all the great work we’ve been doing:

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Growing up

June 16, 2010 in Nature, Organic Gardening by fullmonte | No comments

Everything is!

The beans are reaching for the sky, tendrils waving in the air.  Some of the sweetcorn is easily a metre high.  The lettuce is romping away, especially the bitter greens of the endive and raddichio which Steve loathes and everyone else loves!  Radishes are fat and pushing their deliciousness (made up word alert!) up out of the ground – they are moist & juicy, with a good peppery bite.  The cucumbers are climbing their frames and the courgettes are proudly fruiting.  The rocket is rocketing, especially the local style and pea pods are finally plumping up (that must be a word, surely?).

Here’s the harvest on June 10th:

That night we had an omelette with cheese, baby courgettes and wilted rocket, accompanied by a lettuce and radish salad, a rocket & pecorino salad and baby beans and peas.  Divine!!!  The peas and beans were soooo sweet and everything tasted, well, tasty!

And in the flower bed???  Well, the sweet peas are finally started to climb their trellises.  Thank God because frankly, the flower bed has been a bitter disappointment so far.  None of the seeds have taken – not really surprising I suppose, lots of them were years old saved from a life gone by.  The soil is pretty awful there.  I will really invest in fertilizing the area before I plant anything next year.  Any plant that does try to put down roots has to compete with the mass of roots from the surrounding trees and bushes, although I am starting to get these under control now.

Having said that, the pumpkin patch is flourishing and the sole survivor from last year’s passion flower cuttings is finally getting established and climbing the palm fence.  We won’t get flowers this year but it’ll be a picture next year.

And thank goodness for the trusty geranium.  It grows and flourishes there, against all odds.  Contrary to everything I’ve been told, I have been pruning the larger plants and putting the cuttings stright into the ground with a little compost and a lot of water.  Not a single one has failed to take and flower so far!!!

I am also setting off lots more marigolds as the hardy little plants will provide a splash of colour up there and I’ve just discovered that they are considered a good plant for deterring mozzies so it would be nice to have pots of marigolds around the building too!  I have been properly munched by the mozzies this year as the early evening when they are at their height is also the best time for watering the garden…  Oh, the sacrifices I make for my plants!

As for me… well, I’m not growing up at all!  In fact I’m back in the land of kids crafts again, enjoying spending evenings stringing holey stones to make a fanastic wind chime – organic in both sound and shape; and painting glass jars to make attractive candleholders for the building…

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Wearing my Scars with Pride!

July 13, 2009 in Fun Stuff, The Build, The Gang by fullmonte | No comments

By Nik Paddison

Come to Montenegro they said, join us for the summer they said, enjoy the nature of The Land, the sun and our company.  So I did, trouble is ever since I arrived they have stuck me down some hole in the ground that will someday be a toilet and made me work 12 hours a day!  I have a hammer and a chisel and spend my time breaking up concrete.  I get fed bread and water and am allowed to wash once a week.  They said it was a camp site they didn’t say anything about it being a sunny version of a Siberian Gulag!!!!!

Nik in his hole!

Actually I am having an amazing time – though I really am mostly working in a hole in the ground that will one day be a toilet, and I am using a hammer and chisel to break up concrete, but you will be happy to note they are feeding me more than bread and water and I do get to wash more than once a week!

If you have not visited The Land then I can only encourage you to do so.  It is a place of tranquility – often crazy but always tranquil. This is not a cliché, even if it sounds like one.  This small piece of Montenegro on the border with Croatia really has something special about it.  Added to this is the rare combination of Den and Steve  – put this amazing couple with this amazing land and something special was sure to happen.  And note I am referring to ‘The Land’ all the time. It is a strange phenomena here, people, ex-pats and locals, refer to; this persons house or that persons land or that persons project. But when it comes to Den and Steve, everyone refers to ‘The Land’, you don’t need to ask which land or where?  It just is The Land.  This is a place to relax and enjoy the moment and the moment can last a few hours, all day, a week or a month, its length is dictated by you.  Hmmm, starting to feel like an advert, so I will stop with this.

The Land is slowly but steadily becoming a camp site – or maybe that should be ‘The Camp Site!’ .  The toilets/kitchen block is the main focus of attention right now.  Steve working diligently on the electrics:

Stevo in his posing pouch - wiring up a light fitting!

Den painting anything that doesn’t move:

Den & yellow paint

And me, well you already know about me, I am down that hole! While waiting for construction materials or just looking for an excuse to stand up straight I have been planting a few things, Pear tree, Kiwis and Passion Flowers.  Saturday, Den and I spent most of the day in the basement (yes underground again, is there some kind of pattern here?), laying out floor tile designs with the amazing odd assortment of tiles they have accumulated.  We have most of the floor area sorted now with some pretty funky designs.  I am really looking forward to starting the tiling, it should be this coming week. Though I suspect that after several days of tiling I will be wishing for that hole in the ground again.

Nik & compost loo pipe

My small contribution to this camp site project is my limited abilities in labouring and the fact that I spend my life sitting in front of a computer so am incredibly unfit – believe me when I tell you that at the end of the day working up on The Land I can hardly move, but it’s a nice kind of a feeling.

It is a pleasure to be with my friends with their tanned bodies, their building scars, lean muscles and relaxed ‘we are out of the rat race’ smiles.  That’s not to say they don’t have stresses and worries especially with this economic climate, of course they do, just like everyone else.  But they have The Land, that special something.  I have been up there on and off for more or less a week now.  My body is still pale and white, it is certainly not lean and muscley, but that smile is spreading across my face more and more each day and I have my first working injuries; bruises, grazed knuckles, knee cut and a scratch on the top of my head!

I guess the best thing about all this is that Den and Steve do not hold their dream and The Land as something they greedily own and is only for them, they hold it as something to share with others and let others feel a part of.  I am looking forward to them welcoming their first guests and am glad of the opportunity to leave the desk behind for the summer to be part of their project for a short while and so I wear my scars (scratches) with pride!

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Gardening Dramas

May 11, 2009 in Organic Gardening by fullmonte | 3 comments

It’s been a stressful time on the gardening front but we are learning lots.  We now know that brassicas are difficult to grow, especially if you do all the wrong things (as I did!).  Lessons learnt: leave them in the seed tray until they are 7+cm tall and have plenty of leaves; don’t disturb their roots too early; firm the eart around them really well when transplanting.  A few of the cabbages and broccili that we transplanted have survived and are finally started to flourish but we kept quite a few back in the seed tray and these are very healthy specimens ready for transplanting in a week or so.  I have sown some cauliflower seeds directly in a pre-watered drill  as I have no time to set new plants off now and have nothing to lose by just seeing what will happen.  Sadly the brussel sprouts seeds were all sown at once and none survived.  We’ll get some more and try again next year!

Because we haven’t got the water connected to the shower block yet and don’t have our grey water system in place, we are having to water the raised beds with a hose.  It’s suddenly got hot so we can only water early in the morning or late afternoon so are now planning our work schedule around the garden duties.  The bed with the tomatoes and cucumbers seemed to be suffering particularly from lack of water and the cucumbers especially looked like they could do with a good feed.  Wanting to be organic and not really thinking, I heaped a load of fresh donkey and cow poo around the plants.  Bad idea!!!  Dung needs to be well rotted and not full of dung beetles which have a jolly old time burrowing into the ground!  Luckily I spotted my mistake the next day and scooped all the dung up again, piling it up near the compost area to rot down.  I don’t think the beetles have done any lasting damage and a regular soaking has improved the state of the plants in the bed.

Parsnips don’t germinate by sowing seeds directly into the ground.  I found out (too late!) that you should get them started on damp paper towels first.  Never mind – I’m using the space they were supposed to grow to sow cut and come again mixed lettuce leaves.  And talking of lettuce – we’re overrun with cos lettuce plants!  We sowed way, way too many in a seed tray and have lettuces everywhere!  Interestingly, the first lettuces I planted (in amongst the onions) are still really small compared to the rest – they were planted out too early (March) and should have been more developed.  Although we are assuming that everything here in Monte is ahead of the UK planting schedule by a month or so because of the climate, it does seem as if the altitude of the land means that it is maybe only 2 weeks ahead.

I am trying to grow passion flower plants after Katie raved about them and then kindly pinched me some cuttings.  They sound the perfect thing to grow up the inside of the palm fence – they grow like stink when they get established with massses of leaves and gorgeous looking flowers and best of all produce passion fruit – so when the palms degrade as they inevitably will, hopefully the vine will have taken over and covered the fence with its leaves, flowers and fruits.  Steve prepared inter-nodal cuttings, stripping excess leaves, pinching out all the flower buds etc and potted them up.  I covered them with a plastic bag and kept them moist (recycling a window cleaner plastic bottle – it makes an excellent plant sprayer) but then, stupidly, moved them outside temporarily when rearranging the seed trays and forgot about them.  I only spotted my mistake after they’d spent 2 hours in the baking sun.  They had gone from being bright, perky cutting to wilted, pathetic things in soil that was literally hot to touch!  I was gutted.  I quickly sprayed them with lots of water and put them outside in the shade to cool down.  I wasn’t hopeful they would survive but they seemed to have perked up again.  They are safely back indoors, in partial shade, well misted and in loosley covered with plastic to retain the moisture.  I am keeping everything crossed for them and will be fretting over them for the next few weeks!

And my final stress is being ’surrogate mum’ to Mon’s seeds.  She has given me quite a few wonderful organic seeds to germinate for her and I have seed trays full of them, all carefully planted in rows so I’ll know what’s a real seedling and not a random weed; all labelled and regularly misted with water to keep them from drying out too much.  I wake up every morning and go & check the seeds trays, trying to remember the wise words on each of the packets of seeds: ‘Be patient’.

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