Reading one of stonehead’s musings on the lack of knowledge regarding the natural order and where our food comes from got me reminiscing about our early days in the Catalan countryside. 

Three seperate incidents made me realise just how far removed we urban types seem from the food chain and how daft Spaniards often think we are because of this…

• Eggs come from hens!  During our time renting a flat in the village (awaiting the purchase of our dream ruin) our kindly neighbour noticed me checking out her hens which lived in the basement opposite our front door.  This lovely lady took me under her wing (sorry) to explain why she kept her hens.  It seemed they lay eggs – imagine my surprise when I realised she actually thought I did not know this.  Now I had never before kept my own hens but I had seen them and even had a vague recollection that they laid eggs for us!
• Bees make honey!  The ever generous Felix popped round one evening with a jar of honey and a wedge of honeycomb he’d collected.  He sat us down and showed us the odd grub and dead bee conjealed in the honeycomb and explained VERY slowly how the grubs were baby bees and the adult bees made the honey for them.  The shock, as you can imagine, was extraordinary!
• Vegetables will grow where its cold.  Now this is the one point I’ve tried (and failed) not to be too smug about.  When the locals heard we were planting vegetables on our high (ish) mountain plot some thought we’d lost it completely.  They said we couldn’t grow things like tomatoes because it gets cold and windy.  Now bearing in mind we’re only a 150 metres or so higher than the village I was pretty surprised they were so negative.  But then they do plant much of their veggies in the frost pocket below the village.  Although we’re higher and yes its windy we get much less severe frosts and fog than the plots lower down.  We even harvest our tomatoes and courgettes over a longer period than many of the villagers.  I like to think a lifetime in occasionally bleak old Blighty has prepared us for how well a lot of our veggies can cope no matter what the weather really.

It’s great that so many villagers we’ve met are happy to give advise / instruction (boss us around) and we have learnt an awful lot about living in this new environment.   We need to plant things at different times now and deal with more extreme heat and wind but its amazing how much stuff will do really well without too much fuss.   It scares me just how completely clueless the locals thought we must be and makes me really happy that now we can share information with them.  We’ve even introduced them to veg they don’t traditionally grow here such as Jerusalem Artichokes and chillis.  It’s great to share produce with them now too (although if I’m honest I’ll never be able to grow enough to win in the ‘giving groceries’ competition).  They have had much more practice and know when someone won’t be able to say no to a free courgette or ten.  My language skills always seem to let me down…

And yes, they still think we’re daft but mostly that’s because we love living on the mountain so no amount of veg growing and animal husbandry will change their view..