You Say Potato... We Say Patatas...
For eons in Greece, many families made their way by living off the land. Locals grew their own vegetables, fruit and looked after their own livestock to become self sufficient, and even maybe sell some of their produce around their village. This way of life fell by the wayside somewhat and gave way to the land being used to build apartments and holiday rentals when people discovered that there was more money to be made by doing so. However, if you dip your toe into 'true' Greece and venture just a little way out of the main resorts, you can see that farming is still very much part of life in every village, and Skala where I live is no exception.
Many of my friends back in the UK will be amused to know that we have spent the last 2 days preparing a field, a piece of land around 2000m sq ready to plant the first crop of the season, which is potatoes. The piece of land is down a small dirt track and backs on to some cliffs with the stunning Loutraki beach below. Now, I am normally a nails done, hair done, make up and high heels kind of girl, but some days, village life just does not call for that kind of get up! Yesterday consisted of ploughing furrows in the field in which to plant potatoes, and Ilias spent most of yesterday afternoon skitting. A process of splitting the potatoes ready to be put into the ground. We have had some very nice weather at the moment, long sunny days with clear blue skies and an impressive 14 degrees notched up on the thermometer! We finished off the job today by planting the remainder of the potatoes and covering them up to enable them to grow. We even discovered a baby snake, much to my dismay, I thought they were all still sleeping for the winter. If we are lucky, the potatoes should be ready to harvest in early May, just in time for tourist season.
Soon, we will be ready to plant peppers (piperia), tomatoes (ntomates), onions (kremidia) and cucumbers (aggouria), but we need to wait for the weather to warm up just a little bit. You can see why I enjoy the pace of village life here so much, it is like a mini paradise. I even found time to get out the fold out chair and sit in the corner of the garden/field and read some of my book while soaking up the winter sunshine. Life does not get much better really.
Many of my friends back in the UK will be amused to know that we have spent the last 2 days preparing a field, a piece of land around 2000m sq ready to plant the first crop of the season, which is potatoes. The piece of land is down a small dirt track and backs on to some cliffs with the stunning Loutraki beach below. Now, I am normally a nails done, hair done, make up and high heels kind of girl, but some days, village life just does not call for that kind of get up! Yesterday consisted of ploughing furrows in the field in which to plant potatoes, and Ilias spent most of yesterday afternoon skitting. A process of splitting the potatoes ready to be put into the ground. We have had some very nice weather at the moment, long sunny days with clear blue skies and an impressive 14 degrees notched up on the thermometer! We finished off the job today by planting the remainder of the potatoes and covering them up to enable them to grow. We even discovered a baby snake, much to my dismay, I thought they were all still sleeping for the winter. If we are lucky, the potatoes should be ready to harvest in early May, just in time for tourist season.
Soon, we will be ready to plant peppers (piperia), tomatoes (ntomates), onions (kremidia) and cucumbers (aggouria), but we need to wait for the weather to warm up just a little bit. You can see why I enjoy the pace of village life here so much, it is like a mini paradise. I even found time to get out the fold out chair and sit in the corner of the garden/field and read some of my book while soaking up the winter sunshine. Life does not get much better really.
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