Graham Denby in Portugal: While the sun shines

May 27 2009 by Graham Denby

IT’S all go on the farms and vegetable plots out here, with the spring ‘harvest’ coming to the fore.

Along country roads there are numerous open backed vans complete with awnings and trestle tables displaying all manner of home grown fruit and vegetables for sale, surplus to the families’ own requirements.

Most noticeable and numerous among these are the mounds of 5kg bags of oranges. These are there for as little as €1.50 per bag. The crop has suffered from bad frosts over the winter and I suppose that the equivalent of ‘The man from Delmonte’ has said a resounding NO!

They’re mostly still OK for fruit juice and marmalade – you can stand quite a bit of wastage at that price, can’t you!

In a more modest way most Portuguese have their own veg plot, which all seem to be prolific. Our neighbour on the Monte, Drucilla, often bustles down with a couple of cabbages the size of medicine balls, or a bag full of peppers each as big as a four-litre milk carton.

A number of the Brits have a go. I had to run neighbours Clive and Rita to the airport last week on an emergency return and they festooned us with all manner of their products which they wouldn’t be needing or using.

I now have enough onions to supply Lidl for a month!

Another consideration for us is the hay (feno) harvest. We had a few wet weeks in May last year but this year has been warmer and drier, so off they go a-gathering. Our lass got a call from our supplier Fabio last night asking, well, actually telling us, how much we wanted.