Monastrell wine, growing food and building walls - It's Finca life! 

Very interesting finding what will grow for you! Thanks Sharon!

Love it when the on screen text says ‘Welcome to The Thinker’ S&A go all philosophical on us. Perhaps a shade house might be an option? 🍻

Great show guys. Love the content. Happy days.

Having previously lived in dry dusty, drought prone areas, the best way is to keep the roots as cool in summer as possible. This means heavily mulch around plants for a good distance. Those artichokes, for example, I’d mulch the whole area with about 30cm deep hay. Then give them and the hay a thorough soaking and that should hold them for a good while. I used to use eco friendly dish and clothes detergent and save the water for my fruit trees, which also should have a deep and about a metre wide mulch. Thick layers of mulch and manure if you can get it, is the secret to dry area gardening. I’d also use raised beds about 50cm deep, about 1metre wide, mulched thickly too, as they tend to hold the moisture ok. They look pleasing too if made from stone. If you can get your hands on unglazed pots, no holes in the base or plug them with aquarium silicone, sink them in your garden beds, fill with water, lid on (a pot saucer) and they slowly ooze water to your plants. There’s a name for them but it escapes me at the moment. A bit long winded comment but hope you find it helpful. Also I was going to mention the pipe for trees idea as the previous comment has suggested. Raised beds for fruit trees is best also.

May I also suggest you mulch around the trees - it helps with evaporation - straw does a good job, lots of manure or compost. The grape vines in the courtyard could also do with feeding and mulching. Hope you dont mind me making suggestions.

I love the renovations, but I also like when you take us shopping (whether that be for stones, wine, or food 😁), and the catchup with the gardening is also very interesting too.

That garden area needs wood chips a good thick layer, it will reflect heat , save water evaporation , build humas , protect from cold also shade cloth over the beds for July and August

You both do great work! Sharon…you are so correct with your planting scheme. If it grows - let it go, if it dies - oh dear, how sad, never mind! Feed that man his melons! He deserves ‘em!

Lovely plants. You might try putting a mound of planting soil dead center of your soak away for a few of the melon plants. Here in central Texas, the caliche soil & temps are very similar to your area but melons well once they have enough leaf canopy to shade the underlying ground. In the soak away , the shading by the plants might help conserve the moisture for your little orchard. Just a thought. That rebuilt wall is a wonder. You both are doing an amazing job with the homestead. ROCK ON 😎

Well done Andy your a real trooper ! That wall has been a real project and a half, but you have conquered it ! Well done Sharon for your perseverance with all your planting. Just a thought, would it be better to have raised beds to do all your planting in ? Your both doing so well, many thanks for sharing your progress with us we truly appreciate and enjoy every moment you document. Long may it continue. 👍🏽😎

Seeing you both so excited with your jobs and motivation 😊 great that you achieve so much keep it up

Sharon, I think red geraniums would look lovely against those stone walls! It would be such a pop of color. I loved today’s trip through your gardens!!😎

Great to see the greater variety in this vlog. There's more to your lives than pointing. Thank you for that.

Interesting to see your garden experiences. I’ve seen in other degraded, desertified areas that people construct half moons of rocks (Demi lunes or bunds) to catch water as it moves down the slope. Plant in the half circle and put every scrap of organic material you have in these shallow depressions.

Only solution to your veggie problems is a green house - you are both so skilled that it should be a piece of cake💪💪

Great video.

When you plant a tree, try to sink in a tube (like a scaffold pole) into the ground and when watering pour it down the tube and it gets to the roots.

Ty great video

Try mint ,cue, and yogurt, raita with your curry great accompaniment, along with raw onion and tomato’s sprinkle salt, pepper and garam masala powder

Lovely video Tilly is a real star 🌟

Great to see some of the very strenuous work on the wall completed. Your plants that have adapted to the Spain climate are really doing well. Congratulations to both of you for the success you are having with your projects.

You sharing gives me some confidence to tackle things that I would have run a mile from. - not that I'm actually doing anything. It's just in case I get brave enough to take the plunge. 😁

Keep cracking on!!

Fab video ❤

Have you thought of building some raised beds (with the stones on your property? Put cardboard on the bottom of the beds may keep some of the water in. And perhaps shade for the melons so that they don’t dry out so much. Or maybe having the beds on the soak away land……..

You need wicking beds for your veg. Tutorials online. I relied on them when I lived in Aus 🇦🇺

Look into zuni boles for water harvesting. Great way of using all those stones you have

Top job Andy get that bar sorted!! Sharon I hope that wrist is ok They do ache for the first year or so I had a bit of a twinge at the elbow and wrist joints for ages I think my bone mended slightly twisted but it all sort of grew back into the sockets over time as both ends where slightly off centre if you see what I mean, but the body sorts itself out eventually....

Well, i have no advice for your garden, since You have to truck it in AKA. Buy it. But i wish i could go out and just pick up building materials from my field 😊. Looking good 👍

Do you buy bottle's at your bodega? When I lived in Italy local's would take a carboy (large glass jug) and the winery would just refill it. For watering plant's consider maybe using Olla's, or clay pots buried in the ground and covered - there are a few yt video's on DIY olla. Is Tilly full grown now, or is she still growing?

❤

Very nice video! Thank you.

I am hearing that awful humming from your new system, are you going to lessen it somewhat???

Why are your lights in the courtyard flashing?

HELLO SHARON & ANDY...JESSIE IS SUCH A SWEETIE...DADDY, I CAN'T SEE, WHERE ARE YOU? I HEAR YOU TALKING?...AND THEN, ALFIE, CHECKS IN FOR HIS LATEST POP-UP APPEARANCE...THE PLANTS ARE THRIVING & COMING ALONG WELL, SHARON & THE BACK-BREAKING WORK ON THE LADDER IS DEFINITELY PRODUCING GREAT RESULTS...HELLO TILLY, LOL!...ALL THE BEST...🙏

Sounds like you e had a tough time with the plants! Have you heard of wicking beds? People make them out of half cubo’s, seem to do well in desert areas. Geoff Lawton does some in Jordan, as well as others 👍

Hydroponics best bet for growing, you need fish tank water pump led lights pump water through 40-50 mm tube making a frame like a large bathroom towel rack.Put holes in tube wrap with insulation wool the roots will search out the water and take the minerals for the plants the now clean water will return to the tank.Lots to view on utube.trees and bushes when planting put 60cm length of 50mm tube in the ground in-between the roots pouring liquid water/fertilizer down the pipes to get to the roots.always look forward to your channel as far rain it's wetter than an otters pocket never stopped all year yours David North Yorkshire

The noise from the machine you recently installed must be driving you up the wall. Can you muffle it somehow?

I always thought you had a well?

You could try growing your brassicas in a hügelkultur raised bed in permanent shade with a cold frame lid but that's easy for me to say here in the UK!. Lol

Yes, those vegetables are cool growing crops. Would raised beds help you to have success? Greetings from Southampton UK.

Why don't you guys do permaculture. Save all your cardboard cartons and wood chips and do berms to hold back water when it rains. That will improve the Permeability of the soil when it rains which will help you with your soil improvement and water retention. There's plenty of channels on RU-vid. Look at Jeff Lawson, "greening the desert", or "farming on the edge of nowhere" from Phoenix, Arizona, to help you get sorted out with planting and caring for trees. There is also a German guy in Spain, Andalusia I think, trying to cope with rocky soil, a touch better than yours but still a challenge. - Project Ganja Caimito - it shows you his progress from having ideas as a rank outsider to farming, to getting sort of established. Good luck and good management.

Have you though of building high raised beds with stone you have plenty Fill the bottom with a lot of cardboard and then compost preferably trick fill from a farmer

Have you considered hydroponics? It's not as expensive as you might think.

👍😎🍻

Most of the plants you are having a problem with are water plants. They take constant watering. I live in an area in California that can get up to 120 degrees and I have a problem with water plants also. Today, the 12th of May will be 93 degrees and summer has not even started. Water plants should have been planted here in February and are reaching their season end about now.

Question .. if a fruit tree is being watered from septic water wouldn't it be contaminated .. ? (Can you test the fruit ?) May you have many blessings 🎉

Sharon l fractured my Radius bone falling on my wrist this morning sporting a wrist cast 🙄

Have had luck pound a pipe in the ground next to trees and poor water into the pipe.

Melons need a lot of water.

Hola chicos cómo están Del tema de los cultivos prueben con tomates .pimientos que soportan más el calor por el tipo de clima que tienen en ese territorio de España y árboles como melocotoneros almendros ....