Horta Cerca Da Vinha

Horta Cerca Da Vinha This is where the magic begins. We grow from the heart, our blood sweat and tears ....

This past spring was just stunning here. The profusion of wild flowers after a mild damp winter, just breathtaking...Thi...
16/09/2024

This past spring was just stunning here. The profusion of wild flowers after a mild damp winter, just breathtaking...
This horta is now for sale as I am travelling a differant path in life....anyone who would really like to experience truly getting back yo nature please get in touch

06/01/2023

So, 2023 has arrived. It is warm, wet, the wild plants are growing as if in a jungle. Already been strimming. Tring to clear the asparagus beds of new w**d growth 2ft high so I can cut back old stems. Asparagus and stink bugs already about. Such a weird year. Lots of lambs being born, down the lane they seeded a field with corn just before Xmas, already turned ewes and lambs in up to their hocks in green stuff. After the previous 22vyear drought with desert conditions this is an amazing transformation. Abutilon is in flower instead of leafless and dormant. I would plant out my baby cabbage and kale but will have to strim the plot first.
And so to me, my plans, no idea just yet, having shut down the gardens last season due to cost of fuel to pump precious water on plants that would die? Do I try to keep going forward solo (a dip into thee magic of a love life came to naught).... or do I find a new owner for what has been my home of 20 years? No doubt there is a plan for me somewhere out there
So I sow seeds, plant and clear, and somewhere out the might just be a rusty Knight on a muddy charger who got lost in the campo coming to find me.... happens all the time out here.
Have a great 2023 everyone🙏💐🌻

07/10/2022

What a season it has been. Having decided early on that there was no point flogging a dead horse, I shut down most of the gardens and one tunnel. Water is too precious to waste, trying to tend to plants that had no hope of growing was depressing enough, wasting resources would make it worse. Hoping we will soon get some much needed, steady rain - at night please so my solar system keeps working

Asparagus season in full swing now but maybe will be a short session this year due to the ongoing drought situation. We ...
20/04/2022

Asparagus season in full swing now but maybe will be a short session this year due to the ongoing drought situation. We did have rain, for one night, two weeks running. It has saved the crops in nearby famers fields, my own plants suddenly woke up. It is strange, no matter how much you water them, it is never the same as a good session of gentle rain.
The Artichokes also are beginning to bud, but the plants are dwarf compared to last year. The buds are appearing from the basal rosette. Tulips also have done the same this year with flowers appearing from the ground before the leaves have emerged.
As I write the weather has swung from a heat wave (28/30c) last weekend, to bitter cold north east winds since yesterday. All the good the rain did is being eroded as dust flies behind the vehicles passing on the tracks.
At night the nightingale is singing his heart out, during the day Bee eaters and Orioles have returned, along with various finches. Only one pair of swallows are making a brave attempt to nest under the terrace but a dove is sitting a nest on the grape vine. Strange times we have.
It is still a great pleasure to sit in the quiet of the evening, when the perfumes envelop the garden and the birds are still singing. The wild flowers are abundant, everything for the moment is verdant.

24/02/2022

Such a difficult season, too hot in the day, too cold at night. Today it is RAINING, at last which will boost the plants for a while. Hoping the asparagus will wake up now and the artichokes. Need to prepare ground and plant out the new seedlings I have overwintered. Just have to hope I will have enough water for them. Also at last the flowers are beginning to show themselves. Last year they were amazing, fingers crossed I can share them again.

21/01/2022

Not sure what this season is going to bring, my own plants sit and sulk, the asparagus is struggling to come through but nights are freezing and no sign of much needed rain. Yesterday on the Algarve I am told the same thing. I think it will be an 'interesting and challenging' year ahead of all of us who grow things.

I year on and John is still very much a presence here. Yesterday I cleaned al the asparagus beds, his chair is still the...
13/01/2022

I year on and John is still very much a presence here. Yesterday I cleaned al the asparagus beds, his chair is still there from when he watered them.
Today I am planting roses and the lavender bushes he potted up, when they bloom I can think of him and smile...

Today Tigger is now the property of somebody else.....I hope they get as much fun out of it as John did.
13/07/2021

Today Tigger is now the property of somebody else.....I hope they get as much fun out of it as John did.

03/07/2021

Very sad to watch Tigger being loaded up 2 days ago. Sadly the demo did not go to plan so Tigger now has gone to Beja (Irmaos Luzia) to be prepared for exposure to a potential new owner. Keeping it here was not a viable option in the current situation with Covid restrictions and the threat of collapse of the Algarve tourism sector. Merton the CAT is VERY upset, it was his!

Summer is here but we have been lucky to have a few cooler days with drizzle. Just planted out over 250 flowering plugs,...
23/06/2021

Summer is here but we have been lucky to have a few cooler days with drizzle. Just planted out over 250 flowering plugs, tubers and corms in the new shade covered area. Got the drip lines in place and functioning, feeling pleased. Hoping this will give a much extended season for cutting flowers, apart from looking beautiful.
Just put together a lovely arrangement for a 34th wedding anniversary.🙂 Makes up for all the days when it is very difficult here. I think John would love it, when I am working in the gardens he is very close, and his cat. At days end Merton and I sit in the new area with a cup of tea and just be.....

08/06/2021

So summer has arrived, and with it dragons breath winds, all the outside crops will now go into holding or die back except the asparagus which seems to love it, sadly though not for cropping. Still trying some new experiments, planning more flower areas which means getting up shade and drip watering systems in place first. 90 Dahlias waiting to go in plus 100 gladioli and various plants now coming from the shelter of the tunnel. Will see if this new departure works.

Re-started supply to the restaurant down south but just as everything that was cropping so well has finished, Such is our strange time with Covid regs. Now the Brits are panicking and heading back to UK, will things stay open, who can tell.
On a more serious note I have to find a way to keep Tigger....just got messed up with the bank set up, no idea now which way to turn. Hope this does not spell curtains for this entire project. Ce la Vie.......any ideas welcome

OK, so now I hope I am slowly steering this ship back into safer waters. Without John's guiding hand it has been a bit o...
20/05/2021

OK, so now I hope I am slowly steering this ship back into safer waters. Without John's guiding hand it has been a bit of a roller coaster. The uncertainty with Covid not helping as how can we ever hope to make plans?
But make them I am.....yesterday I made my first solo run to the restaurant with produce and flowers. Just have to hope the weather is kind to me, unlike last year, so that the plants do not either die off or go into sleep mode, but signs so far are not entirely promising. Ground is like concrete, I did apologise to the plants I put in last week, I did my best to break up the paving slabs for them (even with a covid jab sore arm). They have shade cover in the hope it gives them a chance to get growing. Everything else is trying to set seed already.
The wild flower meadow is now almost over, the ay cutters have been, I am still getting to grips with the strimming, brown clover or medic reminds me how tough nature can be as it frequently winds into a rope on the strimmer head. The flower garden has been stunning, hoping I can keep this part of the venture ticking over, lots of new planting to be done yet, support systems to get in and water systems to be laid out so I don't have to spend hours at sundown with a hose pipe, which is not very effective anyway. Also need to get the housing up to shield the pressure tanks and bore hole set up. So more skills need to come out of the closet.
Not yet found the right person to rent the annex, hoping as the pandemic eases off there might be people about again, somebody who would like such a nice rural retreat to stay in... time will show us all.
Sharing with you all some lovely flowers I put together for a birthday, wish you could all smell them too

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Alentejo produce

Home to John Bromley Oliver Horticultural, slow grown for flavour. Carefully tended from seed to plate. Appreciated by some of the top chefs in Portugal. Currently supplying Vila Joya and Hans Nuner of Ocean at Vila Vita