One of our lovely neighbours has been around today with his 50 year old Russian tractor and plowed our garden. The same happened last year and we're ever so grateful. Because none of our land had been worked for at least 5 years it's mainly gone to weed and needed a lot of work and will continue to do so.
There are some fantastic gardens here, everything has a place and they look so well tended - barely a weed in sight, ours on the other hand is a bit more of a handful! Our garden is actually 10 gardens - we have 9 separate deeds, originally there were more buildings on the land and they are still shown on the "Skitza's", Still standing are the main house (that we live in) and a small bungalow that is almost renovated, plus barns beside both of them. At the top of the gardens we have another 2 bungalows but they're in a derelict state and cannot be repaired so we've removed any materials we could re-use (roof tiles and timbers for the fire) and hopefully nature will take it's course and the old mud brick walls will collapse in.
I'd love our garden to look like some I've seen in the village and to produce most of our vegetables and fruit, hopefully one day it will. The soil here is a fantastic dark brown colour and the garden looks amazing after being plowed. We're so lucky to have neighbours who are willing to help and try to teach us things, even if some of the things I don't agree with, like using chemical pesticides etc. Maybe one day my bulgarian will be good enough so that I can explain why I don't want to use any chemicals etc and how companion planting works!
So far we've only managed to work the main house garden but do hope to plant some lucerne on a double plot and also some maize or sweetcorn on half of another. We also have a lovely mature orchard with lots of apple, quince and plum trees. One thing we're never short on here is fruit as it's in such abundance.
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