My arrival at my present lodgings, in a rural village in Central Portugal, was very last-minute and recent (end-April)… With a significant piece of land unexpectedly at my disposal, I put off other priority activities (like unpacking boxes after the move!) in order to put together a raised bed in the field out back, as well as four cleared areas for planting around four of the eight olive trees out there, where olives and leaves had been left to fall and return to the soil for many years. The result had to be, I figured, a fertile medium for growing vegetables.

I have, of course, diligently watered these five outdoor areas, each of modest but meaningful size, to produce if not all, then at least most of what we, a family of four, require. Every evening in a ritual shared with the two family dogs and the cat who adopted us before the move (if you understand the significance of that, you understand we could not leave him behind). Now, as the days grow shorter and the sun sets ever lower over the forest, and a few minutes earlier every day, and while the village children savor their last days of freedom from homework, the adults gather in impromptu conversations to compare their observations and to evaluate the anticipated results of this year’s crops.

My veggies, planted at the end of May, have been giving us our rewards for a while now, supplementing our store-bought provisions and what I buy from a neighbor in the village, so for me, too, the moment is ripe to evaluate the yield in comparison to the time spent on this impromptu outdoor project, while the indoor project is still ‘getting off the ground’…

Temperatures of the days and nights here, according to my neighbors, all of whom are farmers, were fairly consistent with what is usual, although the growing season started later than usual, and the lack of significant rainfall has left the soil, which is already quite sandy, very dry. Intense heat was limited to one week in mid-July (when the thermometer hit just under 47C). The big problem in Portugal, and which is also mine, is the drought. With practically no rainfall, watering was an absolute daily necessity. I haven’t seen the water bill yet, but all around me have warned me the ‘city water’ is much too expensive to use for crops. I do have a well, but it needs to be reclaimed, and finding someone to do that, on top of all my other projects, just could not be fit in to the program for this year. But my sandy soil has a hard time absorbing water, and with frequent wind, the moisture rapidly evaporates out, so that all my veggie beds are bone dry every evening when I make my rounds. Most of my neighbors have fields outside the village, where they use well water for irrigation, while the kitchen gardens at home have dried out and up this year, producing little.

My own outdoor veggies should be at their peak, and they are, but that peak is disappointing, even in spite of the daily watering. I planted a lot of squash seeds, all organic (at least purportedly so), with thin results other than vines and flowers that produce nothing. What few butternuts and Hokkaido there are and have been are undersized, as well as few and far between. The zucchinis were an even bigger failure, with one actually beautiful fruit produced, the first, and thereafter every other new-sprouting fruit turning yellow and shriveling before getting beyond bud-size. I pick them before they are gone and throw them in the rice pot anyway, but you can’t nutritionally support a family on that, obviously. I’ve had a total of, perhaps, four handfuls of green beans, again, not enough to support the family… I’ll have to hope the indoor crop will be better (as it should be, since it will not rely on the outdoor weather). The lettuce did do better, perhaps the best of all the seeds planted. The variety (lactuca sativa) stood up well to the heat, and (my lack of foresight) the long daily doses of direct sun… If I plant it outside again, I’ll be sure to pick a place that has equal daily periods of sun and shade…

Talking with several of my neighbors, I have not only been advised against using ‘city water’, but also consoled over my poor results. The consensus is in : the 2022 harvest from Central Portugal (indeed, all of Portugal) is going to be disappointing… Just as, it seems from reports coming from all over the world, harvests are going to be disappointing everywhere… and consequently getting through the winter is going to be even more challenging than we already knew it would be…

You may remember Valentina Zarkova saying, in one of the interviews I highlighted in my post about her, that when conditions are not right for growing vegetables in Portugal, the people in Britain are deprived… Hence, my one-more voice added to the general chorus: all those who live in cities and the northern countries will soon be facing shortages much worse than what we see now… and the disappointing harvest will impact food supplies for next year, too. Some farmers around me, as elsewhere, are planning on scaling back, in the face of rising costs, and will produce just enough for their own needs, rather than produce at capacity and sell their output for less than it cost to produce. And you can hardly blame them: it’s not their responsibility to guarantee food to people in urban areas, if they have no help to underwrite the costs. Fair is fair, they need, and deserve, to get a living back in exchange for their hard work.

As Henry George (in Progress and Poverty) observed, moving off the land has put many people in precarious situations. If you have land, you can build a shelter and you can grow food… Doing the same will not be easy off the land, in an urban context.

Okay, so my harvest will be disappointing, but I continue, nevertheless, to do the daily watering. I committed to the project, it was, and is, an experience, and I’ll see it through to the end. But I won’t be doing the same thing next year. I will still plant outdoors, but only the crops that do well in my sandy soil (mainly potatoes and sweet potatoes), both of which seem to be flourishing. I took about three kilos of beautiful new potatoes out of the raised bed yesterday, although it is still far too soon to harvest the sweet potatoes (I first had to grow slits to then plant in the soil). And I do regret that I didn’t get to experiment with buckwheat this year, so that will be a priority for next year…

Meanwhile, my indoor project is shaping up. I have my first increment of container potatoes planted; for the moment, it’s sitting outside, soaking up the end-of-summer sun, but ready to be transported inside, along with containers of peas, already climbing their ‘trainers’, rocket, parsley, basil (all of these are wonderful accompaniments, but not able to make up a meal without the potatoes or rice and a few other veggies). The containers will be placed under grow-lights, as soon as that becomes necessary… which shouldn’t be for a few weeks yet, hopefully…

We’ve been so spoiled all our lives, living like kings from earlier centuries, too many meals being feasts rather than simple and plain wholesome food… Can we bend to this new reality? And there will be a physical transition to face, for all those who have gotten used to eating junk, processed foods and who have stored up toxins in their bodies. Just like junkies and drugs, when they can’t any longer get their usual ‘eats’, if they have to jump into simple, healthy food, will they be able to embrace their new reality? And will they survive the painful withdrawal (ie, detox) they will have to go through? I’ll have more to say (some helpful insights) on this subject in a future post.

In the meantime, may we all gather strength, in this end-of-summer period, while we prepare to face the long, hard winter ahead.